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Speaking Out For Free Software In India
inode_buddha writes "We all know how RMS and Bill Gates toured India recently, with mostly mixed reviews. The reviews don't seem so mixed after reading this memo
regarding the use of software in Indian schools... and it's interesting how quickly these people pick up on the business.
IMHO, this letter ranks up there with the Peruvian Congressman's letter to Microsoft in clarity and impact.
People worldwide are beginning to wake up, and this needs to be shouted from the (networked) hills... "
1.3 Even if the said corporation whose software is chosen provides software free of cost, we submit that the government should not include it in the syllabus. Providing schools or other educational institutions software at little or no cost, while the same software is sold at very high prices in the open market is a marketing trick.
Its official - India is smarter then the USA.
Sex - Find It
"Swatantryam"
;-)
Quote:
7.4 We wish to clarify that by the term 'Free Software' used above, we are referring to 'freedom', as in 'swatantryam' - not 'soujanyam'
You may want to Save Private Ryan, but you'll Swat Ant Ryam..
4.1 If our students are to really understand and learn programming and develop software skills, they should learn not only to use computers, but also understand why they function the way they do. This involves learning programing skills. To learn programing, students should have access to source code of the software they use. We trust that you have studied and understood the terms under which the corporation, whose software is currently prescribed for study, licenses its software. It should be emphasised that they do not provide access to source code, which is a a closely guarded secret. By insisting on programs from a particular company, the government is denying our students an opportunity to learn about programs and software development skills. We need not repeat that this policy would not help our community in the long run.
This is exactly why closed source software should banned from educational use. When studying literature you can see how the author strings the words together to create a novel. There is no better way to understand how something works than to examine how the various pieces come together to form the whole.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
48 rupees = 1 US dollar.
so that is about 15,437,500 that they are planning to spend. That's a fair amount, but it's not huge(if you compare it to US education spendings)
Join the elite! Post at score:2! Ghostwheel is online.
This letter was submitted by an analogue of a LUG; although it would be nice were it otherwise, a LUG has hardly the influence of a Peruvian Senator.
Still, it's nice to see that someone is fighting the good fight in India.
I love the way they talk about said company without mentioning them by name, the devil is so well known he needs no name.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Damn
OK - maybe only people from one state in India will understand it, but it still sounds better than 'free as in beer/speech'
Chapter I: The Importance Of Being In India
While there are no published numbers, back of the envelope calculations indicate Microsoft's Indian arm currently generates sales in the region of Rs 1,600 crore. That's a little over $330 million. This ties in neatly with the fact that last year, India purchased packaged software worth $409 million - of which 80% were Microsoft products. But, honestly, for a juggernaut sitting on $40 billion in accumulated cash and a projected turnover of $32 billion in fiscal 2003, $409 million is loose change. So what "destiny" is Mistry talking about?
The fast-talking British citizen of Indian origin has been in the country for barely 10 months now. He heads a team of 17 evangelists, keeps obscenely long hours, lives out of his suitcase and has an awfully tough mandate from Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond - do whatever it takes to keep Indian developers and programmers working on Microsoft platforms.
Unlike any other director heading operations in the country, Mistry has no revenue targets to meet. "The Indian systems integrator, as he moves up the value chain, will finally make a decision on what platform to settle on. We have to capture them before they make that decision. Which is why, my team is very important for Microsoft Corporation, not just for India alone."
Intrigued? Don't be. Estimates put the present size of India's developer population at anywhere between 450,000 and 600,000. That's about 10% of the world's developer population. By end-2002, India will probably have more developers than any country in the world. This is why it is important to gain control of this population.
"We are paranoid someone is going to come along and take away mindshare from developers. We're paranoid something out there is going to be more exciting to developers." Quite clearly, Mistry is talking of the threat Linux poses to Microsoft. Probe him. He'll hark back to January, when he took up his Indian assignment. Among the first things he did was to put two people from his team on Linux forums. They were asked to figure out: what is it that excites the Linux community? Is it plain Microsoft baiting? Is it Bill Gates bashing? Is it a desire to change the world? For Mistry, answers to those questions hold solutions on how to choke the Linux community in India. By doing that, the open source world loses access to one of the largest developer bases. Deprived of that base, the movement suffers and Microsoft gains a major victory. "This is primarily a battle for the hearts and minds," says Mistry.
Till sometime ago, Microsoft and Mistry didn't have to worry about losing the Indian developer. But with the tech downturn and corporates slashing IT spends, things changed. Public perception that using open source technologies reduce the cost of technology deployments convinced companies across the world to seriously consider cheaper alternatives. Consequently, the number of jobs available for developers working on these technologies went up. To get a sense of that, log on to Monster.com, the world's largest online job board. The number of people needed with expertise in open source technologies is roughly the same as that of those with expertise on Microsoft platforms.
Now add to this the fact that Indian contribution to the open source community has shot up over the last year. Chennaikavigal, a Chennai-based product company, is working on an Indian office suite designed to work on the Linux platform. In fact, language fonts for Linux are now available for practically every Indian language. There is Delhi-based Kandalya building applications that work on free and open source technologies. Then there's Anjuta, which is a development environment for C and C++ on Linux. There's also the Bangalore-based Peacock Solutions, which calls itself the first Indian company to commercialise supercomputing technology on a Linux platform. Peacock's projects include building Linux parallel supercomputers for high-speed rendering, molecular modelling, weather modelling and bioinformatics solutions. And, the list of converts to Linux keeps growing.
Flashback to October 1999. Businessworld was talking to a senior Microsoft functionary on the sidelines of a conference on e-commerce. "What do you think of Linux?" Businessworld had then queried. "What's that?" he shot back. Things have certainly changed since then.
It's the 'roaches-under-the-board theory' at work, says Javed Tapia, director at Red Hat (India), a Linux distributor. Cockroaches multiply because typically they're under a board and no one cares what happens below the board. One day when you lift the board and look, there are a few million of them waiting to get out. By the time you get around to swatting them, most escape. That's pretty much what happened with Linux, chuckles Tapia. "Microsoft ignored us for too long. Thank God for that."
Chapter II: It's The Money, Honey
Forget the developer argument for a moment and focus on the economics - a packaged software market currently worth $409 million, of which 80% is controlled by Microsoft. But the legal market is small potatoes. Estimates say for every licensed piece of software Microsoft sells in India, there are eight pirated copies doing the rounds. Which means, in an ideal Indian world, Microsoft would sell software worth a whopping $2.64 billion (that's 8 x $330 million) in India. Add another factoid here. In 2001, when IT spending was being slashed across the world, the packaged software market grew 37% in India. Growth rates are expected to continue at this rate for a few years to come. Those sort of numbers cannot be sneezed away.
Now take another look at the Indian market. Two-thirds of the packaged software sold in the country is picked up by the government. The rest is largely accounted for by the private corporate sector. Now imagine a world where the government makes a conscious decision to move towards Linux.
There are precedents. Over two dozen governments in Asia, Europe and Latin America, including China and Germany, are encouraging the use of open source software - the most popular of which is Linux. In Germany, the government argued that moving to Linux would help cut costs and improve security. In an interview to BBC, German interior minister Otto Schilly said: "We are raising computer security by avoiding a monoculture, and we are lowering dependence on a single supplier."
In Taiwan, the government has announced a National Open Source Plan earlier this year. It aims to establish a software development infrastructure based on free and open source to create a foundation for Taiwan's software industry. It includes the creation of a "Chinese Open Source Software Environment" international cooperation on free application software development, and work with community colleges and non-government organisations to train 9,600 teachers and 120,000 users. Also, the national education system will switch to Open Source.
That these initiatives are being observed seriously in India is evident from the number of government projects under way on Linux. Like we mentioned earlier, the judiciary, the Central Railways, Air-India, Central Excise, Delhi RTO, various e-governance projects across the country. The list is increasing. It's a battle Microsoft cannot afford to lose.
Cut to Corporate India. At a recent Hewlett-Packard seminar on solutions for the manufacturing industry, attended by 300 CIOs, almost 60% said they would be moving to Linux-based systems. Kamal Dutta, HP India's country business manager, isn't surprised. "Enterprise customers are evolving strategies for Linux," he says.
In India, manufacturing and telecom companies are looking at some form of Linux use, though banking firms are staying away at the moment. Explains Dutta: "Banks are conservative." He doesn't expect Linux to completely take over the rest of the market but he says that he can see a "more heterogeneous environment where say core applications like ERP, CRM could run on existing systems while others like VPN, mail, load balancing could be on Linux."
Hughes Software Systems (HSS) started working on Linux almost seven years back. But in the last 12 months, there has been a spurt in interest. Says HSS' head of engineering: "Telecom OEM (original equipment manufacturers) who make boxes for telecom networks want Linux solutions. It's also becoming popular in the area of embedded applications.''
To begin with, companies are deploying Linux to the extent of 15-20% of the total applications - mainly in mail servers, RAS, Web servers. And the reasons for going the Linux way is that "it decreases their dependence on the hardware vendor, the companies can negotiate with multiple vendors and hence get better deals, it lowers the total cost of ownership and offers flexibility,'' says Dutta.
That's not an argument that Microsoft is willing to accept. Argues Sanjay Mathur, head of marketing at Microsoft India: "With fewer dollars to spend on technology, some corporations have been considering Linux. The irony is that choosing Linux may be more expensive in the long run. Emerging data indicates that corporations spend more for additional software, labour and consultant costs when they choose Linux."
Precisely the reason why a ruthless battle on Indian soil appears inevitable.
Chapter III: How Ruthless Does It Get!
WHAT is clear is that Linux has made inroads into the Indian landscape. What isn't clear is: to what extent. Details are hard to come by. As Sandeep Menon, head of IBM's Linux initiative in the country says: "It is not owned or tracked by any one organisation. People simply download the software. Data from International Data Corporation, or IDC (a research firm that tracks IT trends) only shows how many CDs have been sold or how many downloads have been made." The problem with this data is that because Linux's terms of licence allow a user to make as many copies as he needs and distribute them freely, it is impossible to estimate how many copies actually exist.
The other more significant problem is that those in the know don't like to talk. Menon, for instance, knows of virtually every major Linux project underway in the country. But he doesn't like giving out details. "Strategic reasons," he explains.
It's much the same thing with Red Hat's Tapia. Now, Red Hat is the largest distributor of Linux in the world. "I can do with little publicity. In fact, I can do with no publicity." The reason, says Tapia, is that he doesn't know how Microsoft will strike back.
For instance, says a Linux distributor speaking off the record, his company had recently concluded a deal with a large private sector company to implement Linux across the organisation. This was done after the company rejected a Rs 9-crore Microsoft proposal to upgrade its systems. Even as the ink on the deal was drying, Microsoft staged a counter attack by offering to implement the infrastructure for just Rs 2 crore. "And we lost out on what could have been the best lighthouse projects for Linux in the country," rues Tapia.
Chapter IV: The Chinks in Linux's Armour
But, for all its strengths, Linux has its own crosses to bear. "It's too early to conclude that Linux will be everywhere," says Srikant Acharya, SCO's (formerly Caldera) country director for India. SCO is among the largest implementors of Linux- and UNIX-based systems worldwide. The feeling is echoed by
IBM's Menon. He reckons that though Linux will catch on, the chances that it will overthrow Microsoft are thin. "My guess is both will exist." There are various reasons for that.
The most fundamental problem with Linux is that it is an amorphous entity around which robust business models are yet to evolve. Companies that have built a business around it are still gasping for breath. Take Red Hat. In spite of a 71% marketshare, it reported losses in excess of $140 million. Worse, Red Hat's total revenue is down from fiscal 2001. Now consider the other Linux vendors - SCO, Connectiva, Turbolinux and SuSE. In a bid to achieve greater strength, these vendors came together to create UnitedLinux. Mathur of Microsoft points out that Red Hat and Mandrakesoft refused to join the alliance. "The lack of unity among the Linux vendors offers evidence of continued fracturing," he says.
The point in all of this is a simple one really. The largest Linux vendors are still trying to gain critical size in their home countries. Given this reality, the incentive they have to push their distribution unitedly in countries like India, where the market is still exploring the operating system, are remote. Over the last couple of months, Microsoft has used these facts to hammer home a key point with clients. That unlike others, Microsoft isn't likely to go down in a rush.
Lack of Support: Then there is the issue of government policy itself. In spite of the fact that Linux evangelists have been pushing for increased acceptance of the software in India, truth is, until now, no policy documents have been framed. Frederick Noronha, a freelance journalist and Open Source evangelist points out that Goa actually went ahead and gazetted a pro-Open Source/Free Software notification. "But how does one implement this? The departments keep flouting it. The basic flaw is with the tendering process, which can be subverted in 101 ways if the intentions are malafide. Since then, the Goa IT minister (Ramakant Khalap) has defected from the ruling party. The so-called government policy turned out to be a one-man initiative, which has all come back to a big zero."
Then there is the case of Karnataka. Here, the IT Department supports Open Source on paper. But even as the police force goes in for modernisation, it is being equipped with Windows XP machines. The only exception until now has been Kerala, where the IT policy makes it mandatory for all government departments to first consider free/open source software for all its needs. And only after open source solutions have been exhausted can the government go in for proprietary systems.
The lack of legislation percolates to other areas too. In education, for instance. Dr Nagarjuna G, a teacher at the Homi Bhabha Science Centre in Mumbai and an active free software evangelist is pained as he flips through the IT syllabi of various colleges in the country. The reason is "a lack of secular IT education loaded almost entirely against free and open source software." What he means is this. In most colleges, teachers are asked to show the students how to use Excel or Word. "Why?" asks Dr Nagarjuna. "Shouldn't students be shown how to use a spreadsheet or a word processing document? What they ultimately choose ought to be up to them. Why should the state make a choice on their behalf?" He's been lobbying to get the discrepancies removed. And he's notched up some successes. But there's a long way to go.
Misunderstandings: Tapia of Red Hat faces a rather unique problem. While the interest in what he provides is high, most clients are reluctant to pay for the services he offers. The problem stems from the fact that most people imagine Linux is free. They argue that since it can be downloaded from the Internet or purchased from any vendor at a nominal cost, the prices Red Hat quotes are too high.
But Red Hat's business model, like those of other vendors in the Linux space, is built around a simple assumption. While the basic software itself is free, users will pay for the support vendors provide. It's an argument that has not gone down too well with Indian business. Weaned on a steady diet of Microsoft support that comes with software purchases, the new business model is still making itself understood in most places. "I end up not signing many contracts as clients don't understand they have to pay for support. Where else will my bread and butter come from?" asks Tapia.
Epilogue
In the past, numerous contenders have tried and failed to dislodge Windows. But like we said earlier, Linux, has a key advantage. It isn't owned by anyone. To that extent, Microsoft does not know exactly whom to attack.
Take Asia for instance. Linux, outside of Japan, is being driven by the fact that the continent is less developed than the US or Europe. What this means is that there are fewer computers in the region. Consequently, there are fewer small- and medium-sized enterprises committed to Microsoft products. More importantly, these companies don't have dollars at their disposal of the kind American and European companies have. Which is why, their propensity to acquire Linux is higher.
Does that mean the future of Microsoft in this part of the world is at stake? Not quite. Sure, Linux has been growing rapidly. But it has, at least until now, been confined to servers. More importantly, this growth is coming in at the expense of older operating systems. By 2006, IDC estimates that 26% of the servers in operation will be running Linux while 56% will still run Windows. The remaining 12% will be on UNIX. As for the desktop market itself, shipment details are hazy. Compaq, Dell and, more recently, LG are shipping Linux machines into the Indian market. Until next year, when clear numbers emerge, it will be difficult to gauge how it is being accepted.
Then there are questions on whether businesses based on almost-free technology can ever be profitable - a challenge for Linux companies everywhere, but particularly for those in Asia. A recent IDC report says that although worldwide sales of servers of all types will rise 17% annually over the next four years, revenues will inch up only 1%, largely due to the low cost of Linux.
In Korea, growing competition among Linux distributors have forced prices of a basic Linux package to as low as $10. A Red Hat version that sells for $80 in the US, hawks for less than $3 in China. That's hardly any money worth writing home about. As for business models built around the support and services models, they're still nascent and have some way to go before they mature. It's a long haul - an awfully long haul.
Additional inputs by Shelley Singh
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Problem statement: .... u get the picture. :)
People are used to windows. In India, widespread piracy has ensured that Windows is avaiable with almost every grey market PC and in every school/home/office.
Linux lurks in the background as a potential replacement, but most people are just not comfortable with the idea. Including SysAdmins! I know, cause i have worked in enuf companies to see that.
The actual trick to popularize Linux is a hack of sorts... complain regularly to the local antipiracy people about illegal usage of Windows in office! IT WORKS!
A very large company (i shall keep its name to myself, considering my brother works in one of its sister concerns)once had its offices raided by the local antipiracy guys here (called NASSCOM). The same evening, their sysadmin called up the admin guy in my company to ask about the feasiblity of using StarOffice iinstead of MSO.
As a tech writer, my admin guy decided that i might be the best person to give an unbiased review. It turned out that for their purposes, SO (and OOo)was good enough, so i recommended that they go ahead.
I have no idea if they actually did, but i hope they did.
Another important factor to note is that people may be a little wary of using Linux as their OS, but replacing MSO with OOo is a less stressful option for them!
It might be a good idea for people to start asking for OOo on machines from their vendors. even if it comes with XP or 2k etc.
It takes away quite a few dollars from MS, which if u have read the reports has only 2 money making divisions with MSO being one of them. A reduced cash flow there (in addition to helping customers get great value for money - a complete office suite for free!) would cause MS to light a fire under the antipiracy guys who would raid more companies looking for illegal copies of that and piss more companies into using OOo which would further reduce the dependence of customer and deplete MSO revenues which would light another fire underthe
its certainly possible in india at least... at least 1 (Zenith) of the 2 big local PC vendors here has no deals with MS and may be open to the idea of bundling OOo. additionally there are a lot of intel authorised dealers (essentially former grey market guys) who provide a lot of the home PCs in the country! now it remains to actually implement all this...
A crank is a little thing that makes revolutions
Ordinarily, donations from Bill and Linda Gates come from the Gates Foundation, and are made without press releases and public fanfare. This is how it should be. And don't get me going on how generous they are, with MS giving away such small percentages compared to other corporations...
In the last few weeks, we all saw the headlines about Gates giving India millions to support AIDS groups, and how he intends to invest more to help programmers in India as well. Why was this act a headline, when others are normally done quietly?
Because Gates is trying to buy MS favor with India using the sick and dead as a pole to tie his promotional flag to. It stinks, and no one but the most stubborn is buying it for a minute.
==-==
Remember, investing in MS is asking to have your own money used against you in the market place.
A free app is worthless if it doesn't do what I need.
that is precisely the point -- even if MS would give their software to the IT@SCHOOL project for free it would not be acceptable.
in the larger view, "do what I need" is not as simple as "performance" and "superiority". it is a healthy IT industry in 10 years, a government not controlled, in essence, by a large foreign software company.
The zealots can't seem to grasp this.
at least in some cases, the zealots are not so unfortunately short-sighted.
MORTAR COMBAT!
The result is that innovation happens elsewhere and the US remains isolated. The US is correct in believing that the free market fosters innovation and progress, but does not heed its own advice and protects its home-grown industries. It would not suprise me if we don't see non-US technology (cough Symbian) making significant inroads into the US market to a point where tarrifs are introduced on non-US tech.
The SimPuter is a great example of this. If it's afforable to Indian citizens, I'd be interested to see how appealing it is to US pockets.
Its like this. We indians avoid buying things on credit... and we always try to save and we are very very very cost consious. Not all but most. So as long as people get a free WIN XP from the local computer assembler thats good, if they dont they will not take it. We will chose linux, rather than spending money. As far as IT professionals go we are sick and tired of bribery. Newspapers in india are calling it a bribe. And yes we are watching. There is inherent distrust of M$. So things will go on. Moreover the cream of indian IT students have spent most if not all of their college life(IIT's and REC's here) under *nix based platforms. We grew up in microsoft cursing drunken parties ;-). So the sway will be minimal. Yes Gates has captured hearts but he hasnt captured my heart yet... and this I can say for many other IT professionals also. Life will go on as it is.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
This memo is from a User Group, not from a govt.
official. I don't see how this is in anyway at the
same level as the Peruvian Senator's memo. Not to
discount the fact that the memo is written very
well indeed.
I am an Indian but these kudos are a bit misplaced.
I would be really proud if some politician would put
his name to the memo.
Don't get your hopes up. There's still LOTS of corruption, especially with anything related to the bureacracy, regardless of the good intentions. I'm Indian, born there and raised here since I was 2. Our friends here and relatives there say that if want to help some cause, do it yourself or through a trusted NGO, but not through the government.
Things are much better now, having improved over the last 2 decades because of business reforms, but there's still a long way to go. So essentially, a company, or any multi-national, could probably still make lot of headway by buying off the right decision makers.
The primary advantage that OSS has is primarily cost and the fuzzy feel-good mission of it. But they are pragmatists, so if the world wants MSFT, then they will oblige, especially if MSFT can make concessions.
China has a much better shot of escaping the clutches of MSFT, because they benefit, ironically, from being authoritarian (or whatever they've morphed into today). The Chinese government mandate to pursue OSS is probably more effective than the advocacy or advice of some groups in India. Because in the end, Indian software developers are free to pursue their business interests, just like American ones, so many will engage MSFT because of that.
But that's just my opinion.
and as the register pointed out.. $100 million fighting aids. $423 million fighting Open Source. Thanks Bill.
When you've got as much money as Bill Gates, giving it away is about the only realistic option.. it's just more money than a person can reasonably spend!
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
I don't know if you know the tagline, free as in Freedom, not free as in beer.
The reason people are throwing their voices behind Linux is because of the freedom it affords the users. You are very much in control of your machine. It is yours. The software, that's yours. The data you generate, that's yours too. The documentation, that's also yours. But it's not yours alone, it's everyone else's too.
This is a very powerful idea, and it works in this case because of the negligible cost of duplicating software.
People are not involved in this fight (if a fight it truly is, to many it's not) in order to simply hate something. It is to free themselves, to gain some measure of self-control and power in some small, but substantial way. If Microsoft were to completely vanish from the face of the Earth, I think that people would find other things to rail against, and they would very likely line up along the same path. What would be the next target? Whatever restricted freedoms the most.
And should Linux "win" it would be a win for the BSD's, a win for the Hurd, a win for OpenBeOS, a win for ReactOS, and a win for every other Free OS out there, as well as Free software in general. It's not about Linux, it's about freedom and any free OS would win, it just happens that Linux is in the spotlight moreso than the others.
So if you're running Linux just to save a couple of bucks, then I can't fault you, but what you're missing out is the sensation of freedom and power. I personally love the fact that I can contribute to Debian and various programs wherever I see a need. I could never do this with Windows or my old Mac (pre-OSX). I certaintly can't add a program to Windows the way I can incorporate a program that I like in to Debian, no way no how. That's power and that's freedom and it's an amazing thing to take part in. So rather than whine about your $34, why not think about your windows system and all the ways that you're restricted from it, and then maybe you'll see why people are so excited over this whole Free thing.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Yes, but you seem to hold the misconseption that the US government shouldn't use open source since it has enough money to pay for proprietary software
I think that no matter how much money the government has it should go for the open source. Having money doesn't justify wasting it. (It's your taxes it comes from after all). Also the money saved could be put to better uses
- We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
Jimmy's orthodontist uses a closed-source OS in the office for everything. This closed-source OS has a security hole. Not only that, but it's a known security hole that the company decided wasn't worth fixing. So even though the computer is regularly auto-updated, this hole remains unpatched because the corporation decided not to. The orthodontist's computer is broken in to and Sally's credit card information is stolen, and all the billing records for the orthodontist is stolen. This causes incredible headache for Sally over the next year or more.
We don't all have to be programmers to benefit from freedoms. We don't all have to be writers to benefit from freedom of speech, because we can all read what others have written and learn from it. We don't all have to be recluses to benefit from a right to privacy. Freedoms benefit you in more ways than you can realize, and it is a sign of enslavement when you're willing to sacrifice them for nothing.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
I think the last people who will catch on will be the people of the U.S.A. I am a U.S. citizen and it just makes me crazy that people still think computers are expected to crash and "reboot" is how to fix your problems.
and as the register pointed out.. $100 million fighting aids. $423 million fighting Open Source. Thanks Bill.
In other news, the people of India today presented the editors and readers of Slashdot with absolutely nothing, in recognition of the donations they haven't made to the treatment of AIDS.
When Eric Raymond matches Bill Gates dollar for dollar (hell, dollar for thousand dollars, even), then maybe the Open Source community will have grounds to criticize the Gates Foundation, but not before.
This is the main failing of the OSS community. They all think that EVERYONE in the world is a coder.
I don't think so.
It would be far more correct to say that the main failing of the closed source "community" is that they treat EVERYONE in the world as a consumer.
"Don't create products! That's what we're here for. You want a custom program? Here's Visual Basic, where you can draw and design your GUI and cobble it together from custom parts that we build for you. That'll be $1,079 thank-you. [cha-ching!]
"Oh, I see you've developed the next-big-thing using the tools we sold you? And you're selling it to other people? Here, allow us to
(a) Create an identical product and undercut your price
(b) Buy you out
(c) Claim patent on your idea and shut you down.
(d) Change our API to break your code"
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
This is the main failing of the OSS community. They all think that EVERYONE in the world is a coder.
I know I shouldn't respond to AC trolls like this, but I just can't stand it.
Free as in freedom resonates with the non-hacker when they begin to understand things like the M$ OEM license scheme that says even though they paid $300 for the M$ Office upgrade on their last Dell, they cannot move it to their new one when they move the old one into the family room where the kids are going to use it for sending each other rude email.
Free as in Freedom makes sense to Sally and Bob suburbanite when they can't find the 24 digit product key for Quicken 97 or whatever and their $99 investment doesnt' even make a good coaster because there's a hole in the middle of it.
A lot of the things that are "wrong" with free software as it stands are simply due to the fact that we are on the outside looking in. When GeForce is forced by the market to festoon their shrink-wrapped boxes with "LINUX Ready", then Sally doesn't have to write a driver fo the new GeForce card. IF John the accountant would check his books, he would see a lot of his profit being siphoned off by Redmond, and he might find that paying one of his IT people to help fix up OPenExcel will benefit both his company and all the other companies in the world (except M$, of course) by freeing them from recurring software subscription fees. Free as in freedom means that the when you pay for software and upgrades and support is up to the accountant, not M$.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
"These people"?
I agree. The sophistication of these savages is impressive. Who would have thought that they can look beyond the dazzling glass beads and intoxicating liquor that Gates and Co. are offering to realize the long term business and economic implications fully getting in bed with Microsoft.
These new "Super Indians" are going to be a lot harder to herd onto a reservation than the ones we had to deal with in the past. Why, they may even be almost as smart at the White Man, and just as cunning!
Bring out the phrenologists! We must study the size and shapes of their skulls!
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."