Slashdot Mirror
Indian Government Moves to Let Linux In
Webi writes "The government of India has started taking precise, wide-reaching steps to usher in a Linux wave in India." India sure seems to be a highly contested arena lately. Interestingly, India's plan calls for government-sponsored support and call centers. Looks like they've really thought this through.
Maybe they will outsource linux support to the us!
I better start learning my Hindi!
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Actually, English will be just fine. Anybody in India who is well-off enough to deal with computers almost definately speaks English. Whether it's English non-Indians can understand is a different matter all together.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
...good for them!
In developing countries, Free/Open software makes tremendous sense. When your average worker doesn't make enough money in the average month to buy a license to Microsoft's latest OS, you know there's a disconnect.
Maybe my home state (CA, the new capital of hideous debt) might take a lesson from India.
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
"Interestingly, India's plan calls for government-sponsored support and call centers."
Oh joy! Another place to be put on eternity hold.
Any word if they plan on suporting the entire world or just the users in the Indian government?
Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't, but the point is it provides a positive example of how to engage the government in promoting open source - whatever country you're in. That's of interest to a lot of us, I think - not just the Indian Slashdotters. ;-)
Female Prison Rape in NY
Because the government of the world's largest democracy just told the world's biggest business to go soak its head.
1) Talk up linux.
2) When Bill and Melinda offer money, make nice.
3) Adopt Linux, and watch your people PROFIT.
4) Watch their tax recipts rise.
Whoops, that was 4 steps. Well, government projects usually go over budget.
See what I've been reading.
You guys need to take an economics course. Globalization and outsourcing of jobs to other countries is not bad in and of itself. In fact, in general it benefits everyone in the long run. In the short term the workers who were let go are hurt, but if the proper steps are taken (i.e. new skills training) then the short term loss is minimized.
If it wasn't for cheap foreign labor, America would never have been able to become a service economy. Basically, Americans could not have been as rich without cheap foreign labor.
smd4985
No windows, no gates, apache inside.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Yeah, except for the fact that the world's biggest business is Wal-Mart, and MS doesn't even rank on the top ten.
Yes, you do, and yes, it does.
You may not have those details to hand, but they are available to you. You may not want those details, but they are available to folks who are able to use them. That's why your fancy-schmancy modern car is significantly better than Grandpa's Model T.
How about Microsoft (1950's Rolls Royce clone, with a trouble-prone Chevy engine) versus Linux (modern Subaru)?
Right. You aren't. We can get jobs through trade with India. We don't have to sell them software to trade. Your conclusion may be obvious, but it is quite possibly wrong.
See what I've been reading.
Within 10 years Linux or one of its offshoots will be the primary OS used on desktop and server computers world-wide. India is looking towards placing themselves in a very advantageous position in this new IT world.
Same thing as anybody with any sort of intelligence has their eye on things such as alternative sources of energy..
India is different! They have a lot of brain/man power over there. And they are still a very poor country. That will change tho, and when it does, would you rather them be pushing m$ or something free? It's not about performance or source code, it's completely about economics and control of ones own future and brain power.
Besides, not every country in the world can pay ridiculous license fees for shotty software just to make a few people in some other country richer. Argh, ya know, instead of bitching about other countries, people should go there and check it out first hand. You'll see things in a completely different light and probably realize the whole high-priced, disposable 'american way' can't fly everywhere. jeeze, this is so obvious!
As far as complaing about jobs, sorry man (really!), but remember, those of you lower on the ladder were sacraficed for those higher up. How many bosses took pay cuts or forfeited their vacation so you could stay on board? Absolutely none! So before you go complaing about those bad immigrants or bad people in other countries taking your jobs just remember, someone had to make that decision here at home. And it was your ex-boss/superstar management team.
We won't have to worry about a terrorist attack or the like ruining our economy because we're doing it to ourselves. Give the middle guy a decent wage and get some creative management not selling their souls for the all mighty dollar and we'll go far. Of course, this is completely unrealistic today, but hey, some of us still have to keep thinking ahead..
In India, labour is cheap. You can hire fairly good prog/sys adm for 1/4th-1/8th the cost of a moderately good American. Linux will help the small businesses, and provide more opportunities to folks (like me) who plan to enter the SMB market with Linux/FOSS consultancy services. (OK, currently I am outside India)
Considering the fact that US Gov/MS have a penchant for interfering, trying to strongarm anyone (including democracies), the less dependent we are on US tech, better for us.
The biggest gains from going F/OSS should happen in the Military, Edu and SMB areas, that's my guess.
BTW, stop trashing India folks. Yoga, decimal system, astronomy, Ayurveda (nature medicine), Meditation, Buddhism, Karate, Sanskrit etc originated in India. Do you westerners ever consider that? All that is FREE! No Patents, No Copyrights.
India can build their own OS, hardware and database system and language, Only problem is Indians are not ready to think this way. They are not ready to fight to get adjusted with current situation of India. As you can see there are more number of psychiatric case in banglore after dot COM then ever. The younger generation's hero is people like sabeer bhatia who earn millions in few years, but that is not the truth any more. The hero who can show path for Indian IT future is the one who will give idea to build entire home made software and hardware solution. The confusing part is that Indians still want to work for foreign company and yet want to live and think like their parents who have experience of working in Indian companies like TATA, BIRLA and Reliance. Or in Indian Government organisation. Where competition means bloody politics, and narrow-minded approach. Indian government must think that ultimately you have to give price to LINUX also in one way or other. As most of the user group are nothing but free bug fixing hut for any software. And as far as cheap labour is the question, ha ha India is the best. Now we have answer of poor people also.
...do you really think that Office, Explorer, Visual Studio, Visual Basic, ect ect ect HASN'T been ported to Lunix?
Yes. The windows API hasn't been ported to Linux, GDI hasn't been ported to Linux. That is a tremendous amount of work that would all have to happen first. This topic hasn't failed to come up, and Microsoft's position has always been that it would much too expensive and their isn't any reason (i.e. the major desktop demand for Linux is to escape the rather low licensing costs so why would these same people pay for Office et al).
US developers still have benefits over Indian ones. They're closer, easier to communicate with.
This is a very big deal. In order to use a remote team - in this case off shore developers - the business users have to actually document what they want and get it right the first time out. Solid requirements... I've seen this type of development succeed only a handful of times, most projects produce something between what they asked for (not to be confused with what they wanted) to catastrophic failure. Come to think of it, it has been a while for requirements too. Anyhow, the short of it is most business users will rather pay US rates so they don't have to do the groundwork required to move stuff over seas. Not to say they don't give it a try once or twice first...
One of my favorites was working with a business user who thought they needed complete creative latitude / absolute control. We went round and round about address and phone number validation. What is valid? (555) 555-1234, SOMENUMBER (alpha characters that map to digits), or extensions? A few months later the call came in on how to handle the UK customer's phone number.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
The loss of sales in India is going to be the least of Microsoft's problems. Imagine what's going to happen when all the new Linux expertise from India goes looking for jobs in other countries. Microsoft's argument about Linux being more expensive to operate is going to go down the flusher very fast.
Thrue. Idia is probably the only fully-functioning democratic country between Australia and Israel and it owes it's ability to function to the existence of a fairly effective public education system and the highly entrepreneurial spirit of it's people.
Unfortunately, this is true for two reasons.
India has GREAT potential to become an economic powerhouse rivalling, maybe even exceeding, the US, the EU and Japan if they stay on their current path.
utter rubbish
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I can't believe what I'm reading today. I really cannot.
From what I can tell this article was origionally put up on slashdot in order to show that Linux and open software were starting to gain some "marketshare" in the global scheme of things with the Indian government maneuvering to deploy the OS.
So what do I find really as I scroll through the comments today? I see people claiming that this is bad because other countries might be using something other than Microsoft, which employs americans. I see racist comment after racist comment. In fact I've seen so much of it in this thread that I am sickened by this.
If this is the case, you might ask why I'm responding or why I even bothered to continue reading. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, or maybe rather than get sickened and let things bother me it gives me the fuel to give a constructive criticism. Either way I'm compelled to speak my mind. Mod me in any direction that seems appropriate.
First of all, I'm having a little trouble seeing how this is costing any american jobs. From everything that I'm gathering here, the Indian government is, by and large, an undeveloped market in computing. No one is losing their job because linux is being used. No market is shrinking over this. The only thing that can be said is that Microsoft is not EXPANDING it's influence into India further. Microsoft still has all the lucritive markets it had before.
Secondly, I've seen many comments about the level of filth or inferiority of the people living over there. Perhaps people have had it too easy for a while to really see one point. In a country like the US, with a relatively strong economy and relatively low unemployment, it is much easier for a person to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. It is much easier to use programs provided by either public or private institutions to train in a field and get a job. What if that was taken away? What if you were born into an environment that wasn't as cushioned? You'd be struggling just as much as anyone there, or anywhere else where life is hard.
Are jobs being lost in the US? Absolutely. Wal-Mart is killing off Mom-and-Pop shops. American companies are killing off other american companies all the time. American companies are even doing things like moving to other spots in the country where employment is low. I can remember the day that the factory in my hometown shut it's doors because the local union employees refused to work for less than $20.00 an hour. They went somewhere more viable for employment. In the case I gave, South Carolina... where people were more than willing to bottle beer for $8.00 an hour. Just because jobs are being lost in America doesn't mean they're being relocated overseas. It's ignorant and just plain fucking stupid to think so.
I do agree with one of the posters I saw here... Americans really do need to learn to tighten their belts if they want to stay competetive. You can't keep on earning a salary that allows you to buy/lease a new car every year, computer upgrades every 6 months, eating out every night, and living like a king to produce a product in a global economy where people with the same skill set are starving and willing to do the same job for much less. It's the reason that a Gibson Les Paul will cost $2000 while the Epiphone Les Paul is $600.
~shakes head~ Okay. I'm done ranting. I'll get off my soap box now. But it's like one poster said... people should be open about thier opinions.
----- I want my LART.
> How much money are they saving really? By adopting linux they are also opening thier own tech support centers. Training and hiring those people costs money. They still have to develop (costs money) or buy software (Gee jolly gosh, this costs money too). Supporting linux might actually be a more expensive proposition then sticking with microsoft. I think they did it becuase they feel it is a better operating system. Save money in not needing new hardware maybe? I dont think money was a big factor in thier decision making.
Step back and ask yourself how much money will flow out of the country this way over the next 30 years vs how much would flow out if they didn't switch.
What India and others are doing is commonly called "opting out".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You are correct in that most so-called programmers with less than 5 years experience think they "deserve" a six-figure salary because they used to be with some dot-bomb. You are also correct that most of them aren't productive enough to justify those rates.
The problem is that people with the experience to justify those salaries have a hard time getting noticed and hired when 490 of the 500 resumes submitted are barely or un- qualified.
The problem is also that businesses have no problem nickel and diming their development salaries post-dot-bomb. Hell, I just saw a posting for Oregon that was offering a whopping $12/hour for front-line Unix support. How many people with any kind of professional training (doctor, engineer, lawyer) would even dream of taking a job at such rates? Yet it's "greedy" for me to expect to make a living with a University degree and fifteen years experience to back me up?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I am shocked to see how quickly this post has turned into racist troll bait. It's amazing how ugly people's attitudes can turn with a downturn in the economy. So many people here are quick to blame Indians for the fact that there are so many jobs being shifted overseas - aren't the American companies and the US government that allows this also to blame? I do agree that we should be more protective of our domestic economy, but the people that are truly profiting off of cheap Indian labor are the American mega-corps like IBM, Sun and Oracle.
This post has been eye-opening for me, as an unemployed Indian-American programmer, because I've always seen the entire Linux/Free Software/late 90's geek culture as a new kind of social phenomenon unencumbered by the baggage of the past, including racism and nationalistic xenophobia. The idea of all these foreign governments throwing their weight behind Linux means that there will be a larger userbase, more developers, and more vitality to the entire Free Software movement. But instead of greeting this with open arms, I see lots of people denigrating India and Indians. Yeah, more curry jokes and discussion about filthy, stupid Indians. Don't forget that your favorite OS was initially developed overseas by foreigners and is currently picking up lots of steam in Asia.
Most projects with any real scope miss tons of requirements. This means that the team and customer have to negotiate date or feature slips. Much harder to do if the two cannot meet face to face.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
This is good news indeed. As a linux programmer based in India, this certainly is more than a great news. All the more happy, just like many others out there, that Windows is being shown the door. Beleive it or not, the Open Source champions in India owe a lot of thanks to Bill Gates for this. If he hadn't come to India to make a publicity stunt of supporting the AIDS cause( ofcourse he is more worried about Linux than AIDS ) Linux would not have got so much attention in govt. circles and media as it does now. A few months ago any ordinary business man would know and talk only abt MS and Windows. Now he knows about Linux also. Now whenever the media talks MS it talks about Linux in the same breath. Free OS gets free publicity.
I'm not trying to put a damper on this, but lets not forget what happened in the past. I certainly remember hearing all sorts plans Mexico had for Linux. There were supposed to be millions of installs by now. Now its just remembered as one of Linux's higher profile failures. So while all the rah rah "let's embrace the underdog" talk is nice, get back to me linux hits >50% of the desktops.
3 7, 00.html
If India is as important to the world of software as everyone says it is, Microsoft isn't just going to walk away. They'll throw a billion or two into PR, lobbying, software give-aways, and FUD before giving up. And then they'll throw in a billion more. Remember money IS the only thing that matters(carve that into your dorm room desk). The fact that MS is competing with something that can be downloaded for free doesn't change anything.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,457
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I see that you are a little unfamiliar with the rage that only us Americans seem to have. Simply put, we are an angry people. Some people think we just try to pass of blame onto other people to take it off of our own backs. This is sometimes true. But it would be much more accurate to say we just blame everyone for anything for the hell of it. When you get to a certain point of pissed off, you can't have enough targets. If you lose your job to someone willing to work 70 hours a week for 35 grand a year, the "hard working Indian immigrant" becomes a "daiper-head terroist" or "dot wearing misogynists", etc. It isn't that most Americans really hate Indians. Not at all. But when we get pissed we aren't afraid to say it. You will also notice more Americans are killed in violent rage by Americans every year than Indians. We just make fun of you, we kill each other.
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The article is light on details but from reading it there were two things I gathered they were doing:
1. When asking for bids, the requirements wouldn't specify Microsoft - rather specify the true requirements.
2. Computer textbooks wouldn't teach Word or Excel - rather teach how to use word processors and spreadsheets.
Both are things they should be doing regardless of Linux. It's asinine to do otherwise.
Mmmm.. Donuts