President Of India Advocates OSS

cOdEgUru writes "I am sure this is a first. The President of India has urged Indian IT Professionals to develop and specialise in OSS rather than Windows. To be noted is that he made the speech (look for the "Think Different" section) at the famous Indian Institute of Information Technology (India's foremost academic institution equivalent to MIT). Also he reminisces that his meeting with Mr.Gates were difficult due to differing views concerning OSS and Security. What should be noted about him is that he is not a politician, but a scientist and an independent thinker foremost."

Comments

Great News

[wahgnube]

I was just reading a book written by the Indian president, Igniting Minds and came to realize how forward thinking and intellectually "fresh" (childlike.. curious, don't take stuff for granted, asking extremely basic questions...) this great man really is. This is great news, in the sense that there are people at "higher levels" who have foresight in science/technology. I hope it sets a precedent for other countries as well. In a side note, the IIIT is not a premier institution, no where near the league of the institutions equivalent of MIT here.

Interesting for India's - and the world's - future

[Dark Paladin]

India it would appear is working incredibly hard to drag itself out of its near third world state - it has one of the most prestigious technical universities in the world (the Indian Institute of Technology, who's graduates include Vinod Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc.).

It has programmers that may not be paid as much as their US counterparts, but for this very reason are being courted heavily.

So, you're the President of India. You're trying to make your country more money. Which will you do: churn your countries workers into Microsoft developers, or work with Open Source?

Microsoft Advantages:

• Major desktop monopoly.
  
• Large funds to finance new infrastructure, education, etc.
  
• Major business ties, especially in the United States.
  

Open Source Advantages:

• Free (as in Beer) - your students/average citizen can get ahold of it.
  
• Free (as in Speech) - if your companies should ever start to compete with Windows in a major way (thereby making India more money from paid developers/consultants), you don't have to worry about some unknown factor messing them up *cough*DR-DOS*cough*.)
  
• Open Source is making huge inroads into the server market. If you support Microsoft, you support Microsoft's growth, which *might* mean more money for India, but *certainly* means more money to Microsoft than India would get. Supporting Open Source and being the best at it guaruntees more money to India in the long haul.
  
• Piracy - my understanding is that piracy is pretty much a problem in nearly every Asian/Middle Eastern country, including India. If you support Open Source now (which is pretty much pirate proof), you can actually cut down on piracy in the long term. (You can't steal what is free - which means you have money to spend on something else.) If India should develop major anti-piracy laws in the future, having much of your software being Open Source cuts down on all the nasty legal issues.
  
• Decrease business overhead. Open Source software typically runs on cheaper components, so Indian businesses that use that can save money on hardware (and software, natch) with Open Source, which means more money to give to programmers/company bottom line. More money in the business sector means more money in citizens hands, and "trickle down" theory says "Hello!".
  
• Broader variety of hardware support. If an Indian company were to come out with its own computer chip technology/plants to compete with Intel, Open Source would allow that company to have a quick access to applications (granted, there would be the issue of compilation/etc, but at least there would be a common base to start with).
  

I'm sure it wasn't easy for this gentleman to have to explain these ideas to Mr. Gates. I'm not saying that Mr. Gates is a bad person in general - but having a potential 1 billion market right in front of you and told that the competitor has the inside track (especially after all the charitable donations to that country) probably didn't help his appetite very much.

The interesting thing is how this will trickle out. Why did Unix make it big in the business world? Well, students trained on it, and when they entered the Work WorldTM, they said "Hey - I can make a Unix server and solve problem XYZ." This is something that Microsoft has bet on as they help finance education - churning out the folks who "know thier stuff".

If more companies are turning to Linux for their development/help desk needs, odds are, a student with an Open Source education will propose using Open Source tools to solve the problem.

It's very, very interesting. There are cracks appearing in the walls, and I'm wondering how much longer the flood will be held back.

Ah, well - at least Apple isn't going out of business this month. (And they're getting pretty good about supporting Open Source too. Hmmmmm....)

Re:Microsoft

[The Cydonian]

Here's a possible answer.

Incidentally, the Microsoft India Development Center is located very close to the other International Institute of Information Technology campus in Hyderabad (Dr Kalam gave the speech in I-squared-IT, Pune).

In a way I guess, it wasn't surprising that Dr Kalam delivered a pro-OSS/Software Libre speech at an IIIT; been to the Hyderabad campus last year, and honestly, it was a weird feeling looking at a lab full of people using Emacs in Devanagri script. (They were using/developing Anusaraka)

Yes, that's right trolls, they've successfully resolved two computer-related jehads out there. :-)

Re:Microsoft

[jkrise]

"I wonder how these changes in the political climate of software will affect Microsoft's Indian software development division?"

Neither India nor MS seem to be indesparate need of each other, atleast for the software development. The total no. of emps in MS- India is less than 500, an insignificant fraction of the IT manpower of India.

Except for SFU and now a command-shell with .Net elemnts, MS does not do it's core development in India. Even if this got relocated to the US, I doubt if any significant cost escalation could accrue to MS.

The only reasons (as I understand) that MS does development in India could be PR and to promote their brand of IP and respect to IP. All in all, this development could affect sales of MSware and ruffle a few diplomatic feathers, but is unlikely to do anything to MS s/w development efforts.

Re:Microsoft

[gilesjuk]

Not at all, India knows it is in a win-win situation. The main reason why Microsoft are investing there is the time difference. Testing can be done in India while the US is sleeping, US programmers can then arrive at work the next day and read the results.

Sure there are other countries with similar time offsets, but Indians for the most part speak good english and those who study computing are well trained.