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President Of India Advocates OSS

Posted by michael on from the one-billion-new-users-can't-be-wrong dept.

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."

5 of 702 comments (clear)

  1. He talked to BillG about opensource.. by heytal · · Score: 2, Redundant

    In his speech, he said:
    I would like to narrate an event that took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan a few months back when I met Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. While walking in the Mughal garden, we were discussing the future challenges in Information Technology including the issues related to software security. I made a point that we look for open source codes so that we can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our discussions became difficult since our views were different.

  2. A few corrections in the story.. by heytal · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I am from pune, the origin of this story :-)

    The speech was not made at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) as claimed in the story. It was made at IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology) a new college on IT.

  3. IIT or IIIT that is equivalent of MIT? by kalki · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Its IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) that is equivalent of MIT, notIIIT which is International Institute of Infomation Technology formally know as Indian Institute of Information Technology. IIIT is a new Institution started in 1998, that still has a long way to go get any recognition and standard of IIT (The MIT equivalent). Check this article Bill Gates inaugurated IIT meetIIT

  4. IIIT is not IIT by mmThe1 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Just a couple of (redundant) corrections:

    1. IIIT is *not* the Indian equivalent of MIT. The story poster perhaps confused it with IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology). [ the best regarded technical education institutes in India ... comparison with MIT is a different debate altogether... ]

    2. The name is not "Indian Institute of Information Technology", after a court order, the present name was changed to "International Institute of Information Technology".

    It is an institute supported by many IT companies (including IBM and Microsoft), though that hasn't helped much to raise the academic standards much in comparison to IITs in India.

  5. Not the IIT, the IIIT - BIG DIFFERENCE... by pendsepr · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Not that it reduces the impact of the statement, but the speech was made at the Indian Institute of INFORMATION Technology (IIIT) in Pune. And not at one of Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). While the IITs can be considered equivalent of MIT, IIIT is focused on IT. Just to be clear on this...