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Linux Gaining Ground In India

Posted by simoniker on from the more-bang-for-your-buck dept.

GillBates0 writes "Yahoo/Reuters is reporting that Linux seems to be gaining over Microsoft in India. According to Red Hat, about 10 percent of India's personal computers will be sold with Linux rather than Microsoft operating systems by March, 2004, up from nothing in January. Linux already drives India's National Stock Exchange, and the Government of India has been promoting open source lately."

14 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Bye Bye, domestic workforce by TrippTDF · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is interesting, especially with all the IT outsourcing to India that we have seen lately. Could mean for yet cheaper outsourcing costs here in the US- if people start using Red Hat at home, maybe they will want to use it at work.

    1. Re:Bye Bye, domestic workforce by IFF123 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      It's the current craze of cutting costs (whether they are human-based or not) that's the driving force behind all of the latest market strategies.

      That people are switching to Linux doesn't make them automatically good. The software will become cheaper and cheaper, and so will we.
      (IAAP)

      --
      Who took my tinfoil hat?
    2. Re:Bye Bye, domestic workforce by devphaeton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As much as i do have issues with outsourcing labour to other countries (at the cost of jobs in the U.S.)...

      We've got to remember that OpenSource Operating Systems (and other software) such as GNU/Linux, the *BSDs, and whathaveyou....

      Are in the public domain. By the entire world, for the entire world.

      We can't get mad at other countries if they and thier governments embrace it. We can only get mad at the U.S. gov't and those who refuse to even take a look.

      --


      do() || do_not(); // try();
  2. New developers! by te+amo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With so many Indians in the software industry already, maybe we will start seeing some more great open source software come from India.

    1. Re:New developers! by glockenspieler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With so many Indians in the software industry already, maybe we will start seeing some more great open source software come from India.

      I think that this is absolutely correct. Often there are comments about how multiple projects can result in a dilution of the efforts of developers. For example, the earlier discussion about Gnome/KDE often had such a comment about how having these two different desktops is inefficient because X number of developers are now split among two different projects.

      What will be really interesting is to watch the kinds of new projects that start showing up in places like sourceforge that reflect this growing interest.

      While many people have concerns about the broader implications of developments in India and China (e.g., downward pressure on salaries), from the perspective of the communal effort that is open source development, more (vastly more!) eyes could have an incredible influence on the quality and rate of development.

  3. Send them opium bring back money by mnmn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft has such a strong monopoly in the west, breaking ground is hard enough here. So the easy solution seems to be just hook the Chinese and Indians onto Linux and the enormous software base that will result will put Microsoft at a severe disadvantage. It doesnt help either than the average cost of Windows XP is a month's salary of the average person with a computer there. Microsoft can use huge discounts, but they cannot beat the 100% discount Linux/BSD offers.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  4. Re:From the article: by thebatlab · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually it was just a comment from Microsoft and not Reuters so I don't think Reuters should be chastized for this. A quote is a quote, whether it's truthful or not. This wasn't even a direct quote either, just noting what Microsoft has previously said. I don't think it's a bad thing that Reuters included it.

  5. Extra Plus by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure Indians will enjoy getting a high quality freely-modifiable operating system for almost no money.

    It will enable more of their domestic industry to gain the advantages of information technology that enable the kinds of productivity growth rates the US has seen in the last decade or so.

    Here in the US, as a Linux user, I'm looking forward to gaining from this development as well.

    From a population of 1e9, the country produces a fair share of the world's brilliant programmers.

    Plus, they can read and write English, which gives them a head start relative to China, which possesses a like number of intelligent programmers.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  6. Uh-uh by melted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They have one small disadvantage - they barely make a living there. And when you don't have enough money to feed your family the last thing you'd do is work for free so that some american (or german) company sells your software for profit. Open Source works when it's subsidized by your salary (or time stolen from your employer). If your salary doesn't leave much room for subsidizing anything - you go somewhere and find an evening job.

    1. Re:Uh-uh by iworm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here we have the typical, well-meaning but actually very ignorant, stereotype of Indians living in abject poverty, with no food...

      Get informed: India is a huge country with a vast population. They cover the spectrum: sure, there are PLENTY of very poor Indians, but there are also loads of well-educated, well-paid, (by local standards) dare-one-say "happy" Indians.

      Please don't make generalisations, particularly when they are wrong...!

  7. Piracy? by tunabomber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "According to Red Hat, about 10 percent of India's personal computers will be sold with Linux rather than Microsoft operating systems by March, 2004"

    And what percentage of the buyers of these computers will be just buying them to only to escape the Microsoft tax and then install a Windows bootleg?

    I swear, piracy has to be the biggest threat to Linux in the developing world. Ironically, It's better for Microsoft if you steal their software than it is for you to install Linux.

    --

    pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
  8. Re:Sorry by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Sorry, but I am not going to suddenly have a love-fest with all those bastards who STOLE MY JOB just because they are running linux. Petty? Yes... Immature? yes... I'm Bitter?.. YEP!... But -- fuck 'em, the bastards.

    +0, Meh. Welcome to the flip side of the globalization that brings you cheap and plentiful consumer goods.

    In any case, I think you're confusing the concept of " bastard Indians stole my job" with "motherfscking greedy employers decided to screw working Americans in order to add a few pennies to the bottom line". Why attack the pawns when the king is in plain view?

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  9. Nitpick the Nitpick (and offtopic) by nyteroot · · Score: 4, Insightful
    That's patently untrue; the GPL poses no threat to Microsoft's IP (or indeed any threat at all) were Microsoft to ship Office for Linux. Note various other proprietary software for linux (Oracle, Quake3, to name a few) if you don't believe me. The real reason is because they won't ship Office for Linux is because they recognize that far fewer people would run Windows at all if they could still read all their Word documents perfectly (OpenOffice still has a few issues).


    Microsoft appears to be one of the few companies where the management is smarter (in a Machiavellian way, like they're supposed to be) than the coders.

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    Ratio of replies to old sig content : replies to actual post content > 0.5. Sig changed.
  10. Re:Sorry by RickHunter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Welcome to the flip side of the globalization that brings you cheap and plentiful consumer goods.

    Uh-huh. Do you see many of us asking for that? Hell, no. A sizable percentage of Slashdot is rabidly anticonsumerist. And if you remember the comments posted during the anti-globalism rallies during the WTO conference in Seattle a few years back, those were also generally anti"globalist". (Globalist in quotes because what we're seeing is a small upper class looting economies, not real global development)

    In any case, I think you're confusing the concept of " bastard Indians stole my job" with "motherfscking greedy employers decided to screw working Americans in order to add a few pennies to the bottom line". Why attack the pawns when the king is in plain view?

    On this, we agree. Don't blame the Indians - they'll be in the same place you are in ten years time or worse. (When the companies currently employing them move on to some other third-world country that they've convinced to improve its "high-tech sector") Go after the bastards driving the looting to line their pockets.