Slashdot Mirror
Linux Gaining Ground In India
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."
oh please don't use the term "gaining ground". India already has border skirmishes with packistan; losing territory to a penguin is not something they'll appreciate!
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.
let them spend the next 20 years trying to configure their linux config files.
the rest of us can then get our jobs back.
You can have a unique distro for each of their animal headed, multi-armed gods.
With so many Indians in the software industry already, maybe we will start seeing some more great open source software come from India.
...can be found here.
Yet another GForge installation!
The Army reading list
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
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.
Now we can get Apple to pull their old ads, knowing that Linux is Ghandi's official OS.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
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."
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.
"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 = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Which begs the question: Who'd harder to understand, a scot or indian guy?
+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
Just make sure to blame all those Indians working in Banaglore meat grinders for a quarter of US wages for your lack of a job. Whatever you do, dont blame American companies for your job loss. That would be unpatriotic!
I think the history repeats itself. Back in 1970s, IBM wanted to gain market for its mainframes in India.
But as we all know the Mainframe hardware, software and services costs lots of $$$.
So instead placing bets on a proprietory vendor with lots of money, the government officials decided to go without it.
This presented an opportunity for others. Indian companies like HCL licensed inexpensive Unix from AT&T, built their own hardware and modified the source code to run on their hardware.
All the universities and banks had modest computing power running on a version of Unix.
Students learnt Unix not OS 390 and it turned out that Unix is the future and mainframes were obsolete. We all now know why this is good for India.
The same thing happening now, instead of IBM substitute M$.
So lack of money can sometimes be advantageous.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, too little and too much wealth are not good for well-being of the society.
They have one small disadvantage - they barely make a living there.
India has an enormous (and growing) middle class.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
Ratio of replies to old sig content : replies to actual post content > 0.5. Sig changed.
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.