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India Cool to Microsoft Source Code Offer
indianseason writes "Economic Times, India reports on the failure of Microsoft to sign up the Indian government as part of the Government Security Program. The Print Edition carries a comment by an official: "... there was tremendous pressure on us to sign an MoU (memorandum of understanding) which would allow Microsoft access to all TDIL products (Technology Development for Indian Languages)." The government has gone ahead and put all the project initiatives in the public domain. TDIL recently released Indix : an engine for rendering Indian languages on linux."
They can still access all the technology ...
The Indian government really managed to get the problem with microsofts shared source initiative. The only thing it does is create a constituency in a government or organization to promote microsoft products. It allows microsoft to get a bunch of your influential people, sign binding agreements with microsoft, and then get the potemkin village treatment of microsofts source.
Nearly ten years have gone by with Security being a high priority at microsoft, look at the results.
You sir, shall die a horrible death. I thought you would understand karma by now.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
According to recent talk of Richard M. Stallman at CERN, governments do not get Windows source code as such, but rather a means to look at it on Microsoft site.
There is not way to determine whether what they are looking at is what really running on their computers, thus defeating the whole point of having that access anyway
Excellent point; and Microsoft should lose no time in calling up a well-trusted third-party security company to show that indeed Microsoft products are secure. Of course, it had better be a trusted company, because they don't want their source code getting out.
Hmm... I wonder if I should send my resume to an industry-leading security company, such as @stake, immediately. I'm into document preparation, not security, but I should be able to learn the language reasonably quickly. ;->
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Are you be using your India powered computer systems to be getting this first post? Oh what a joyous occasion that is, sir.
Thank you, Come again.
--Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
It will be interesting to see how the Indian government goes on this one.
TDIL has value in making computers more accessible to much of their population. For some, this is a money-making opportunity to charge for access to the technology that will be deployed to a billion potential customers. For others, this is an opportunity to speed up introduction of technology to the country. It could be both.
They could go with something like a GPL on TDIL that MS would detest, but would enable free software development in India, which later could be used as a platform by commercial firms in India for specific applications. But the government would not reap any immediate financial gain from this; only the long term gains from an increased tax base of a larger, faster growing economy in general.
They could go with selling out to MS entirely, which would give the government more money in the short term, but would impede internal software development because it would necessitate all the Indian software developers acquiring MS specific tools to do their jobs and to compete with MS. Deployment of IT in the country would be less because it would be limited to those who could afford it.
Possibly going with a BSD license would provide the biggest initial boost in software development in India, but the long term benefits are less clear.
Personally, I'd welcome the many intelligent Indian programmers to the world of FOSS. Their contributions would help to make for improved quality and continued low cost for free software. Indigenous businesses in India would be in a better position to take more advantage of information technology and its productivity gains if there was both free software and many local programmers available for customizing it for business needs.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
"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."
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
This software is copyright (C) 2000-2001, NCST
That ain't public domain. There's more, of course:
All Rights Reserved except as specified below. Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software (or portions thereof) for any purpose, without fee, subject to these conditions:
(1) If any part of the source code for this software is distributed, then this README file must be included, with this copyright and no-warranty notice unaltered; and any additions, deletions, or changes to the original files must be clearly indicated in accompanying documentation.
(2) If only executable code is distributed, then the accompanying documentation must state that "this software is based in part on the work of the IndiX system".
(3) Permission for use of this software is granted only if the user accepts full responsibility for any undesirable consequences; the authors accept NO LIABILITY for damages of any kind.
These conditions apply to any software derived from or based on the IndiX code, not just to the unmodified library. If you use our work, you ought to acknowledge us.
That looks an awful lot like a BSD license...and is obviously not GPL!
Since the concept of karma comes form an Indian religion. it is hardly surprising that someone who sneers at Indians has little of it.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Obviously, the moderator for this article is not used to pressure. Now that is funny!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Pango supposed to be able to render and edit Indian text correctly these days? I'm certain I've seen screenshots if GTK2 apps doing that
What value is implicit in being able to read their source code?
Why would an AC care about karma?
"Cool" as in "agreeable to"?
Or "cool" as in "less interested?"
Yeah, RTFA. But what a lousy headline.
Isnt that a bit on the illegal side?
"here i sell you a tool, but i get to look at EVERYTHING you do, and profit from it, regardless of its relation to the orginal tool.."
Only a monopoly would even have the balls to demand such a concept.
They need to be closed. Im not for governmental influence, but they have gotten out of hand and need to be terminated as a company.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I thought about this, and I should be more hopeful. Aside from that, I don't need to be nasty. Anyone want to mod the parent down (overrated, if nothing else), please do.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Mod accordingly.
I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it
Your sig intrigues me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
root@localhost# mozilla &
...
www.microsoft.com/sourcecode
...
<.<
>.>
^C
CONTROL-TAB
root@localhost# kwrite &
^V
file>save as>windows.cpp
file>exit
root@localhost# gcc -o
*phone ringing*
"Hunny, its fo you! Darl Mc...dyke?"
They have been all over the place picking up all the OSS and coding initives that they can .net, TRON yesterday.
Project mercury was brought under
I wonder what China promised them?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What organization is:
a) smart enough to properly assess the security of the Microsoft code and
b) independent enough to publicly fail them if their code wasn't up to snuff and
c) acceptable to Microsoft?
Without all three, you got nothing.
Mod parent UP!! One more point. Great insight.
For starters, while the Redmond Giant had entered into similar trust-building agreements with global industrial houses, there was not a single Indian company on the list. "If you believe India is a software leader, why not gain industry confidence first?" is the query by policy-makers.
.NET!
The real story is that the Indian gov't wants their software development industry to be included in the deals that Microsoft makes with "the big boys." I suspect we'll see a flurry of activity with Indian sofware companies all of a sudden in the forefront of development initiatives and lookit! They use
The monopoly will win every time. That's why we made laws to outlaw monopolies, see?
For those of us whose latin is a bit rusty ;-): "Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts."
Words of warning uttered (in ancient Greek) by Laokoon as a warning to the Trojans when they found the wooden horse. The horse was, of course, the infamous Trojan horse, presented by the Greeks as a gift to the Trojans. The horse was full of Greek soldiers, who crept out of the horse in the night and conquered Troy from within.
Lemon curry???
/*
* Structure of a directory entry
*/
#define EXT2_NAME_LEN 255
Copright Remy Card, Linus Torvalds
Now that all the MS engineers are gone, I'll continue... :-)
Hmm...it would depend. We are forbidden to look at any GPL'ed code. BSD code is a grey area, and we need to consult with legal. If the indic language support is truly in the public domain, then we can certainly look at it.
Don't you feel that this is a ridiculous rule? Ok - if you read GPL'd code, you are now in the position that anything you write of similar functionality is "at risk" of being contaminated by this knowledge. I have to be careful not to view, say, any code in Postgresql as it might affect any coding decisions I might make in the future (I can feel someone about to post some Postgresql code in reply to this ...). That said, almost every piece of code contains the same ideas - maths, caching strategies, data transport. Coming from a scientific background, being able to build on the vast store of knowledge of those who have gone before me is a natural process. Having to walk the boundaries of copyright law, patents and other legal straight-jackets is a confining and ultimately unproductive method.
Just where would we be today if we could treat source code in the same way we treat mathematics?
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Of course, it had better be a trusted company, because they don't want their source code getting out.
And really, with a well-known security corp, trust should be semi-inherent to the name. no well-known company would want the bad reputation associated with illegally distribution MS's source code, and they definately wouldn't want the pounding-into-bankrupty that would follow being hammered into the ground by MS lawyers should the do such a thing.
You might worry about rogue employees, but I think a reputation for the ruination it would cause a company would pretty much damper future job prospects, making it unlikely (besides, a security company should have good security from unauthorized workers sniffing the code, correct?).
Really, what surprises me though is that if MS allows the code to be viewable via its webpage, that somebody hasn't yet hacked the page and acquired the code. It is probably on an MS server, right (although the irony if it wasn't would be wonderful).
What would you do if your job required you to study MS Windows source? Even touching the code with a 10 foot pole is sure to entail signing The NDA From Hell. Even letting my name share a web page with the word "Linux" would make me nervous.
Would you go with Microsoft? Probably not.
Consider this from the point of view of the Indian government. They can:
A) Let Microsoft come in with low initial prices, taking over the Indian software market and then exerting absolute control later on, or
B) Assign teams at whichever Indian college has the best research facilities, provide them copies of Linux and the BSDs, and have them roll out a purely Indian Linux and/or BSD that can be used across the board as an Indian National O/S. It could be completely pre-vetted for security holes, OpenBSD style, and it could be engineered to support all Indian languages natively alongside English, instead of having them as add-ons. Also it could be used throughout the entire Indian infrastructure, freeing them from any reliance on foreign concerns. Updates could come from the team that rolled it out in the first place. Couple this with a cheap homegrown computer, of course...
Seriously. If you were in the Indian government, what would YOU do?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Somebody said:
;-): "Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts."'
"Quidquid id est timeo danaos et DONA ferentes"
and you wrote:
'For those of us whose latin is a bit rusty
Actually, it's not the Greek but the Danaer, an italic tribe neighboring ancient Rome (~600BC).
Win2k had support for exactly two Indic scripts, Devanagari and Tamil. WinXP has support for four more, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati and Gurmukhi. Till date, MS does not have support for Malayalam, Oriya, Bengali, Sinhala, Burmese or other Indic (that's 'South Asian', not just 'Indian', or 'Devanagari-based') languages.
And even in that, it's pretty shoddy; as anyone who's typed in Telugu/Kannada in MS Office will tell you, there's a mysterious space that gets added after the end of each word. Telugu/Kannada characters mysteriously change into boxes every now and then. Again, mysteriously, {Telugu, Kannada} characters change into boxes when placed along with {Tamil, Devanagari} characters on MSN. That's only TWO of the bugs I've sighted so far; trust me, there are many more.
Your company knows about it and all others; I reported it by email to one of your personnel. Understandably, it's not one of your priorities; obviously, you have other, bigger markets to garner. Which, of course, is precisely the point here; if the source is open, concerned techie Indians can easily look into it and implement according to their needs and schedules, and would not be dependent on some faceless corporation's benevolence.
While I'm not sure it was Indix that I saw in action, but I'll say this:- I've seen Kannada and Devnagari in Emacs, and it's a much much MUCH better rendering than what WinXP offers.
And oh, before I end, you still use the Inscript keyboard layout and complex rendering algos in your Indic implementations, don't you? Guess who developed that, hmmm.
More than mere navel gazing.
Beware of Trojans, they're total smegheads!
I thought the Pango project, and therefore Gnome 2.x, already supported Devanagari. If that is true, why is this legacy Gnome 1.x project being announced now?
I think this webpage is quite old. The IndiX screenshots are from XFree86 4.0.3. The Netscape screenshots are definitely old, too. How could TDIL have "recently released" this?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Ok they show you some code. Do they actually provide it in a form that can be built so you can be sure it isn't some kind of almost the same but we've removed some essential sneaky bits?
With GPL (and other licensed stuff) you can definitely build it and use only your own build of it.
Actually, it is the Greek. (Danai). Since you use the form "Danaer", it seems to me that you either speek Swedish or German. Here are a couple of links in German and Swedish that you might find helpful.
Lemon curry???
Oops, looks like I messed up my history knowledge. My fault.
i hope other countries see the GSP as India did
Regarding your comments claiming IndiX being recently released, I think it is not being maintained anymore. Recently I sent a query to the e-mail address provided on IndiX web page and it bounced back to me claiming that the user does not exist.
There has been no new version of IndiX for quite some time. They had not tried to merge it with latest X sources. It is more like a technology demonstrator than a finished product maintained by an active community.
I find pango to be more suitable for the needs of Indian languages as it is actively under development and all gtk2 based applications will support Indian languages by default.
Comments welcome:-)
(Ok, I've had too much root beer. I'll sit down and shut up.)
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.