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Stallman Goes to India
SureshD writes "The Hindu is reporting on a 40 minute long meeting between Richard Stallman and the Indian President - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. After the interview, RMS said that the President was 'receptive' to his views that development of software should be seen as a political and social issue and not just from the technological point of view. Interestingly, the article mentions that the President had prepared for the meeting by downloading and reading Stallman's biography (Free as in Freedom) from the Internet."
The Indian President is tech-savvy and has on earlier occasions tried to promote Linux. He was really a rocket scientist before he was appointed the President.
In May 2003, he gave a speech in which he said "said it is 'unfortunate' that proprietary software - such as Windows - is so popular and has called for broader adoption of open source products." More details here - ZDNet UK - News - Indian President adds salt to MS wounds
From the article, notes on a conversation with Bill Gates:
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Although this is true, it is also to be remembered that the Preisdent of India is highly respected in technical and defence circles. As such, his views and leanings have a lot of bearing on the political decision-making process.
While launching the IIIT in Pune, the President made a pointed reference to his meeting with Mr. Gates, and made some brilliant points in exhorting the local IT community to further the cause of Free and Open Source software.
India is indeed fortunate to have such an eminently qualified person at the apex seat, since IT is synonymous with national security these days....
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If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Dr.Kalam's website at http://presidentofindia.nic.in/ , runs on Linux and Apache . Undoubtedly one of the most qualified persons for the job, he headed India's defence research body, the DRDO and was one of the key members of the team planning and implementing India's second round of nuclear tests in 1998 (India tested its first nuclear device in 1974).
Also a bachelor like India's executive head,the Prime Minister.
India's tech is booming
The U.S. still imports way more jobs than it imports, and India's tech is booming based solely on the fact that it is low cost. Try reading some alternative viewpoints on the outsourcing subject.
Japan has all the cutting edge electronics and techonologies
And those Japanese companies also create a lot of jobs in the U.S., and the Japanese economy isn't doing so hot. Your point?
China is destined to be the next super power
With no economic freedom and the vast majority of it's citizens living in horrid poverty, I doubt it.
Korea is trying to get nukes
NORTH Korea already has them.
The USA has mad cow disease, a puppet for a president, a huge debt, a slow economy and we're spending billions more on rebuilding a country that we destroyed while looking for weapons that didn't exist.
Slow economy? I'm seeing growth right now, what are you talking about? It was slow a year ago, times are changing... mad cow disease gets a big "so what" from me, it's more paranoia than reality, it does more damage to the beef industry than the general population. And a puppet for a President? Watch this "puppet" obliterate John Kerry in the next election.
It's really lame his editorializing was so lacking in any substance, and yet modded up as insightful.
(Offtopic)e sidentofindia.nic.in) President's website was running MS windows sometime back. Now that runs on Linux.
According to netcraft (http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.pr
Good work.