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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."
..is when Stallman promised the president a totaly no-cost, no-strings-attached copy of GCC for every Indian citizen. Even Bill Gates couldn't match that incredibly generous offer!!
Possibly, with GPL, India may be turning the braindrain the other way round. You often need somewhat mature code to play with in the beginning of your career, and, after all, there are hundreds of sourceforge/freshmeat projects which need to be better maintained.
Gates' view towards india is simple: Get the 15% of developers to use MS, and that'll provide the basis for MS.
Interestingly, unlike in the rest of asia, software piracy is never an issue with MS although software piracy is rampant...
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.
Not true.
A lot of govt. organizations in India today use OSS. For every area of the govt that uses Microsoft software, there is atleast one other counterpart which uses OSS.
In fact, the last time I checked, a lot of states were having budget deficits. Guess what is it that they cut down on?
I know for a fact that several nationalized banks as well as other govt agencies have switched to OSS.
You think MS would get scared merely by the "threat" of OpenSource? The reason they are really scared is because there are parts of the nation that use OSS, and it works.
Now THAT would explain why Microsoft is opening so many branches in India -- primarily because they would have the excuse of providing jobs, and to feed those jobs they would need the govts money for software.
Do not think MS would be doing this unless there is a benefit for them.
I found this section interesting:
Besides explaining the political philosophy of FOSS movement, Dr. Stallman said he also spoke to the President about the real intention behind Microsoft's plan to spread the use of computers in schools which was "akin to the colonial system of recruiting the local elite to help keep others in line.''
Nothing like digging up the ghosts of the past to help sell an idea! It seemed a smart analogy to me.
Perhaps someone should speak to the congress about Free Software in these terms - "Free software is like allowing your colony/company the independence to rule as it likes, instead of all your money being shipped to an uncaring vendor/government far away from the day-to-day concerns of your operation yet supposedly providing you relevant services to the work at hand."
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If this means the addition of a sitar track in "The Free Software Song", I'm all for it.
Maybe, but apparently even Microsoft recognizes that OSS is a feasible alternative for India. Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering.
A very old proverb says that "it's hard to be a prophet in one's own land."
For some reason, Richard Stallman is demonized in the US as some eccentric loony. Yet the rest of the world actually holds him in very high regard. I have had the fortune of listening to him speak on the issue of software patents and not only was he articulate but he was able to appeal to a large audience made up of people from all walks of life.
Even if you disagree with specific positions that RMS might take, you have to give the guy credit for standing his ground. To me the GPL is one of the cornerstones of the free software movement and its cultural and social implications will reverberate for generations.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
The site's not even slashdotted, (I hope) most of us can actually click a link (or type in the link, for IE users) and read the original article ourselves, without possibility of alteration from the karma whores.
Next the karma whores are going to start repeating the Slashdot headline and text "in case it ever gets slashdotted."
FULL TEXT OF SLASHDOT POSTING:
Stallman Goes to India
Posted by michael on Monday February 02, @02:33AM
from the exploring-outsourcing-next-version-of-gcc dept.
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."
( Read More... | 62 of 75 comments )
can I have my +5 informative now?
Communism is not a bad word here. In fact there are a couple of states which have had communist governments for much of their existence. Naturally this contributes to linux's popularity. Now don't get me wrong, all I'm saying is that the idea of sharing appeals to communists.
Our president is a cool guy. As someone already pointed out, the president is not a political figure in India. But Kalam is a respected person and gives a lot of speeches and many people listen to him etc.
Linux usage in India is definitely rather high. The obvious reason is that there are more programmers ==> more nerds etc. But its far from the only reason. Even though unauthorized copying (I won't use the p-word) is very prevalent, those buying a branded PC will still have to pay for Windows. This is a big factor in the cost conscious Indian market. So in the last 8 months, the number of OEMs pre-loading linux has exploded. Today half the PC ads I see in the paper are MS-free! I can also feel the change at the grassroots level -- neighbors, tech support etc.
The future looks bright.
They are Native Americans!
If you believe this then you're missing the point entirely. The backlash is not against "American software", it's against being locked into proprietary code and proprietary protocols.
The fact that MS believe only in the proprietary model means that they are the focus of the backlash a lot of the time - however, traditional Unix vendors like SCO and Sun are also targets of much criticism by the Open Source community.
Wouldn't that mean the loss of more American tech jobs? Aren't those lines of thinking in conflict?
Tech jobs will go to India purely because it's cheaper to hire a techie in India rather than the US or Europe. A company's decision to do that is based purely on profit and it's irrelevant whether the techies support Windows, Linux, etc.
Or is it okay to lose tech jobs, as long as those jobs are Microsoft's, and somehow that won't affect other tech jobs.???
No, it's not alright for just MS to lose jobs but please remember that it's the company's own decision to lay off its workforce, not some external factor.
I'm a firm believer in goverment taxation of profits for companies that outsource jobs outside of countries where they do the most business.
As far as I am concerned, if a company makes money in a particular country, then it has an obligation to not just take money out of that country but put something back into it like jobs and livelihoods - i.e. it should be made more expensive to outsource jobs to another country due to taxation of profits.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Um, insightful? wake up modkids.
Yes, it is restrictive. "Share and share alike" is all very well. "Use a single GPL'd function and have to give away my entire source base" is another matter.
In capitalism, the seller sets the price and the buyer decides whether it's worth it. What are you, some kind of kooky communist? Don't use the GPL'd stuff if you don't want to pay for it, don't use Visual Studio if you don't want to pay for it.
In addition, it's not a zero sum game, so if I "steal" some of your GPL'd code, you still have it, so you have no grounds to bitch about me making it proprietary.
If you make it proprietary, I don't have the legal right to it anymore; nor does anyone else. That's the sense of "having it" that's important. Idea monopolies artificially raise the price of information.
The GPL has its good points, but to say it's not restrictive is to ignore reality.
You warty troll. The GPL has but one restriction- don't use GPL'd software in the creation of proprietary software. This restriction has special network effects: it reduces the freedom of any one party from reducing the freedom of everyone else. The GPL only restricts restrictions, that's a net gain for "unrestricted" software.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
It's definitely a possibility, but people often seem to charge ridiculous amounts.
Most software isn't free as in beer. You have a choice of how to pay for it. Will you pay in money or in source code? That's the proprietary / GPL difference.
it's a bit annoying considering everyone else is getting it for nothing.
They aren't. They're paying in source code. You can pay in source code too, if you like. Or you can just not use the GPL library.
I really don't understand your problem. You seem to think that because you can read the source code of a GPL library, and download it and link it to your program without paying a penny, that you should somehow have the "right" to do whatever you like with it.
Here's a clue: the GPL is not taking away your freedom to use that library - it is giving you the freedom to use that library, if you agree not to take that freedom away from anyone else.
Maybe you should be thanking the authors for making it possible for those who can't afford huge license fees to write software, instead of cursing them for preventing you from charging huge license fees for their software.