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Is Linux Improving Life Of Poor In India?
mood6 writes "Linux Journal has a nice article on Automating Government with e-Governance. It discusses Linux usage by the Indian government to improve the lives of the rural poor (interesting look at how the IT boom in India is benefiting the poor). The article covers some of the difficulties in deploying Linux in non-English languages for government usage. Good read for those looking at Linux in e-Governance projects and a good follow up to a previous article by Tom Adelstein. In support of full disclosure: I wrote the article and the platform was developed by Delixus, my current company."
Gandhi was swept into office, until she declined it, by the poor who felt left out of the economic boom. One of these observations disagrees with the other.
If linux has been helping the poor, it wasn't very much in their eyes.
He holds an MBA in Information Technology and a BA in Economics and frequently speaks on the topics of Linux and offshore outsourcing.
;)"
:D
and here is the root of the problem... Economists always seek commoditization and Linux is a very difficult product to commoditize. The very breadth of Linux, and cornucopia of environments\applications that the term refers to makes it a very difficult thing to quantify.
Also, note that the trend of outsourcing is pretty much technology independent, and recognizes that the people are the expensive part of the equation.
In short, I guess the answer is "Well, maybe, but that's not Linux's fault...
and I can't wait to see how the slashbots reconcile an outsourcing expert talking up Linux
...but only because the only way things can go for the poor of India is up. When you're poor and live in a 3rd world country it basically doesn't take much to make your life a little better. (note: this does not mean good). Free software means reduced administration costs for any organisation/government trying to help these people.
All other things being equal:
Poor + something good for free = still poor but a little better off.
The Indian "IT boom" is at least partly the result of outsourcing and paying coders a hell of a lot less money than they should be earning given the effort they're putting in. Thing is if you're scratching in the dirt trying to find a feed, you just aren't in a position to turn work down no matter how bad. So yeah their life is improved from poverty to slavery. They won't starve but they sure as hell aren't free to prosper.
Just so I'm clear I'm in favour of the use of free (as in beer) software in a poor country, just not in favour of outsourcing (which is what I attribute India's IT boom to).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I wonder where you looked? Linux is very common in universities here. I know for a fact that in the last year a large number of businesses, both IT and otherwise, have been switching employees to linux. Linux usage is definitely higher here than in the U.S.
The IT boom has definitely helped all sections of society. Small companies greatly benefit from pervasive telecommunications, infrastructure that they couldn't have dreamed of a few years ago. Lots of villages (this is second hand info, I've never been to one) have an "internet hub" where farmers, take the help of an operator to learn about modern methods of agriculture, or compare prices in their locality to get the best prices etc.
Could you define "recent"? The not-running-Linux part I can understand....usage of Linux is still pretty low here in India...but Windows 95 and 98? Please...In the past year or so, I must have seen maybe 5 machines running Windows 98, and none at all running 95...this includes two companies I've worked with, and about 500 computers at the campus where I'm studying (including students' personal computers, not just lab computers)...
Btw, on campus, not a single person is running on Linux....quite a few dual-boots, though...
You're probably not all that far off. Ultimately, has their standard of living improved through technology? If so, what is the cause? This is the question that should be asked, and see what answer results. Asking "did Linux improve the quality of life?" is extremely biased and reeks of those paid "studies" Microsoft puts out. Scientific method, anyone?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I'm a US born Indian, so I have a good idea of what both US and Indian cultures are like. I'm also an Engineer, so I know a fair number of technical people in both countries.
Recently, I spent four months touring India, top to bottom, east to west. I can tell you that the *VAST MAJORITY* of people there use pirated copies of MS software.
Most of the people I encountered, even people in "IT" programs at colleges, were only aware of MS products. Most had not a clue what Linux or FreeBSD were. When I installed Mozilla on their machines they didn't even know web browsers other than IE existed...they though that MS invented the web browser. Exceptions to this ignorance were those at the absolute premier educational institutes and some in industry but by percentage it was very very *very* small.
Also, I think the parent is wrong on one point, usability is actually a big factor. After all, when you install Linux and something doesn't work, the majority of us spend time on-line searching for answers (i.e. why does LILO give me "LI"?).
If a dial-up connection isn't available (or even reliable) how do you troubleshoot? How do you download kernel sources or even 1 - 2MB packages on unreliable software-based 56k modems that connect at 21.6 kbps?
The reality is that most people there are fine with a half-assed Win98SE based installation. Most home users, even those of affluence with fast P4s, don't realize all the different things PCs can be used for. For them e-mail, simple word processing and older DOS games are the extent to which they use it.
And as for Linux helping farmers, I have to cry nonsense. Much of time I spent was in vasty rural areas (agricultural villages where a lot of my family is) and I can tell you finding someone with a good telephone connection is rare let alone someone with even a 286 PC...
Read the book "Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Tahir Shah, Trashotron.com for a revealing look into India's culture. From this account's viewpoint Linux would be of very little use to a large portion of India's population. It could be used perhaps to support the rail transportation sector though.
Visiting India is an eye-opening experience. I was there earlier this year. I've seen poor areas in Vietnam, China, Peru, etc. None of those compared to some of the sights in India where children play in beaches covered in rubbish (I don't mean a few scraps, I mean that the sand is literally under a two foot layer of garbage), frolic in water that is absolutely soup-full of rubbish.
In train stations, it's hard to even move because the number of people is just incredible. Overnight, thousands of people sleep on the floors of stations. It's hard to walk through, stepping amongst and even on bodies.
In Bangalore (known for its IT businesses) the main train station had *one* computer in the ticketing area where travellers could check their seat numbers. You can imagine the line...
Even booking a train ticket 5 days in advance, you come across trains with waiting lists 30-100s over-subscribed. On one occasion, we assumed we were booking with time to spare only to find this sort of situation, and we were forced to fly from Kochi to Mumbai so that we wouldn't miss our flight onwards.
Wages are obscenely low. One could go over there on a measly Western wage, live in luxury and have 10 full-time staff (chefs, drivers, cleaners, etc) and barely notice a dent in their income.
You will walk into a restaurant and be waited on by about 8 people. Service staff nearly always outnumber diners. It comes down to the fact that a billion people *have* to be employed somehow.
By all means, implement systems that speed up processes (because they are ridiculously slow in India) but don't remove any potential to employ more people. And I think that a wonder-system based on Linux could have limited appeal in a country that absolutely *lives* on taking forever to accomplish simple tasks. They're smart people, but FFS Indians have ludicrously difficult processes.
I'm not shitting you that I say that in a train station, you need to get a ticket booking request form, not to book a ticket (that'd be too obvious), but just to request a ticket booking form. Desks, queues, forms, meticulous, pains-taking handwriting -- that's just India!
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Oh, and I should add that the rail department in India has a pretty decent web site that allows you to check departures and routes and find out how many tickets are available (or NOT available usually) on a train, or how far a route is over-subscribed BUT you still come across thousands and thousands of people pushing and shoving in lines at the station. It's an art-form.
;)
The first person that implements booking queues and a means of pushing in within this e-governance... well, they'll probably land a contract over there.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
This is very true.
I was in India in the fall of 2002, and I remember buying a full version of warez'd Windows XP, Office XP, and a host of other warez programs on cd on the streets of Bombay. For 150 rupees a cd (about 3 dollars, and i probably overpaid!).
The most amusing part was that the clearly pirated cds had 'copyright 2002' writen on them. There is almost no visible copyright enforcement in India that i have noticed, and the very notion of it does not seem to be very prevalent in Indian culture. For an example of this, i have found that many c# articles have been plagarized, usually following a scheme of 1 western author to n Indian authors. I am not implying that the majority of Indian developers disregard copyrights, but in my experience a disproportionate minority do
What the hell are you talking about? Most of the rural poor are farmers and have enough to eat what they do not have is enough to sell because their plots of land are extremely small. Like most third world/developing nations the problem is switching over from farming to industry or the service sector. Yes you might find someone going hungry but they will be in the cities not the rural areas.
Wow. Yet another armchair India expert.
In India, right to education is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Education in India is highly subsidised.
Health care in India - do you know that people from UK etc. are coming to India for major surgeries etc. because it is cheap in India? Yes, there is a shortage of doctors per thousand population, but what doctors are present are of the highest calibre, and the hospitals are among the best in the world.
Food, clothing, & shelter come before Linux, OpenOffice, & cheap Internet.