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Indian President Advises Open Source Approach
geo_2677 writes "The Indian President Dr. A Kalam has advised defense scientists to go for open-source software for software security, rather than be stuck with insecure proprietary software. Being a scientist himself, he surely knows what's good for his country." Speaking at the Indian Navy's Weapons and Electronic System Engineering Establishment, Kalam argued: "Open source codes can easily introduce the users to build security algorithms in the system without the dependence of proprietary platforms", though continues: "We should take maximum care to ensure that our solution is unique to protect our own defence security solutions implemented on open platforms." We previously reported on Richard Stallman's meeting with Dr. Kalam earlier this year.
...can be found on sarovar.org... it's one of the biggest public GForge sites out there.
The Army reading list
Uh oh. Somebody needs to get a visit from Bruce Schneier next! I suspect that his proposed unique solution would be better off if it was Open Sourced for peer review.
This is not a sig
At the very least, he should have publicly decried open source as an anti-Hindu plot. Pakistan would jump on the bandwagon immediately.
..Indian's political structure? I seem to remember that a woman was just elected as Prime Minister (a big leap for India!).
Where have you been? For that matter, hit Google News--she decided not to take up the position after heavy pressure from nationalist parties, who pointed out that Sonia Gandhi was, in fact, born in Italy.
Back on topic... enjoy.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Bill Gates: I am here to let you know that we are prepared to slash prices to keep you as a customer.
President Dr. A Kalam: Thank you! Come again!
Bill Gates: But you haven't bought anything?
President Dr. A Kalam: Thank you! Come again!
With respect to logical reasoning maybe? With repsect to scientific methods? taking the sentence out of context opens up a can of worms. leave it in context.
Take a look at our (U.S.) president. "Being a former oil tycoon and son of a former president, surely he knows what's good for his country."
I'd much rather trust a scientist, almost regardless of what type of scientist.
but seriously, to get back on topic, what would you rather use to chain your bike up. a chain that you can inspect only the links that lock together, or all of the links to make sure the chain is strong enough?
At least the tech support will be a local call for them...
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Okay, I just have to ask... what is condensed water? Is it like condensed milk; Water with most of the water taken out?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
You should see "Fog of War" and go read some more about Robert MacNamara. He was considered a technocrat who's arrogance led to some mistakes. Many of the Italian and German fascists were also technocrats. I will entirely agree that technocrats are alluring and we should look for some of those qualities in our politicians, but there is also an arrogance in putting complete faith in technocracy.
/. that technocrat is really just a modern term for bureaucrat. In fact, the modern technocracy has all of the same problems as turn of the century republics like France and Italy, where the problems were blamed on the failing of the bureaucrat.
.02 on your statement
I would say that just because someone is not arrogant when confronted by facts and figures, that does not make them a wise leader. They can be just as arrogant and blinded with facts and statistics as their justification.
Seek balance and understanding (empathy) in politicians, those qualities will let them listen to technocrats. Of course, I do want to point out the irony here on
Just my
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
A bit colonial isn't it to automatically assume that the Indian president needs an emissary from the US to tell him about open source?
Do you really think that Kalam has never thought about open source? After all he is not the president of the US - he actually has proven that he can think independently as a scientist. If you knew academic scientists you would know that they understand the value of open-source better than anyone.
A much more likely scenario is that Dr. Kalam wanted to meet with someone to discuss some technical details and get some feedback and maybe some publicity for his ideas of implementing open source. As there were noodles before Marco Polo went to Cathay and there was open source before Stallman went India...
If things go by as Dr.Kalam envisioned , Im pretty confident that Open source will gain the biggest momentum worldwide.This is because
reports that there are very few linux users when compared to linux friendly nations.ofcourse i agree this may not be prefectly linear relationship in reality.Neverthelss , a reasonable estimate
1. A majority of Indian techies, might start using some variant of linux in the upcoming years.Rigt now,Most of them are still using Windows only.{ I observed that India ranks very poor in the number of registered Linux users.}
http://counter.li.org/reports/place.php
3.Once Linux Fever is caught up in India , we could expect a good increase in the number of open source projects , growth in popularity and confidence of open source projects.This will impact other developing nations , if they would realise the vast savings of the decision.
4.MS share in India will dwindle big time.. This would affect its revenue as India is such a huge market.
5. Indian colleges then would advance to use and advocate open source platforms and resources.This would help the indian progammers extend their scope and may improve their knowledge standard.Right now , most colleges in semi urban areas use proprietary operating systems.
May be im over optimistic..
Downside:
1. MS is silently attracting the techies and indian public by offering donations to the poor,AIDS victims etc..These will go down eventually.
2.This mite stir up some greedy and filthy politicians who get good bribes from corporate leaders and may work for delay in progress.
It's still a challenge for India to come up in technological arena with the onus of poor political stress on it.
Lets see where this takes !!!
Hello , this is my way.
Which way is yours ?
btw there is no right way