Bridging India's Digital Divide With Linux

Kinnu provides a pointer to this story about India's increasing use of Linux. They mention a battlefield PDA running Linux, making Linux the standard OS for students, and some more about the Simputer.

Comments

If they can do it, why can't we!

[untwisted]

This sort of thing really needs to hit america. Its really hard to convince americans (even computer science students) to even look at linux. They have windows so pounded in to their heads they won't even look at something else. I'm glad that the rest of the world is starting to pick up the ball though, eventually we won't be able to avoid it here in america (unless it ends up like the poor, poor metric system)

Re:If they can do it, why can't we!

[Perl-Pusher]

I have a brand new iMac and a powerbook. I would not say it's "better" than linux. I also have a linux x64 system that is faster, alot cheaper (home built) and the interface (KDE) in my opinion is just as easy as the Mac. My wife and kids found adjusting to kde easier than the shift to Mac. OSX is a nice operating system, but it is not perfect, there is no perfect OS for everyone everywhere. OSX is not better than Linux, it's just different. You can take a person who has mastered Office 2000 on Windows and watch them get totally befuddled on OSX. There is still a learning curve and the curve is less going from windows to kde in my experience, mileage may vary. After several months my family still leave programs running on the Mac because they just closed the window! In addition, linux is inside the Linksys router, and nobody not even me really cares because it's totally unobtrusive.

My wife likes to play lbreakout2 and klickety. My daughter like kstars and gnome-mahjongg. Those came from linux, they were just re-compiled for the Mac under X-windows thaanks to projects like Fink. That's why they use linux, it runs under x86 and almost every other common processor such as ARM!

How many PDA's run OSX? How much hardware is supported under OSX? Your definition of better may not meet everyones definition.

Re:Inquiry about linux envy.

[R0UTE]

*BSD struggles a with hardware support, this is the main reason that people are slow on the uptake of it for applications such as this, I would be all for *BSD, I use it on a regular basis and am pleased with it however I always install it on older machines so the hardware is supported.

Tough choice...

[skeptic1]

Hmm...let's see, on one hand there's "Windows Lite" and on the other there's open, free Linux.

Is it really that surprising that India chooses Linux?

Good for OSS projects

[bvankuik]

Imagine if the vast armies in Bangalore and Hyderabad get to know Linux and open source software in general, and all start scratching their personal itches. This could mean a giant boost for both existing and new open source projects.

Kind of interesting...

[Sheetrock]

That 80% of development jobs are being outsourced to India but don't seem to pay enough for developers to buy their own product.

It'd be just desserts if this sinks the companies involved. They want employees to understand that a "world economy" creates natural downward forces on jobs in affluent nations but want every customer to pay like they live in the U.S.

Irregardless, managing for long-term viability is a dead concept.

Re:India should use OS X, not Linux

[Orgazmus]

Impossible learning curve of Linux?
I made an 80 year old man run linux on his first ever computer. He was writing, managing and printing documents after a couple of hours. I think it might be you doing the sucking, not linux.

Re:Inquiry about linux envy.

[miffo.swe]

Because releasing something under a BSD license will result in a big corporation taking your hard work, smack a logo on it and after having made it incompatible with your version, charge YOU for it.

BSD under a GPL license would make all the difference.

Ill hammer it in again, its the friggin license that puts everybody off, BSD is nice otherwise.