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Bridging India's Digital Divide With Linux

Posted by michael on from the routing-around-microsoft dept.

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.

34 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Woo, background info on the front page! by garcia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is unlikely that Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, ever intended this open-source operating system to be put to military use.

    You're absolutely right. He wasn't looking to make money off of Linux. If he had, military use would have been the first place he would have brought Linux to.

    Called SATHI (short for situational awareness and tactical hand-held information, and Hindi for buddy), the 875-gram device helps soldiers coordinate with one another on the battlefield. It is one of the many spin-offs of a low-cost computer developed indigenously, the basic version of which is available on the market for about US$200.

    So a two pound device that has some sort of communication and GPS capabilities? Something like other handheld GPS units like the Garmin Rino which shows your location and the locations of others holding Rinos while having FRS radios attached. Crazy!

    While I applaud their efforts in creating these devices (supercomputers, educational computer, inexpensive computers for the masses, etc) this wasn't terribly informative or interesting. More well-known background information that could have been left off the front page.

    1. Re:Woo, background info on the front page! by anactofgod · · Score: 2, Informative

      First, I'll grant that there is a dearth of information wrt the capabilities of this SATHI unit in that article.

      But to claim that the capabilities of a unit like the Garmin Rino is sufficient coordinating actions of individual soldiers in the achievement of a specific object is to vastly understate the requirements of a useful battlefield computer.

      The stated goals and capabilities of the SATHI is a bit more complex. Whether this unit accomplishes all those goal is yet to be determined, though. That can only be determined in field trials. But it is an interesting first step.

      --

      ---anactofgod---

      "Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
    2. Re:Woo, background info on the front page! by mspohr · · Score: 2, Informative

      small correction... iQue is a PalmOS PDA with GPS, not a PocketPC /Mark

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    3. Re:Woo, background info on the front page! by anactofgod · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Hmmm...you were able to glean, from that "...press release with pictures of nothing..." all those facts related to "non-battlefield uses".

      So, apparentlly there *was* some information in that press release, after all. Who what other information can be gleaned from that "brochue" (Encore's spelling, not mine). *grynn*

      As for the "...it's nothing more than a PDA with GPS" comment -- my laptop is nothing more than a PDA with a faster processor, keyboard, bigger screen, more memory, hard drive, FireWire, etc. etc. Your point?

      *My* point in providing that link was to show that this is low-cost, ruggedized, general purpose computer with features that may (or may not) be useful to coordinating soldiers in the field. At the very least, if the Indian Army does decide to deploy these units to the individual soldiers, the soldiers will all have access to a fully featured, ruggedized computing platform that can be configured for a variety of uses.

      Contrast that with the experience of some friends of mine in the US military, who had to provide their own laptops (mostly for personal use, though some did find "unofficial, official use"), many of which failed after a relatively short period of time due to conditions on station.

      The US military is itself researching the development of battlefield computers that can be deployed at the unit level. It's stated goals are a lot more ambitious than the relatively modest ones of the SATHI developers. But I'd be very surprised if they aren't going to be viewing the Indian military's experience in this area with more than a little interest, if for nothing else then to gain some "lessons learned" from real-world, field deployed units at someone else's expense.

      For these reasons alone, I'd say the development is interesting enough to warrent reporting. And the fact that SATHI uses Linux in the provision of a real-world solution, and not a proprietary OS, is also interesting enough to warrant reporting, IMHO.

      If gentle readers will indulge me further, let me make some observations intended to actually advance the discussion, instead of holding in back thru trivialization. In observing the approaches being employed by the US and Indian military approaches to computerizing the battlefield, there appears to be an interesting divergence.

      The US military appears to be following an approach where they are building up a centralized command and control computerized structure, and then rolling out integrated systems down the chain until, eventually, the individual soldiers and sailors are integrated in the chain. The Indian military appear to be working from "the bottom up". They appear to be putting general purpose "battlefield computers" in the hands of their units without first thinking thru how to integrate all those units into a centralized backend.

      If true, it was interesting to me to hypothesize why this is the case. Even more intriguing, I think, is continuing to observe how the two systems develop, to see which method results in a more effective overall platform. It seems to me that the US military's approach is more likely to follow the mantra of "this is how we want our people to use the system, so these are the features we'll provide." The other is more likely to follow the mantra of "this is how our people actually use the system, so how can we support that?" Now, I think that *that* is very, very interesting, *especially* since this is a military organization we are talking about. The success of the latter approach will be predicated on smart people actually getting continual feedback from the end-users, and incorporating that feedback into an incremental development cycle. Sound familiar to anyone?

      And, lastly, in a related, but slightly off-topic issue... ...someone still needs to solve the battery problem.

      --

      ---anactofgod---

      "Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
  2. Still moving forward by R0UTE · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yet another large group to make use of open source. Lets just hope this trend keeps moving forward and we see many more take up the initiative, not a bad application for a free piece of software, hopefully this will show others tha tthis is one possible way forward!

  3. Re:Inquiry about linux envy. by Coneasfast · · Score: 2, Informative

    Can anybody explain why *BSD can't catch a break? Everything is "linux this" and "linux that."

    that's actually a good point. i've wondered it too. it's just as free as linux.

    i think it's because up to this point, linux has a good name in embedded devices, and freebsd is known to have problems even in some laptops.

    but i do think freebsd should be considered, especially due to it has a potential to have a smaller footprint.

    --
    Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
  4. If they can do it, why can't we! by untwisted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)

    --
    --untwisted
    1. Re:If they can do it, why can't we! by kannibal_klown · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That was the same thing at my school (except for that 1 Windows programming class using the Win32 API).

      We had to have our C and C++ programs compile on Solaris (we each had an account and could telnet in). If it wouldn't compile, you had like 1 day to fix it (in some classes).

      Before I graduated, my school bought a bunch of those thin Sun workstations for the library. They were neat, but they really needed a better UI. They were using string X-Windows or whatever which turned a lot of *nix newbies off. But, at least it always ensured I had access to a workstation since I didn't mind.

      Now, if only they had also educated me in Java...

    2. Re:If they can do it, why can't we! by Perl-Pusher · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

  5. Re:Inquiry about linux envy. by R0UTE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    *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.

  6. Tough choice... by skeptic1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  7. Right thats it... by flumps · · Score: 3, Funny

    ..I'm moving to India. I'm
    a) more likely to get a job
    b) get a better rate of pay with regards to living expenses

    and

    c) more likely to be able to use linux and not windoze at work.

    now wheres that plane ticket gone...

    --
    "So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
  8. Good for OSS projects by bvankuik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Good for OSS projects by jalilv · · Score: 3, Informative

      India already has its own Linux Distribution :-) Take a look at ELX Linux. Every couple of months, PCQuest Magazine distributes a CD with the magazine with customized version of Debian on it. The customization is good enough to be called its own distro.

      HTH,

      Jalil Vaidya

  9. Re:If there's anything worse than being Third Worl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's being Fourth World and the poor Indian folks can't pay for Windows I'm afraid.

    first of all, the story is about military embedded usage.
    secondly, tell me how many people in the western world actually pay for windows?, a huge chunk of people use an illegal copy.
    thirdly, you don't know shit about india, so don't talk.

  10. Kind of interesting... by Sheetrock · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  11. Re:India should use OS X, not Linux by Orgazmus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
  12. Recall that... by GillBates0 · · Score: 5, Informative
    The President of India Dr. Abdul Kalam is a nuclear physicist, and a renowned scholar who advocated open source in a speech given at the Indian Navy's Weapons and Electronic System Engineering Establishment last year.

    Richard Stallman also visited the President and interestingly, the President had prepared for the meeting by downloading and reading Stallman's biography from the Internet."

    For the curious, the President of India's website runs Apache/PHP on Linux.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  13. Obligatory Simpsons quote by SmokeHalo · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I think the metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
    - Abe Simpson

    --
    I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
  14. Re: The GPL?? by vettemph · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe it is being shunned because of the license. The GPL folks don't want their code being stolen by commercial interests without proper recognition and proper sharing(give back to the community). The BSD license allows the greedy to virtually steel and covet your code when it suits them. We can't win a war that way. :)
    Linux is winning the popularity contest via the GLP, no?

    --
    The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
  15. The desktop revolution by ndogg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Articles like this keep making me think that if there is ever a desktop revolution, that it will happen in a developing nation like India. They aren't quite so tied to Windows.

    --
    // file: mice.h
    #include "frickin_lasers.h"
  16. Re:India should use OS X, not Linux by kannibal_klown · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not surprised... Linux isn't THAT bad to learn. If a person wants to dedicate even the smallest amount of time, they can learn to use just about anything with a UI (console is a bit more tricky). Apps are pretty cookie-cutter now, so as long as you know how to start them you should be ok.

    I will give the anonymous coward the point that OS X is easier to learn. The UI is more polished, and there's less worry about messing with some obscure .conf file or setting. I'm not saying it's common, but it happens.

    As for cheaper than PC's... sorry. If you want, you could argue the mac-mini thing, or that the quality of a PowerBook is much better than the quality of a Dell Inspiron of the same price. But in reality, Apples are more expensive.

    As for a country choosing a platform to begin a major CIS/IS venture, linux is the obvious choice. It's free, open, and can run on older hardware. Plus, knowing the inner-workings helps a person understand a lot about computers.

    I have no problem with India becoming a information powerhouse, or with them getting consulting business. My only problem is with the companies that replace full time employees with a consulting firm in India.

  17. Linux in Military Computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    I attended the presentations on SATHI and Simputer at BangLinux 2004. According to them, one of the reasons they chose Linux was the ready availability of a lot of device drivers, ease with which they could do a remote NFS mount, an rlogin and such stuff.

    As for as the number of programmers who are using Linux, it is still a very miniscule percentage. Most of the IT companies use Windows for the desktops and the Sysadmins sometimes bullshit the management that having Linux on the desktop means more support costs. Windows and most of the apps running on it are available at dirt cheap prices for the pirated copies. Slowly, the student community is picking up Linux and are doing their academic projects on Linux. They are now having Linux in their home PCs along with Windows. However the profs in the academia are now pushing for Linux based projects. This should mean that Linux would pick up in a big way among the next generation IT workers (3-5 years from now)

    --Hemanth P.S.

  18. Freshness by gilesjuk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you are around the age of 30 like me you will remember toying with 8-bit computers, not the most user friendly and easy to use computers. No gui, no mouse and often no disk drive.

    But we loved those 8-bit machines, they were fresh, something new and exciting. Just like a PC will be to someone who has never owned a computer before. If you are starting out in computing now then you aren't likely to have 10 or so years of Windows experience behind you. You will approach things with an open mind. Windows users typically believe Linux is a very hard OS, it isn't, it's a lot more open and straight forward. It's just different to Windows like German is a different language to English.

  19. Re:Inquiry about linux envy. by miffo.swe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    HTTP/1.1 400
  20. Re:India should use OS X, not Linux by gosand · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Apple computers are cheaper than PC's. The OS X operating system can allow less educated people to use computers without the huge learning curve of Windows.

    Less educated people like Americans? And to be fair, I am an American. But we seem to be getting more and more stupid. Look who just got re-elected. We allowed, and are still allowing, companies like Microsoft to do their dirty dealings. If you ask me, the rest of the world is leapfrogging us in technology because our opinion of ourselves is too high. We need to quit believing that we are the best and that all we need to do is pray to Jesus to fix all our problems.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  21. ignorant story title by sbma44 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm glad to see Linux adoption by other countries' governments -- yes, even their militaries -- but the title to this story is just ridiculous. The idea that FOSS can "bridge" the staggering gulf between rich and poor in India just beggars belief. Let's not fool ourselves by pretending that Linux means anything to the citizens of India beyond the elite. Maybe in a few decades...

  22. More Info by tanveer1979 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since you want more info, here it is. And it is not your gps+mobile. I have played around with the device and it is actually a very very capable handheld. A friend of mine did the body design, the the specs were simple. We intend it to be used in vilages, so it should be immune to drops from about 4 feet and also immune from dust and little rainfall exposure :)

    --
    My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
    FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
    1. Re:More Info by maniac_inside · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's all OK, but do you know that
      a) The website simputer.org was last updated in 2001.
      b) That it fails to satisfy the goal of providing computing to common man in India. Where by common man I refer to the 650 million+ population who live below poverty line.
      c) That being an Indian, I have never heard anyone talking about it. Except the press which carried an article about 3 years back when simputer was not even launced.

  23. SATHI site and brochure by SoumyaRay · · Score: 2, Informative


    The official site for SATHI is: http://www.ncoretech.com/sathi/
    It contains pictures of the device and show examples of soldiers handling it.

    A complete PDF brochure for the product is available at: http://www.ncoretech.com/sathi/pdf/brochue.pdf

    It looks rugged, modern and seems to have been built with certain ergonomic principles in mind (e.g., one-handed use during battle).

  24. read the GPL, better by free2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know I should not feed this troll... but: You only have to provide sources when you distribute a GPL software to third parties. As long as the Indian Army keep it for their own use only, there is no violation of the GPL. Internal modifications without disclosure is also guaranteed by all licenses that meet the OSI standards.

  25. Language Support by Sukh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think the largest problem with India bridging the divide with Linux is (or was) poor language support. Thank fully these problems have been slowly addressed using Unicode.

    However there are still issues outstanding. All the major Indian scripts encoded using Unicode are based on Devanagari (used to write Hindi and other languages). This has caused headaches for some scripts and has made other scripts unneccessarily complex. Take for example Gurmukhi (the script used to write Punjabi) - Gurmukhi is a simple script and doesn't have the complexities involved in some other Indic scripts. However to maintain compatibility with other scripts, independent vowels are encoded seperately which is unnatural for Gurmukhi. This causes problems with typing and adds and extra layer of complexity.

    As the author of the Punjabi Computing Resource Centre I have actively been looking into such issues (others exist). However as I see it, we have been forced to accept a standard that hasn't been fully thought out for individual Indian scripts. It is a standard we can live with, but is not perfect. A lot can be blamed on ISCII!

  26. Re:The US technology dinosaur by superpulpsicle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well the original parent had a point. American lazy-ness might be the thing that saves Microsoft. People don't want to waste time install linux if they don't have to. They'd rather plan their next trip to Disney world.

    We Americans are innovative yes. But we do a half ass job following thru. We lost the opportunity to be the automobile powerhouse. Asian countries build far better Stereos, DVDs now. It's a matter of time before another country build a superior computer, OS, internet etc.

  27. Re:SATHI by yuri+benjamin · · Score: 2, Funny

    My people were building empires and writing literature when yours were swinging from trees!

    Thanks for reminding me - I've been meaning to get a copy of the Karma Sutra some time.

    --
    You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.