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Indian Government Keen on Open Source
manugarg writes "The Indian government is distributing free CDs of localized open sorce softwares like Firefox, OpenOffice.org etc. to encourage the use of computers across the country. ZDNet reports, 'The Indian government's decision to ship free software in this way likely will be a blow to Microsoft, which plans to release a low-cost version of Windows in India soon. Microsoft originally hoped to release its Windows XP Starter Edition--a low-cost, feature-restricted version of Windows XP--by the end of March, but it's now aiming for a June release.'"
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
/tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start. OK, run the Quake 3 installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on quake3.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Windows XP Starter Edition is the stupidest idea ever...
I know you weren't passing a judgment, but the number of languages in a country is not about a "need." It's more about the diversity of cultural/ethnical heritage. Also, I imagine the recognition of different languages as "official" probably contribute quite a bit to the preservation of different culture/ethnicity and improve political relations between them.
I'm all for cultural diversity but what struck me about it was that if India is anything like Ireland, there will always be someone demanding the govt provide this service ot that in Gailge. For 2 languages its a pain but doable, 22 languages though I would have though would lead to an administrative nighmare.
I assume Hindi is accepted as standard language so people can actually communicate with each other.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Well this is good to hear, but the biggest problem in India is software piracy--as long as people continue to get WinXP and MSOffice cdroms for less than a dollar, I don't see how their (our) ignorant minds will agree to trash Microsoft and go open source...
... has actually worked with the Government of India. Suggesting that they have a single preference to something is like suggesting that all beer tastes good. (have you tried that stuff from the UK?).
The GoI is many millions of people scattered through hundreds of local, regional and national departments. The likelihood of seeing a common policy position through all those independent individuals is slim.
The GoI will continue to grow its IT capability through as many channels as possible, promoting many different technologies, of which Linux will be one and Windows will be another. Market forces pretty much make the selection from there forwards.
The OSS community has been all to quick to jump up and down heralding the wonders of other government decisions in the past... there is a lesson that needs to be learned though, things like this are just one small step on a much longer and much more complex journey.
There is still a lot of work to be done...
Linux is free as in chai in India, but so is Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition.
;)
The localization is the key feature here, and has nothing to do with price. But watch for the 100's of posts about cost anyway
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Um, what war plagues India? Border skirmishes with Pakistan? War plagues the American heartland more than it plagues India...
Anyway, hippies amuse me. What is the only way to deal with starvation? Money! How do you make money? By spending less, and making more. Linux should help the Indian government do both.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Not that I'm a big fan of outsourcing because it totally sucks for those of us left in the tech industry in the U.S., but...
By worrying about things such as computers and development models, India is vastly improving its economic situation, raising the standard of living for its citizens and enabling itself to provide basic necessities of which you speak.
If I were Inidan, I would see their (our, I guess, if I were Indian) progress over the past decade as an extremely hopeful sign of economic power that the country has never known before; perhaps even strong enough someday soon to compete with the big bad U.S. We (I'm not Indian any more, I'm referring to the U.S.) may not be the "land of opportunity" much longer, and I'll bet that India is one a lot of places that would be more than willing to take our place.
Remember how Japan dominated our auto industry over the course of less than a decade? It's very possible that we won't hold on to our software development leadership role for much longer precisely because places like India are setting their goals higher than merely managing war and poverty.
From what the article says it seems to be more about the localisation of the software than anything else, in an attempt to encourage computer use.
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People who think of India as just another country don't realize how vast and diverse it is. It's really its own continent, with over twice the population of Europe and probably twice the cultural diversity in language, custom, and religion.
If you thought about India as a federation of many different nations with their own markets, languages, and so on, you'd be closer to the mark.
It's a fascinating place and I'd like to visit it someday. India is an enormous and invaluable repository of human culture and history.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
More exposure to tech creates better techies.
Exposure to OSS includes the ability for the exposee to peep under the hood, and have a tweak, if one is that way inclined. And in a country of 1.4 thousand million, (or "billion" as americans insist on calling "thousand million"), more that one person is going to be that way inclined - Increasing the IT savvy of the people can only be good for the economy in the future.
Furthermore, extending the interface to all 22 official languages in India is going to be very useful and poplular, and expensive for closed source software companies to duplicate.
I wouldn't be suprised if there is also a lot of interest in these applications by expatriot Indians interested in bringing up multi-lingual children. (And Sri-Lankans, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis for that matter).
I hate Windows and I'm actively trying to get my Linux desktop working. To achieve this, I need it to run all my current programs or equivalent (audio, video, file sharing and programming languages).
My current experience has shown that this task may require the following:
* search for obscure drivers hosted on sites shut-down years ago. * delve into myriads of configuration files (and or GUIs) each with its own (sometimes arbitrary) syntax, even for the most trivial app. * risk messing your OS with a recompile. * read dozens of pages worth of howto webpages that may or may not apply to your machine, man pages and non-sensical error logs among other things, none of which are sure to be worth your time (either because you are looking in the wrong place or because it's something completely arbitrary).
In other words, stuff no normal user is going to bother with (or be able to achieve).
So far it's been 2 weeks and have only been succesful in the audio and programming language categories and it has not been easy. I have run into all sorts of problems since the installation process that have forced me to look into stuff no regular user would bother dealing with. And some things don't even have a solution or workaround such as not being able to write to NTFS partitions due to the current state of the NTFS driver.
To some point I enjoyed working with those problems, but it got ridiculous at times. Part of this is not Linux's fault, for example, many 3rd parties are only interested in Windows, forcing Linux developers to reverse engineer stuff on their own, the results sometimes being stuff that works, but only as a complete hack (in the ugly sense of the word).
Meanwhile, Windows (for the desktop, most of the time) just works. Sorry but it's true. Perhaps I have run into so many problems because I'm not yet a good hacker, but I got the impression that there is a lot of ugly patchwork in Linux, maintained by a few people who stop working on the project when "it's no longer the best use of their time". Sorry, but Linux has a LONG way to go.
Maybe once it becomes more popular with events such as the one described in this article there will be a greater development effort into it.
Economists amuse me as well. The only way to deal with starvation is food.
my other sig is a 500 page novel