Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Don't hate India, hate your By-the-Big-Corporation-for-the-Big-Corporation government that would rather take advantage of the cheap resources/labor that a caste (India) or communist (china) or oppressed (insert favorite 3rd world shithole here) society provides, than invest in its own people's economy.
Your argument is based on purely technical usability grounds. Whatever side you take it is only relevant as an argument against the inherent superiority/inferiority of Open Source software production. For those of us who don't want to be enslaved by the software we use yr argument is completely irrelevant.