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Sri Lanka Declares an Open Source Week

AnuradhaRatnaweera writes "Sri Lankan Government has declared (Google cache) the week starting from the 5th of September as the National Free and Open Source Software Week. The FOSS Community, Government's ICTA and the industry are working together to organize the week's events including the FOSSSL Conference and Asia Open Source Symposium. The week has been selected to end (well, almost) with the Software Freedom Day."

11 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Link City by kevin_conaway · · Score: 4, Funny

    See here for why its a bad (and extremely annoying) idea to make every other word in the summary a link.

  2. wow.. editors.. really.. by peculiarmethod · · Score: 3, Funny

    AN Open Source Week. Seriously.. are we outsourcing editorial work to India, too?

    --
    ** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
    1. Re:wow.. editors.. really.. by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe "AN Open Source Week" in a country where open source has really had an impact on society? I don't know the situation in Sri Lanka very well, but I can well imagine that it's a place that would welcome (cheap and easy to adapt to the local language) open source software over (expensive, and you're dependent on the developer) proprietary software.

      Besides, how many other places you know of have an official open-source week, or even day? It's not like this is the 10,000th repitition of an old theme (unlike some other stories we get to see here).

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    2. Re:wow.. editors.. really.. by Coneasfast · · Score: 3, Informative

      are we outsourcing editorial work to India, too?

      uh, since when is Sri Lanka in India

      they are 2 seperate countries,
      know your geography, read a book.

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  3. In other news by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Funny

    Slashdot announces a gramer/spelink wek

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  4. This sounds like terrorism. by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they celebrate open source and free software, they're essentially attacking proprietary and costly software. And if you're not paying for software, you're hurting American business. And if you are hurting American business, you're a terrorist.

    Time to attack that piddly nation and that fat lazy western science fiction author!

  5. Wow! by Musteval · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now that Sri Lanka supports open source, 2005 is sure to be the year of the Linux desktop!

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    Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
    1. Re:Wow! by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ``Now that Sri Lanka supports open source, 2005 is sure to be the year of the Linux desktop!''

      Maybe in Sri Lanka it is. And frankly, it would be a very welcome development. Westerners may be able to pony up two times the price of the hardware just to get MS Windows and MS Office, but I can imagine Sri Lankans cannot. F/OSS can really change the landscape and provide more people with access to computers.

      Plus, if somehow the whole country were running Linux, soon the missing applications would have to be developed. You know, the ones that only 5% of the people use, and therefore don't get the mindshare of things like browsers and office suites, but that are nevertheless critical to businesses?

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  6. Re:Sri Lanka? by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ``thats a really powerful ally to have in the movement.''

    Yes, why not? Can you imagine a better argument for the practicality of open source than a whole country running on it? That could shut up the "I would like to use Linux, but it can't do X" crowd simply and effectively.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  7. Re:In other news... by Mr2cents · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't know what your problem is, I use Linux exclusively for over 5 years now and I get everything done without any problems.

    Then today the family got called together for a problem with my sister's WinXP pc. When I arrived my father was already running a virus scanner, and it had detected a trojan. So I wanted to open a browser and check it out. Problem: the scanner window was always on top. Great (it soon became clear the software was full of UI bugs).

    Then my sister started complaining that some games didn't work, and mentioned something about DirectX versions. I simply told her I don't know and I don't WANT to know. After all these years, DirectX STILL has those problems??

    So tell me again why XP would be superior? I think there are gems and horrible apps on both platforms, and if you don't know what you're doing you're screwed anyway whatever platform you run. I mean, as soon as something goes wrong they become dependant on the nearest computer geek they can find. I'm sure 90% of the /. crowd repairs the Windows computers of their family, friends, and neighbours.

    --
    "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
  8. Cool by MarkWatson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sorry for this obvious observation: why would any small country not want to use open source?

    The only possible answer would be to be compatible with the world of all-things-Microsoft, but OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, etc. have good compatibility when you need it.

    I am very much of a computer nerd so using Windows, Linux, and OS X all on a dayly basis does not bother me, but for 'normal people', multiple learning curves are too big of a hit on productivity.

    Start kids off in grade school with a reasonable Linux distro like (for example) Ubuntu with OpenOffice.org (or a lighter weight word processor on limited computers), and save money and build up local infrastructure and capabilities.

    For large companies in the US and Europe, I could (if I wanted to, which I don't :-) make arguments for my standardizing on Windows Desktops is a good idea - but, for developing countries open source IT infrastructure is the best.