Indian State Encourages Microsoft Removal

cultrhetor writes "The New York Times reports that the communist government in the Indian state of Kerala is trying to remove Microsoft from its public institutions, as part of a campaign against monopolistic corporations. From the article: 'schools and public offices across the state are being encouraged to install free software systems instead of purchasing Microsoft's Windows programs. "It is well-known that Microsoft wants to have a monopoly in the field of computer technology. Naturally, being a democratic and progressive government, we want to encourage the spread of free software," M. A. Baby, the state's education minister, said by telephone.' The government is not banning Microsoft, but it is actively encouraging all 12,500 public schools in the state to install Linux."

Comments

Boo

[rm999]

Kerala is a communist state - they like to tell their citizens what products they can and cannot use (like the recent ridiculous coke and pepsi ban.) This is nothing to be proud of.

Re:Boo

[rm999]

You and about 10 other people missed the point of my post. I don't care if they are elected, that has nothing to do with anything.

Explain why they *banned* coke and pepsi... Most of the other indian states simply stopped serving it in their schools. Kerala banned it. They are anti-western business. They are communists.

Re:Boo

[rm999]

A. That makes it a communist state. It is a state, run by communists. Are we really going to argue over the wording of all this? Even the article summary calls them communist.
B. Coke and Pepsi have shown the original pesticide study to be flawed (this is not surprising, because it was run by an interest group that has repeatedly shown itself to have an anti-west slant). Indians have a tendency to be VERY anti-west (I know this I am Indian), and my main point was this anti-microsoft action is an example of that. Kerala is especially bad at this, and this can directly be linked to the communist thing. It is sad, it is keeping foreign investment out of India. China, a communist country, has been more west-friendly than the world largest "democracy."

I am tired of the moderation system on slashdot. My original post had some valid points, but I am a "troll" because I dared disagree with an anti-microsoft action. I was then inundated with 10 less-than-insightful comments that all said the same basic thing, either missed my point or the point in general, and then half those posts were modded up... Whatever.

Re:Boo

[Gli7ch]

Indeed.

What's the difference between being told to do something as government policy as opposed to having consent engineered by the liberal media? At least elected officials make the calls instead of someone like Murdoch telling us what we think because he has more money.

Is that Mumbia or Bombay Police, Exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always get those places mixed up!

Re:No - it is not single-party communism

[Anonymous Coward]

>the communist government of Kerala was actually democratically elected

so was the national-socialist government of Germany.

Preposterous

[spysmily1]

How can a country attack the same company that hires their civilians over Americans? Or at least employ individuals that speak a dialect of English that I can understand for their customer support.

Maybe now they'll start hiring someone that customers can understand and not waste 60 minutes just deciphering their code. But what is likely to happen is that they'll start hiring from some other country that horribly rapes the English language.

Sad

[Meor]

That's an unfortunate step backwards for that country.