Thanks to Shankarshan M for posting this on FLOSS-Today, a mailing list to
keep you in touch with what's happening on the Free/Libre and Open Source
Software front in India. FN
---------- Forwarded message ----------
BANGALORE, JAN. 24. Suddenly India seems to have popped up on the
radar of the global movement towards a free-and-open software regime,
and its best-known avatar, ``Linux'' last week saw three of the
world's leading evangelists of Open Software converge on India.
First to come here was Jon ``Maddog'' Hall, Executive Director of
Linux International, a non-profit association of computer vendors,
which supports and promotes the Linux operating system.
Here to assist at the launch of a new made-for-Linux-only mid-range
server from Silicon Graphics Inc, Maddog's message at his press
interaction in Bangalore was simple: Linux is set to swamp the
desktops of the corporate world soon. How soon? He gives it two
years. Headline writers in Australia, where Maddog moved after his
India tour are having a field day playing on his name and the
chorus line of a famous Noel Coward ditty during the height of the
British Raj here
(``Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun'').
ComputerWorld headlined last week: ``Maddog and Linuxmen go out in
the desktop sun''.
Next to land here, was Matthew Szulik, the head of Redhat, the
company that sells the world's most successful distribution of Linux.
He began his India tour by calling on the President, Abdul Kalam, and
told this correspondent: ``I was very excited to hear at first hand,
his vision for India by 2020 and was thrilled to see his deep
interest in what open source software could do to realise this
vision''.
Mr. Szulik was here at the same time as the free software movement's
most visible and vocal advocate, Richard Stallman, who told the World
Social Forum in Mumbai: ``Copyright is intolerable in the age of
computers. People should be free to share''.
Now in Kerala, on what is now almost an annual visit, Mr. Stallman is
slated to have meetings this week with both legislators on both sides
of the political spectrum to drive home his view that the state
would benefit by realising all its e-governance goals through the
free and non proprietary route.
Why are all these advocates of software freedom, suddenly heading
here? One possible answer is the perception that huge markets are set
to open here.
In an interview with C/net recently, Martin Fink, author of the book
``The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source'' says: ``In
developing countries that don't have a Windows legacy like India
and China and the Eastern Bloc we see some pretty significant
volumes.
However, he adds that while open software may provide solutions in
the enterprise sector, the Linux desktop is unlike Windows not
mature and adds that it is ``an area where hype is ahead of reality
by orders of magnitude''.
http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/25/stories/2004012501131100.htm
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