[Fsf-friends] NEWS: Sun Microsystems pledges $300 million donation to India

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

First Microsoft megabucks, now Sun's. Given that giving copies of software 
licences is only a notional transfer, one could debate the real value of 
such "donations".

Incidentally, does anyone have an idea of what must be the worth of Free 
Software "donated" to India over the years? Billions of dollars? 

At the end of the day, it all depends on how one values it. FN

- - - - - - - 

Sun Microsystems pledges $300 million donation to India

>From Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, Mar 20 (IANS) Sun Microsystems, a global giant in computer
networking, Thursday said it would donate software worth $300 million for
non-commercial usage to Indian education institutes.

"The donation will be with respect to online training for universities and
academic use," Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer of the
U.S.-based Sun Microsystems told media persons here.

McNealy, on a three-day visit to India to boost Sun's market presence, said
the donation would help raise the level of IT research in the country and
would encourage widespread adoption and use of all its products.

He said India and China had the potential to be growth engines with their
remarkable growth rates as compared to Japan, the U.S. and Germany, whose
growth was flat for the last few years.

McNealy promised more investments in India, especially in research and
development and education and training to tap the country's vast IT talent
pool.

Reacting to reports that the open source Linux was badly affecting Sun's
business, McNealy said: "I cannot disagree with that more. The company that
is going to be hammered by Linux is Microsoft."

He said Sun Microsystems believes in offering value added and packaged
services on open source technology. McNealy said Sun was keen to work with
Indian firms to develop cheap personal computers running on Linux.

--Indo-Asian News Service