[Fsf-friends] Open and popular ... FLOSS in Tamil

[Baishampayan Ghose]

Hello,
> It is claimed that this is the first such initiative by a
> company or organisation in the area of public domain Tamil
> software. A similar effort was sponsored by the Central
> Government, in which a collection of tools was acquired from
> private players and released for public consumption in a
> compact-disk form by Minister for Communications Dayanidhi
> Maran. However, none of the software included in the package
> was in open source format.
Umm? The CD contained OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox & Mozilla
Thunderbird. They are of course Free/Open Source Software. BTW, what
does ``open source format'' mean?

> Besides, the company claims that its efforts are a first in
> the Microsoft Windows-based Tamil computing environment. Most
> open-source Tamil applications are developed for the Linux
> operating system.
>
> Open-source software is software whose source code is made
> available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify or
> redistribute the source code without paying royalties or
> fees. Open source is associated with collaborative
> development, wherein developers who have access to the
> product's code correct any problems or deficiencies in it or
> add additional features, thereby helping the software to
> evolve. Many such applications are backed by a large number
> of developers from all over the world and have evolved into
> robust systems.
As I can see, the software has no license file, which means it's been
released into the Public Domain. Public Domain software rarely
evolves, in fact I can't remember any one such software which has
received active support from the community. The only one way to make
sure the software remains free and is actively developed is to release
it under a Free Software license (eg. GPL). Moreover, to compile the
source, I'd need to buy the whole MS Development suite which is going
to cost a lot. I don't see how such type of software can be of any
help to us.

> Panacea Apps comprises Mugavari (Tamil-English address book),
> Sangam Pro (SHG management package), Selvam (accounting
> software), Valluvan (documentation software), and
> Pulavan-Paalam (dictionaries).
The SangamPro app apparently bundles the MS Calculator (CALC.exe)
which I guess is copyright infringement. It's possible that the
Calculator is written by Panacea, but I don't see it's source in the
archive.

> The Source folder includes the source code of all the
> products except R4U and Valaiyodi.
In that case, both R4U & Valaiyodi are not Free/Open Source/Public
Domain Software.

> Th applications have a few bugs, but they are minor and
> should not stand in the way of encouraging such attempts. The
> country sorely needs free software and open-source
> initiatives for the Information Technology revolution to
> reach most segments of society. And it is widely accepted
> that the best way to go about achieving this is to write
> software in the language of the people and make it available
> free of cost.
The cost of the software is not the only deciding factor. To be able
to use the softwares I would need to buy a plethora of other softwares
like MS Windows, MS Access, etc. which in itself will cost a bomb. I
don't see any reason why people should use those softwares and not
OpenOffice.org2, Mozilla Firefox, AVSAP, etc. They are at least as
good as the ones by Panacea (if not better) and run on multiple
platforms. You are not bound to use Windows for that.

> It is hoped that the budding entrepreneurs behind the venture
> will do what is needed, for the collective good of the Tamil
> computing world. Panacea Dreamweavers, which is hardly a year
> old, is the brainchild of a group of entrepreneurs whose goal
> is to develop solutions for the Tamil language computing
> space, according to the founders. Their corporate philosophy
> is that Tamil language software must not place any financial
> compulsions on the end-user.
If they really want to develop Tamil software, they should take part
in projects like IndLinux, etc. and help us in localising, improving
OpenOffice.org2, Mozilla Firefox, etc. Public Domain software for
Windows may serve a short term goal, but it's certainly not a long
term solution.
Regards,
BG

--
Baishampayan Ghose
Free Software Foundation of India
b.ghose at gnu.org.in