[Fsf-friends] this may be off topic but ..

[Kush]

Hi all,

I was wondering if the computing movement in India has some sort of plan 
for putting information on the web about computer pioneers and leaders 
etc in India or from India, who have done some amazing things or are 
doing amazing things in the field of computers or technology.(examples 
could be pioneers of the cdot rural exchange etc when cdot was formed) 
This would really help increase the number of people attracted to 
computers and open source computing (or free software ) by giving pride 
and recognition to the best in the field and also help bring some sort 
of community culture.

We should build this as part of our folklore on the lines of the hacker 
culture in the elite US universities in the 70s etc.  There is a site 
for amazing stories about India called www.goodnewsindia.com but it is 
too generalised and not technology related.

I know atleast 3 stories of great work done by people of Canadian 
origin(RIm-- blackberry phenomena, QNX real time OS from waterloo univ, 
APL or J by Ken Iverson) but very little about Indian achievements 
(except Vinod Khosla's being one of the 4 who started Sun microsystems 
and Sabeer Bhatia who started hotmail). The germans, italians, french, 
chinese and the japanese and now even the south Americans, Korean etc 
take so much pride in being leaders in specialised areas of the open 
source movement whereas we don't hear much of our pioneers.


Kush