[FSF India] One more template letter to the Govt
Rajkumar S.
fsf-india@gnu.org.in
Thu, 9 Aug 2001 22:19:06 +0530 (IST)
Hi all,
I am attaching one more letter which was drafted quite some time back
for the Govt of Kerala by the then Trivandrum "Linux" user group. I
guess it has some important points we can add to the Raju's letter.
Please understand that this is quite old letter and some facts may be
outdated.
raj
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{hyperref}
%\usepackage{garamond}
\begin{document}
\section{TODO ( not in the order of importance)}
\begin{enumerate}
\item Support options
\item Training
\item A profile about the business practices of Bill Gates and MS
\end {enumerate}
\section{Introduction}
On 8th June there was a news item in the press stating, as part of
computerisation in different institutions under the Govt of Kerala,
the Public sector undertaking C-DIT had made contract with the
Microsoft Corp India Ltd. It will be a huge project involving large
amount of money and having long term effects. In fact the project can
be implemented with lesser cost using a technologically superior
product named Linux.
Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by
a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in
Finland. Linux is often considered an excellent, low-cost alternative
to other more expensive operating systems. In addition to being
cost-effective, it is constantly being updated and refined with the
latest technologies. As Linux gains greater acceptance throughout the
computing industry, more and more companies are supporting Linux via
both application and hardware compatibility.
\section{Technical Superiority}
The days of ``one size fit all'' are gone. IS mgrs should choose the
right tools to do the right job. So all the platforms should be able
to interact with each other seamlessly and there is not a single
platform including Linux that is the right solution. None other than
Microsoft knows this better. Since they are using Apache (The most
popular web server in the world) to power Hotmail, Microsoft's online
portal.
This is a transcript of a web client with the Hotmail server which
proves the point.
\begin {verbatim}
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 16:50:58 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b
Cache-Control: no-cache
Expires: Mon, 01 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
<html>
<head>
<title>Hotmail - The World's FREE Web-based Email</title>
\end{verbatim}
Three main char that a business OS should have are
\begin{itemize}
\item stability
\item security
\item support
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Stability}
Unices has been around for more than 3 decades and is widely field
tested. Linux boxes have reported uptimes in years
\footnote{(any egs/citations? } and are very mature.
Linux do not belive in the policy of ``Put out bad SW, Have users
sufer, make them pay for support''. Linux software, due to the open
nature under go extensive peer review and beta testing so that chances
of bug is limited. Once any bugs are found the chances are that they
are fixed faster than a similar bug in a proprietary software.
\subsection{Completeness}
Linux is almost a complete out-of-the box solution. with almost all
the tools you need to do most of your requirments from Internet and
Intranet to mail to File Server. Due to its ability to emulate a Unix
machine or a Windows NT or Netware machine Linux is the ideal file
server. Using the Samba \url{http://www.samba.org} Service Linux can
mimic as a NT server. Users will still be connected to an NT server
except that NT magically performs faster with no blue-screen of death.
\subsection{Hardware requirement}
Linux can run on ridiculously low end hardware. So this would not
require the Govt. to ``junk'' the costly hardware every few months to
install the upgraded software. \footnote{(We can put in the min HW
requirement of Linux/NT for some common applications. Also we can
trace the increse in the HW requirement for NT over the versions) }
Another important fallout of this is that Linux will beat many of the
OS on identical HW by margins that no longer seems funny.
\section{Social and Economic Factors}\footnote{or a better title}
Linux is a completely free reimplementation of the POSIX
specification, with SYSV and BSD extensions (which means it looks like
Unix, but does not come from the same source code base), which is
available in both source code and binary form. Its copyright is owned
by Linus Torvalds, \url{torvalds@transmeta.com} and other
contributors, and is freely redistributable under the terms of the GNU
General Public License (GPL). A copy of the GPL is included with the
Linux source; you can also get a copy from
\url{ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/COPYING}
\subsection{Meaning of FREE software}
Linux is not public domain, nor is it ``shareware''. It is ``free''
software, commonly called freeware, and you may give away or sell
copies, but you must include the source code or make it available in
the same way as any binaries you give or sell. If you distribute any
modifications, you are legally bound to distribute the source for
those modifications. See the GNU General Public License for details.
Linux is still free as of version 2.0, and will continue to be free.
Because of the nature of the GPL to which Linux is subject, it would
be illegal for it to be made not free. Note carefully: the ``free''
part involves access to the source code rather than money; it is
perfectly legal to charge money for distributing Linux, so long as you
also distribute the source code.
Their are many implications for the access to the source code. These
do not matter much for an individual but when a government is using
this it assumes serious proportions. \footnote{Can some one write a
para about this}
\subsection{ Perils of Monopoly}
The main revenue source of many companies are the corporate and govt
institutions which buys software in large quantities. Business savvy
companies will first give away software in a reduced or in a
subsidized rate. They are doing this in order to entice the clients in
to their net. Buying software is not like buying any other product. It
involves along with lot of money a larger investment in the form of
training and other custom made software. So once the govt decides on
the core OS for the computerization program it cannot change it let us
say after 5 or 10 years.
At this point we will get to see the real face of the software
company. It will then start to act as a typical monopoly since it is
very sure that we do not have any other option other than to succumb
to its commands. It starts to ask for exorbitant prices for the
software upgrades. It will force us to use its other software by
changing the protocols of its servers. Microsoft is particularly
notorious in this regard. They are known to use their monopoly in one
field of computer industry to kill the competition in the other
field. An anti trust case is already going on in this regard in the US
courts and MS was ordered to pay a huge amount of money to Netscape
communications as damages it faced due to the illegal and monopolistic
trade practices of Microsoft.
\subsection{Catch them early}
One of the highlites of the contract with the Microsoft is their offer
for training of the faculty of the colleges. Although this may be seen
as some thing very useful for us we should be aware of the hidden
danger of behind this. The people whom the MS is going to train are
the people who are going to mould the future of this country. So if
they can be brain washed into the MS fold then half the battle of MS
will be won.
All the professors and lectures of this state will have their minds
clogged with the MS propaganda. This will ensure that the generations
of students who are going to pass out of our institutions will not be
able to see any thing beyond Microsoft. Such a situation has the
potential of propelling us back to old colonialism in the information
age.
Linux has support for all the computer languages that one can think
about and more. In a situation where we could not satisfy basic needs
in most of our schools how can we justify spending large sum for the
latest hardware so that Windows 98 will run. The ``outdated'' computer
is a computer which became outdated since the most of the main stream
software like Windows 98 are not working on them. Even then it is
power full enough to satisfy the computing needs in college and
schools.
The MS products are designed such that that user will be unaware of
most of the inner working of the system. This will be helpful for a
casual user but Students must have this knowledge. Other wise we will
be creating users for MS products. In schools and colleges in some
western countries even students works as system administrators under
linux( see LG 32). What about our students are they not brilliant ?
\subsection{Adherence to open standards}
Internet is used by everybody in the world, using many different
products. For these products to interact Internet community has
produced some standards. With the help of these open standards (ie any
one can get a copy of these stds) any product from any company can
interact with any other product from any other company. This is very
much like the socket and plug. We are having an open standard in
this. Now consider the case of a very big company which makes all
electric accessories and sockets. Its sockets are much cheaper to buy
but you cannot put any other companies instruments in that
socket. Would you buy this socket when you build your home ? No since
if you buy this then forever you are bound to the socket producing
company. This is same situation faced by the Internet community also.
Microsoft is one of the company which is secretly sabotaging the
openness of the Internet community. \footnote{See the the Halloween
documents at \url{http://www.opensource.org/halloween}}
The rise of the Internet has been both a threat to Microsoft's empire
and an opportunity to expand it to a degree impossible before. With
various forecasters expecting between \$80 and \$160 billion in
electronic commerce by the year 2000, the Internet had become the
decisive realm of computer competition for the future.\footnote{``In
search of the perfect market'' The Economist. May 10, 1997.} The
threat of the Internet was obvious: with a twenty-year tradition of
open computing standards connecting computers of all kinds, the
Internet looked ready to make proprietary operating systems for
individual machines an anachronism.
The first action by MS to capture internet and the open world was the
creation of proprietary MS -online which failed miserably. Then came
the browser war. The browser is the main tool used for communicating
information on internet. Through its dominance in the desktop
computers it tried to destroy the competitors like netscape in
creating browsers. And thus it hoped to control the internet and by
using its very deep pockets it was able to succeed to a limited
extent.
Microsoft follows the policy of embrace and kill. It adopts an open
standard then brings a propriety extension to the std and comes out
with the clients that can understand this. This will lock out others
from the service provided by the MS servers and they will be forced to
buy the MS products which will be sold at high price.
\subsection{Training and Education }
In the networked world of computing the trained professionals are
prime requirement for the success of a Software. India is
traditionally known as a UNIX country. All our major educational
institutions will include atlest a single module on UNIX. Any person
who knows how to work under Unix can migrate to Linux with just few
days working knowledge. Linux complies to Unix standards. Self
training is also possible since most of the required information are
available with the package itself. Help is available in plenty from
global Linux community through Internet. As the Internet becoming more
popular this will be interesting and informative than conventional
methods.
Linux complies to all the relevent open standards. Since you are
working with only the products using open standards it will be easy to
migrate from Linux to all the systems which adhere to these standards.
Even MS uses these standards but as the part of their strategy they
will ``embrace and extend'' it to make it their own.
\subsection{Archival of old Information}
With the advent of computerisation and paperless office one inportant
issue people tend to overlook is the archival of old
information. Today we will be able to obtain a copy of any government
document which was brought out let us say 50 years back, and this will
remain so for future also. Once we achive full computerisation we will
not have any paper document as paper is not the best mediun for
storing data and also people will tend to ignore the printouts as they
can always be genarated. So the original source document becomes very
important, and it has to be stored very carefully.
Consider a sample document, the Kerala budjet, it will invariably be
type set in some wordprocessor like say MS Word. We will think that we
can copy it in some tape or write the file in some CD. With this the
document will be safe for let us say 2 years, since new versons of
software always comes out and it may introduce some new file format
which is incompatable with the old budget which we have written in
CD. So we may write the software also in the CD, in that case the the
document will be safe for another 5 more years. New and new changes
happens in the OS market and no one can be sure of the fact that OS
after 5 years will be able to run the software which we have written
in the CD. So we may think to write the OS also but by now you may
have got a feeling that this is not the solution.
The solution is again to go back to the open standards. All the
problems in the above para occur due to the fact that the file format
of the software is propriety. That is the reason why that particular
program was needed to read that file. If
\section{Economic viability}
\subsection{Requirments of an Operating System}
\begin{itemize}
\item File \& print
\item Application Server
\item E-Mail
\item Internet Access
\item Intranet Services
\end{itemize}
Linux can be configured to provide all the above on the single server.
NT would require 3 separate dedicated servers for e-mail,RDBMS and
File \& print and Intanet
Linux comes bundled with all the software needed for all these NT
requires separate products to provide e-mail \& Internet
access(Exchange and IIS ). File and print is provided with base OS.
Linux can be customized to the needs of the user. \footnote{ The price
comparison is given on page 94 of the march 99 PCQ ( the same one
which carried the 5.2 CD-ROM)}
\section{Successful Linux Installations in India and around the world}
ToDo
\end{document}