[FSF India] Re: Lessons from the Mexican School Experiment

Pappu fsf-india@gnu.org.in
Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:25:27 +0530


On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 09:33:46PM -0700, Vivekananda Prabhu wrote:
> 
> price difference between Branded & assembled PCs. If a
> branded PC costs Rs 70-80K (unless there is a
> clearance sale), an assembled one costs around Rs
> 30K-40K.
This may be true in some cases.
> 
> Most of these grey market vendors use non-standard
> hardware manufactured in China, Singapore, Malaysia,
> Taiwan etc.
Almost all components are made in one of these countries, grey or not.

But the scenario is different from what is described here. Most branded
machines don't allow custom configuration, where as all 'assembled pc'
vendors let you choose the components you want. In any part of India,
you can easily get a complete pc (assembled), having industry standard
components that have free drivers. 

On the other hand, a branded pc maker will have agreements with some
periferal vendor and a deal with Microsoft. So it is the branded machine 
that comes with `OEM` devices with non free drivers. These components are
chosen not because of quality, but because the pc vendor gets them at a
lower price. A grey market vendor dosen't have such deals. The branded 
pc is costly not because it uses superior components (it is the other 
way round) but because of the brand name.

> Most of these hardware come only with
> Windows drivers. On many PCs it is simply not possible
> to install & run any OS other than Windows
I have seen this in branded machines more than assembled ones. Moreover,
once you have made the purchase and found that the machine has an 
un usable component, the grey vendor will gladly replace it with any
make of your choice. In a branded pc, we don't have this choice.
> 
> If Free Software movement intends to be successful in
> India there are only 2 options
> 
> 1)Identify each such hardware (there are a legion of
> them) & write Free drivers for each one of them
> (atleast most of them)
A more immediate and fruitful action would be to compile a list of
hardware with free drivers and post it where every one can see it.
This will help any one who wants to use free software make a better
choice. The driver support for the linux kernel is not that bad.
> 
> 2)Support Windows drivers
This is a frightening option.
> 
> become affordable to most average urban Indians. Most
> will go with assembled PCs as they would still be
> cheaper than Branded PCs( the grey market doesn't pay
> any taxes to govt.)
And it dosen't have costly oem agreements. You get a pc for the
price of the components + a profit margin for the vendor.
> 
> If people find they cannot run GNU/Linux on these PCs
> they will switch over to pirated versions of Windows
They already do it, not because of drivers but because of the fear
of the unknown.

bye,
pappu.