[ILUG-BOM] Re: Linux India Initiative

[vinayak_hegde at antispam]

Nikhil Joshi writes:
> ah,
> finally "bureaucratization" of Linux too.
> Welcome to India.
> guys pls dont get offended but come on lets have a pragmatic view of the 
> situation.
> While boardroom discussions are great have we given a thought to:

> 1. The local cyber-cafe wallah (who probably took a loan) and is more
>    concerned in making money than learning a new OS

That he can. My friend runs a cybercafe with diskless systems and squid as
proxy. The diskless systems were brought for dirt cheap throwaway price.
He finds it easy to manage the network bcos he uses linux. Can Windows offer
more value for money. 

> 2. The DTP shop-wallah who has Photoshop,CorelDraw,I-leap,Pagemaker....
> at his 
>    disposal, who is more concerned in getting the job done rather than fiddling 
>    with GIMP,postscript ...

Well you need to fiddle with photoshop and cousins to learn them as well.
And they get the job done well and quick. GIMP even has script-fu to get the
job quickly. If u are not satisfied with what you get u can write your
filters. Latex is really good when it comes to document foramtting so is
postscript. 

> 3. The Photo-studio guy who just bought an 15,000 worth printer with the
>    driver CD's

The printer can work and many printers do work on linux. 

> 4. The engg. (CS) student who took a paid seat, invested more than 2 lakhs and
>    (maybe rightfully) is aspiring to make big bucks by writing software 
>    for Microsoft.

You can make big bucks as well as gain fame by writing good free software.
If you work for the company, the company takes the credit for your work.
Here in most cases the programmer/designer/architect gets the credit and
fame for his work. Whats wrong in programming with Linux? In fact,You get
a better programing environment which is more standard compliant and
flexible than windows. Not to mention the hundreds of excellent tools and
and the amazing choice of programming languages. 

> I can go on and on ....
So can I. 

> Come on who are we kidding?
We are kidding no one. Linux no longer is just a hacker's OS. All of have to
accept this. Welcome to the Real World. 

> Do these ppl really care (and why should they?) if theres Linux or 
> GNU/Linux or whatever and what is the right (read purists) way of saying 
> it?

The commoner shouldn't. He should not bother about whats going under the
hood. If he ahs to then we have not done our work well. 

> The shopowners and home users already use free (read pirated) software.

There's a difference between pirated and free software. In free software
the programmer chooses to make it free. In pirated software, the user
chooses not to pay for it :) and also using pirated software is unlawful. 

> There are raids on the shops for storing pirated movies/porno movies.
> Never heard of a raid for using illegal software.

Read the papers regularly dude. There are raids on s/w piracy vendors.
Just ask the vendors on Lamington Road. 

> Just take a walk outside VT station 
> You'll get a Win XP cd for 100 bucks flat. (In fact one of my friends who 
> is a real good bargainer got it for 80 bucks ;)
> Kinda cheap for a Microsoft OS right ?

M$'s crappy software is worth just that. On second thoughts maybe less. 

> These discussions IMHO are just intellectual exercises and nothing more.
> People who know/are interested in Linux are already using it.

What about those who don't know?? IMHO these discussions are not just
intellectual exercises. 

> While the step is very welcome it would be really good to see the lowest 
> denominator using Linux apart from scientists,sarkari babus,geeks ...

Thats why we need the FS/OSS movement. 


****************
Vinayak Hegde
APGDST Student
NCST-JUHU
****************