What is Digg?60 Comments
- gd007, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33it is a great news for us indians!
- Crypty, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31free software = smarter indian nerds = better dell tech support :)
- coolcyber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Most students know minimum of 3 languages in India.
1) English
2) Their Mother tongue (there are like 23 official languages and more than a hundred non official languages)
3) Hindi (national language) - i440, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20Free software + Indian population (1 billion?) = Lotsa free software developers. :D
Next up, China. - EasY_TargeT, on 10/12/2007, -12/+31"India plans free software for all"
So does the pirate bay - bioskope, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22oh pray tell me , why did the other countries do it then?
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16[quote]It would better if they directed and channelled their expenses to such causes rather than something like nuclear weapons just to show off to the world and your neighbor that you can do it.[/quote]
When your neighbors are China and Pakistan, you'd want to show them you can do it, before they do "it" to you. Those nukes saved India. - jms38, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20Wait people pay money for software?
- adolfojp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13"Most students know minimum of 3 languages in India."
How do you call a person who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual
How do you call a person who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual
How do you call a person who speaks 1 language? American
:-P - grimreaperev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I got some indian in me and I've been to india a couple times. (i'm reply to the dude who said why not give electricty and computers to them first). go to india and A LOT of ppl there have computers, half the houses in india are makeshift shops and almost all of them have computers. Yah electricity comes and goes but that's not the governments fault, you try distributing electricity fairly to 1billion + ppl. Most ppl buy these batteries that hook up to the house that charge up while the electricity is there and then kick in when the electricity leaves, which is usually at night (like a generator). Only problem is 2/3rds of the computer owners dont have internet. But there are tonnes of internet cafes which cost 300 rupees per 300 minutes. that's a rupee a minute which is 1/35th of a canadian dollar. I think tihs is awesome, first everyone gets free software, then everyone learns how to hack, then we take over the world!!!
- jejones, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13@Oakes: Thanks for only reading a little of the article. From later in said article:
"Although some of the third-party tools that we have included in the CD only run on Windows, the tools that we developed run on both Windows and Linux. So when Linux becomes popular, users who have been using our tools will be able to make the shift very quickly and run these tools on Linux." - Oakes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Thanks for not reading the article.
"What's more, all of the applications and tools run on Windows, while some do not run on Linux, and any move to expand computer use in one of the world's most populous countries could arguably benefit Microsoft" - UncommonSense, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Brilliant idea to advance the education of India. Although outsourcing to India has slowed down of late (due to saturated market), I can see it getting much worse in the future. Wish the U.S. would take a page or two from that country instead of pouring more money into a failed education system.
- kuljeet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Jun168,
You're speaking as if None of the kids in India have money... yes the poverty numbers are high but so is the population. Secondly it's not like everyone in America is well rounded... go check out south side chicago and stl. You'll see what I'm talking about.... there's projects and all...
It's like media showing just those Projects and the "ghetto" to the rest of the world and saying o that's how all of america is.
I've moved to India and lived there for more than 11 years. The Electricity in 2 of my mansions in different city is fine. The water is fine. The roads are fine (Oh btw, a person down the street from me bought a lamborghini and roads seem to be fine for it) :)
And last but not least.... A lot of Indian Doctors/Engineers and other science realted professionals leave India because they get paid more in countries like US. Look up any major U.S corp. they will most likely have an Indian in the board members... to name a few... IBM... Microsoft.. Sun... the list can go on.... - sanman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Hehe, don't forget computer languages -- they should count too! :)
If you think of all the different computer languages geeks know, they are contenders for being the most multi-lingual of all! - Darmichar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8In order to support the roads, water, sewer etc. you need a workforce paying taxes.
This is the proper way to do it. Spend the money you have now on education, and reap the rewards of a larger tax base down the road. The infrastructure will grow with the working class. - pixelmixer, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12AOL??? That still exists?
- sum4me, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7i will explain it to you JohnnySoftware. 5% of Indian population is around 50 Million which is more than the population of California (the most populated US state just for comparison). Now Business Week says that around 60% of Indians are between age 20-40 ( i cant quote exact numbers because i don't remember the exact numbers). However, that number is 30Million which is close to population of California. Even if 20% of them have higher education (which in India is in English) then there you have it, almost everybody who is young and eligible to work know English and of course two other languages.
- buzzert, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7My friend just came back from India, he said everybody pirates software there. So this will hardly make a dent.
- tylerni7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Well free software is generally associated with Linux/Unix because it is usually released under a free,open source license. Also "Although some of the third-party tools that we have included in the CD only run on Windows, the tools that we developed run on both Windows and Linux. So when Linux becomes popular, users who have been using our tools will be able to make the shift very quickly and run these tools on Linux."
- gauravnawani, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That 5% you refer to is the creamy layer of English school educated urbanites. For the rest the real Language order is (below). Some one here was rather magnanimous with his version of it, as they say public base their thoughts on perception not on the facts.
1) Hindi (National Language) about 60%-70% Understand and speak it and read it.
2) Tamil 10-15% (One of the Classical Languages).
3) Local Languages.
4) English
I have those software's, Basically CDAC is the first developer of Indian Language tools way back in early nineties. They have been researching in Indic language tools like, OCR for Indian languages, Dictionary for converting from and in Indic languages, Indic fonts. And lots other.
It has nothing directly to do with FOSS, basically these tools were earlier available commercially. The Intent is that government finally realized that their mother tongue (English) is not the same as the majority of India. So for the benefit of common man they tried to be nice and seem to have got the facts right, well atleast the realisation of it (I hope this actually reflects in their IT policy). The last thing you will like is a farmer with Palmtop that requires him to _first_ go-to school and that too to learn English nor the language he speaks and understands.
I think most FOSS tools beat this offering already, so these tool make more sense only for Ms-ft users, BTW if you were wondering most of the software is older version and some of it does not works at all. It is mostly useless for the real thing as after the Indic language were included in UTF encoding most of these software became irravalent.
I have been using Hindi sparsely in Ubuntu, most of the the software there works, but I still don't have a keyboard that is in Hindi, yeah if only one of those dead-boring jokes of 1 billion population works for the Keyboard manufacturers. - twiztedambience, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5hey genius, a lot of the nuclear deal involves india's nuclear power generators
- cyssero, on 04/18/2009, -1/+5Very good news. Good for India!
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It does not surprise me that 2/3 of the people cannot do that at home but the (approx.?) $2/hour (USD) is several times cheaper than a fast connection at a certain bookstore or coffee shop here.
Though personally, I get free connections for as long as I want at the cafe near where I live. Sometimes I go there on a weekend and spend most of the afternoon there.
They cook better food than I do, so I would probably go there more often. However, I have a lot of handy technical reference books at home that are not at my fingertips there.
So, while I can do research there and check the news - it is not as productive for programming as my home is. I can only do so much work in my head or on paper before I feel the urge to look something up.
I do not think the US is too intimidated by providing power 24x7 to the over 1/3 of a billion (counting guest workers, tourists, folks who stroll in, plus run-of-the-mill-citizens that population figures count) folks living here.
There have been a few big regional power failures (*), and local ones caused by hurricanes are not too uncommon. But as a rule, the US chugs along day and night providing power. I am not sure why it would cut it at night.
[ * For example: L.A. outage of July 2006; Northeastern blackout(s) of late 2003; famous NYC blackout of 1960s or 1970s. ]
For one thing, crime rates dropped in the cities when they started putting in electric street lights that burned all night. For another, it is pretty scary to drive at night on twisty turny highways at night with no street lights - especially when it is foggy.
I never understood why India did not provide reliable power throughout the day, throughout the country. Especially with all of the engineers they have there. Does the U.S. have more engineers than India?
Wouldn't there also be more jobs for Indian engineers if the places that do not have electricity at all had some, and the places that have it a little over half the time had it all the time?
Big batteries are a stress on the environment when they are thrown away, and making them can really stress a locale when there are accidents or just normal waste products from manufacturing.
I am not aware of any chemical problems from transmission lines. Of course, the vicious killer worms can be a problem - especially, you have to endure them without popcorn:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075261/ IMDB: Squirm (1976) - offstages, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Can't wait to hear when this free software is offered in the other 11 Indian languages. I'm guessing most of the people who speak the most popular languages in India can afford to learn English most proficiently?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13Indeed. It's a pity that so many nations are following the suicidal lead of the United States, ignoring so many problems while focusing on Weapons of Mass Destruction as a foriegn policy chip. I suppose that's easy to understand, though, given that the "Western Alliance" has shown the world by example that doing so is the way to get what you want. It's a pity that the world's powerful countries abuse the United Nations, rather than empower it. Modern third-world nations are faced with the choice of feeding their exploitable citizens (to be exploited by some foriegn corporation), or of trying to arm themselves enough that they are taken seriously (while starving their own). I suppose I'd be suicidal, too, if given that coin to toss.
- cmilki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+235 % exactly.
As of May 2006 India had 357 million fluent english speakers. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I thought the point was using OSS to drive down TCO and save more money for use elsewhere.
- sum4me, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4When you get "official" versions of software as opposed to "pirated" version both for the same price (= free) wonder what you would choose?
- kamal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2come on guys, why bring language in this topic and second point is that free stuff is always welcomed everywhere in the world, but that doesn't mean its most reliable. this is just an effort.
I wonder if am average computer owner in India can play the popular game titles on their machines, what about online gaming, - Aklblue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is a great idea for India, and would benefit many other countries as well. Open source software benefits a country directly, whereas adoption of Micosoft OS's and software only benefits Microsoft.
- Oakes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4jejones, Linux compatibility on some of the software will not "throw out Microsoft." I can only see this benefitting them if the government does indeed end up making computers more ubiquitous in India, which they won't, for the same reason every other socialist scheme fails.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2JohnySoftware, has it ever occured to you that the 5% figure could be incorrect?
I live in India, and I know very few people who can't speak in English. The situation is certainly different in the rural parts of the country, but I'd be willing to bet that the 5% figure is way way below the real thing. - axeland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@buzzert: yea its true most of the softwares that r used are pirated. but giving free softwares means you can get an official software with updates for no cost. are v trying to kill piracy? maybe yes.
- X-Cruciating, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am leading a project sponsored by an American linux distro company, doing localization of most of the GNOME applications AND FireFox 1.5, OpenOffice in 4 major Indian languages. There are 11 people in this particular team. However, we are not the only vendors doing that. There are 11 more languages where the other vendors are taking care. So what do we see here? Potentially, a tonne of translated PO files donated to the open source, who can thereby take the onus of keep them up-to-date with their English counterparts. The ball here will surely set rolling, when the whole of Ubuntu is Hindi or Tamil.
And to my surprise, the intermediate release of FireFox 1.5 in one of the rarer Indian language does look sweet! So, dugg! - scott1, on 10/12/2007, -10/+11It's why Bill Gates is rich. How elese do you think he got rich? A car wash bussiness?
- pbbakkum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I fail to understand why so many people are so supportive of a program like this, other than a basic failure to understand modern economics, or a naive view of proper fiscal policy.
There are very clear reasons that India has as much poverty as it does, and they are government regulation, and governmental central planning. Essentially the economy has consistently been choked by the government. Though the political, and thus the economic, situation in India has improved vastly over recent years, old habits die hard. If there was serious demand for software in local languages, then why can't the private sector develop that software? God knows there are enough programmers in India to do such a thing.
At the same time India is going back and forth about the legality of Blogs, it is trying to ensure that every citizen has access to free software in his own language. This paradox is an obvious result of unnecessary overt government interaction in a private industry. Do you think that it is the government's job to ensure that everyone in a country has access to free software? Do you think this should happen in America? Surely everyone on this page who seems to have a sworn vendetta against Microsoft would enjoy it if the U.S. Government had such a program of free software. But it is obvious that such a suggestion is ridiculous.
Think about the situation in India. If you are a poor citizen with a computer or access to one, and no private Internet connection, as seems to be the situation with many people, then how does this program benefit you? Why would you be in favor of government subsidized software instead of using that surplus money to lower taxes?
Realistically, the better way to improve the lives of Indian citizens is to remove restrictions on the technology industry, and stop meddling in government subsidized software development. This will attract foreign investment, which in turn will improve the lives of Indian citizens and probably their computer use.
If you think that Microsoft, the most successful software company in the world, develops buggy and insecure software, imagine what a third-rate government bureaucracy would produce. - drizek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Look, linux isnt going to make hte worlds richest man file for bankruptcy. If you want to "fight" MS you dont do it by taking away their money. They already have more money than they know what to do with and can survive for decades without ever taking in a dime.
The way to beat MS is to go after their market share. FOSS advocates do not benefit if MS loses money, but we do benefit if FOSS gains marketshare. - riplikethat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, I (India, Delhi) play SWAT4, Doom3 & RavenShield online a lot. I have also played Battlefield2 (crap, ET is way better.. but Quake Wars looks and plays ten times better) & WOW (yaaawn) online in past. Not to mention I play games like Oblivion and AOE3 offline all the time.
Anyways, the point is, yes. You can play popular game titles online on 'our machines'.. online/offline.. - JohnnySoftware, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Seriously, they not _only_ said that everyone spoke English...
They then backed up the statement by saying India was a former English colony - which I knew from history class - and that the English made everyone in the country learn English. I believed that because I assumed the person telling me that was not lying. I was told that more than once.
I was also told that the schools did their teaching in English, and people from different towns communicated with each other because there were a thousand different dialects of native languages in India.
Sounds like I have a lot of incorrect - or at least massively exaggerated - information about to unlearn, up to but not including the fact that the English were at least in India for a while.
Sounds like their influence has been greatly overstated. At least by people who talked to me or wrote articles I read from the early 1990s to early 2000s.
Fifty million people is a lot of people but when you whittle that figure down by the percentage that are experienced or at least completely trained in just a couple of technical fields it dwindles rapidly. And common sense tells anyone that.
Nobody would believe a town could exist where 100% of the population worked as electrical engineers or computer programmers.
I suspect that is why the the English literacy figure was inflated to the maximum extent possible - an order of magnitude, doubled, greater than the actual figure. That multiplied the credible/conceivable number of English-speaking engineers by 20x.
You gotta admit, that is the same thing as the old bait-and-switch. When stores pull that in the US, they catch heck. False advertising is about the worst thing a merchant can do over here. Everything hinges on facts in ads being correct. - krutin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ppl with any doubts on how things work in india
this is a gr8 video to watch
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437 - sum4me, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@JohnnySoftware. I agree 5% doesn't mean "Everyone". The point i was trying to make was that 50million is a lot of people and those people are working youth that can make a significant contribution to society. So, if you are an average Indian young guy living in an urban area it would appear that everybody knew English. Now, that doesn't take away the fact it is mere 5% of the whole country. i am saying that percentage is immaterial. And i made the comparison to California just to give you a sense of scale. and i cant believe you "believed" people when they said "everybody" in India can speak English. surely, in a population of 1 billion you cannot expect that. i am sure people who told you that were using the word loosely. as an educated guy yourself, you should have been able to distinguish that.
- XR22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://3couleurs.blogspot.com
- meels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0goood microsuck lost lots india has millions linux rules free and 20x better
- MarkByers, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Why is the topic Linux/Unix? The story has nothing to do with Linux, apart from mentioning it a few times such as in the phrase 'some do not run on Linux'.
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Whoa, chill out maidix. The article did not mention weapons at all, much less WoMD or the United States. RTFA, as they say.
The article did make the jarringly incongruous statement that the Indian officials chose to make the software available in native languages, rather than English, so people could use it.
"For most of the people living in rural areas, the first issue is that they don't have Internet connectivity. Even if connectivity does improve, and people are able to get on the Internet, ** the basic problem they would still face is using the computer, because the applications would be in English **."
I have been reading over and over again how everyone in India speaks English. Indian tech labor promoters insist that makes people raised/educated in India ideal software writers for technically advanced English-speaking nations.
So which am I to believe, given this blatant disparity?
"English is used by only about 5 percent of people in the country, and if we want people to start using computers, we can't expect them to go learn English."
What???
Five percent.
Last time I checked, "5 percent" was not even close to "everyone".
Could someone explain how there is a 95 percent disagreement on how much of the population in India speaks English? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2***IF*** Linux becomes popular is the right assumption.
- HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Pirated...just to feel a little more safe.
- nhorman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Interesting that this should come on the heels of their recent rejection of the One Laptop Per Child program. I'm not personally a huge fan of OLPC, but it seems to me that if anyone could benefit from the program, it would be India. Wonder how much the non-open software cost per license?
- ankitgulati, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4As a former resident of India, I have to say that they are finally starting to head in the right direction. I will be downloading some of the software for my parents so they can have an easier time using the internet.
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