lawgon: weird

lawgon (

lawgon) wrote,
@ 2006-08-23 07:07:00

weird
we are a real weird bunch of people. Everyone says the government should encourage FOSS. The government allots money for FOSS development. We advertise for people to write FOSS code and offer to pay them. No takers. They wont write FOSS code for love or for money - so how to get them to do it?

(Post a new comment)

	(Anonymous) 2006-08-23 06:52 am UTC (link)
	Thats because the ones who blab about FOSS are people who think its "cool" to have a beard, wear glasses, have g33k t4lks. Very few people think about using FOSS to solve problems for the society. We are just good to ape, without knowing "why". Great minds are oblivious to all these nakraas. (Reply to this)

	tsk1979 2006-08-23 06:58 am UTC (link)
	you havent heard of the internet eh? There are lots of people abroad willing to write FOSS for love or for money. If you dont find them in India, outsource! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-23 07:32 am UTC (link)
	my job is to get indians in india to write code (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	tsk1979 2006-08-23 07:41 am UTC (link)
	All the best in that? From my expience an Indian will write FOSS code only if given bif money. I doubt govt gives that. your best bet is unemmployed freshers. Writing for Love is something which is not in the mindset over here. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-23 07:49 am UTC (link)
	what is bif (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	tsk1979 2006-08-23 07:53 am UTC (link)
	I meant big. Unfortunately G &F are close together :). (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-23 07:58 am UTC (link)
	how much is big? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

tsk1979
2006-08-23 08:08 am UTC (link)

Well to be honest, most software engineers dont care open source or closed source. As long as they get 10L after 5 years of workex they are happy(this is true for IITians and NItians). Others are content with 6-8L/annum after 5 years. Indian job market is purely money driven, both from the employer and employee side. The code for love culture is pretty new here. right now its code for money. There are exceptions, but the number of exceptions in the US are much more. and there too, how many OSS developers who do it for love are Indians?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-23 08:50 am UTC (link)
	a suprising number are indians. Lawgon's law - an Indian's contribution to FOSS is directly proportional to the distance between him and his native land (Reply to this) (Parent)

	nearfar 2006-08-23 11:29 am UTC (link)
	Mostly agree with you. There are exceptions, but the number of exceptions in the US are much more. This (including its supportive causes) is why I'm planning to move to US. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	sunson 2006-08-25 12:07 pm UTC (link)
	This (including its supportive causes) is why I'm planning to move to US. Why should your location affect yourself from being an 'exception'? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	shantanoo 2006-08-24 02:04 pm UTC (link)
	I thought bit. ;) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	nearfar 2006-08-23 07:22 am UTC (link)
	I would be surprised if a Linus Torvalds comes out of Chennai. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-23 07:41 am UTC (link)
	we have several potential torwald types here already (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	nearfar 2006-08-23 11:24 am UTC (link)
	I know. But this is India. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	prashmohan 2006-08-23 03:26 pm UTC (link)
	pistols help (Reply to this)

you have a point.

ramkrsna
2006-08-23 07:16 pm UTC (link)

Its not about the money. Its about the skill sets, just don't have enough of them, Sarai also tried funding few, only a bunch of them succeeded. Forget FOSS for a moment, look at the proprietary software...is innovation going on there?... are there any, its been quite a time we had that buzz..Mega Organization value a IEEE publication, or a patent, rather than getting a solid product out of it. The so called Professional technical courses..cater only to service industry..just a bunch of text books to go through.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: you have a point. lawgon 2006-08-29 01:32 am UTC (link)
	and since foss makes such a big point of learning and discovering on one's own, this shuts out a large part of the potential work force which is completely unable to do this (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: you have a point.

sankarshan
2006-08-29 02:39 am UTC (link)

Skillsets get honed by what you teach. Same fundamental principles that apply to skeletal muscles by the way. If you are teaching someone to become a "code coolie" then you are not teaching them skills. The education meant to churn out clerks did not get innovation going earlier - will not really help now. You do require a good bit of cajoling to understand what needs to be "taught" rather than what needs to be spoonfed

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	jace 2006-08-24 04:07 am UTC (link)
	It is time for me to handwave again. Is FOSS really relevant to India? If it was indeed so good for us, surely it would have enough takers by now? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-29 01:30 am UTC (link)
	pretty relevant - especially from the cost point of view (although one is not supposed to talk of cost), and on the server side of things, it is pretty well used. Dont have exact stats, but find lots of linux servers wherever I go. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

jace
2006-08-29 04:53 am UTC (link)

Actually, cost is important and needs to be talked about. The GPL talks about granting various freedoms to users. Trouble is, for these freedoms to make any sense, certain lower level freedoms must also be satisfied -- and in India they're typically not.

Free beer is a lower level freedom than free speech. Without the first, the second is irrelevant. And in this country, the battle is still at the first level. Only after one has access to software can one talk about their right to modify it. And we're still a land of a Rs 100 Linux CD that no one around knows how to deal with, vs a Rs 100 Windows CD that everyone is familiar with.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

lawgon
2006-08-29 05:22 am UTC (link)

oh vow - i thought you were a retired geek. Some of the passion seems to have remained. As far as govt is concerned - cost is the *only* factor. So more and more we are seeing what is called 'Open Source Platform Software'. That is, proprietory solutions running on linux, apache, postgresql/mysql - which passes for FOSS. But the source code is not given or available for download.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

jace
2006-08-29 05:40 am UTC (link)

Far from retired. I've just realised the real battle is elsewhere and gone seeking it.

For example, within government. "Cost" is far too complex to be attached to "only". Here in Karnataka, the government finds it cheaper to pay for Windows licenses than to use free Linux -- because part of the software is being supplied by government-owned agencies who only know how to do it on Windows. Cutting them out will involve further privatisation, which is an entirely different battle. The TN case isn't really replicable in KA or elsewhere because people with the right skills aren't in the right positions. It isn't as simple as issuing a policy document and demanding everyone comply; someone's got to pay for the change. FOSS promoters who issue statements on government wasting public money only serve to show how little they understand, and how rabid their flock can get.

What we're doing instead is slipping it in via the blind spots where nobody needs to know. Once Linux is widely deployed, it's easy to apply leverage for greater adoption. The hardest part is identifying these spots and taking advantage at the right time.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

lawgon
2006-08-29 05:56 am UTC (link)

chicken and egg thing here. For any big govt project the bidders have to prequalify. Which means they have to show turnover and having undertaken projects of a similar size. Which means that anyone offering a FOSS solution is left at the starting gate. The only people who need not prequalify are other government departments. But with a level of salaries the govt has to pay - getting good people is practically impossible. Not that anyone in his right mind would work for most of these government departments anyway. Some projects of this sort are coming my way - but where oh where do i get coders? Cant pay enough for people willing - and foss coders who would do it for other reasons are very very scarce in this land ...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	jace 2006-08-29 06:02 am UTC (link)
	Hence the slip-it-in-via-the-blind-spots strategy. Is working for us, so far. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-29 06:08 am UTC (link)
	who is 'us' and what are you slipping in where? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	jace 2006-08-29 06:20 am UTC (link)
	Classified. :-D See this for a hint. There's a newer article somewhere in the Hindu about two weeks ago wherein someone makes the grand announcement that it'll all be done in four months (six is more likely). (Reply to this) (Parent)

shantanoo
2006-08-24 02:08 pm UTC (link)

Everyone says the government should encourage FOSS.
Does everyone includes government? Many government sites are running on non-FOSS products. Lets not list them over here. It may be a big list. Maybe government sites running FOSS will be quite smaller. How about listing it over here? One can always check/verify it through netcraft.com. Though its not 100% verified method, but should work for most of the sites.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	lawgon 2006-08-26 09:10 am UTC (link)
	in several states there is huge pressure on the officials to shift to foss. But the problem is that there is no one coming forward to write foss code (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	shantanoo 2006-09-02 05:36 pm UTC (link)
	any idea what are the reason why people are not coming forward? or when they tried to come forward, looking at the response, now no one is ready for that? (Reply to this) (Parent)

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