[ubuntu-in] Time to look inwards.

[Ramnarayan.K]

Hi Stereotactic and others on the thread,

Has posted this with lost of inline and it bounced as it was too big
for the list, so reposting with some inline , apologies for this long
mail, reposted again

**
Was away for a bit so am just catching up with this thread. And an
interesting one too, with lots of wefts and weaves.

Am trying to put my thoughts down and may have some catching up to do.
so forgive some general top posts , some bit is lower down.

@ CDAC - government or not one must remember that they have done stuff
that pushed multi lingual computing quite far, before , i think, even
open source really caught on. A case in point is the Leap and ileap
cd's which enabled typing in many indian langauges.Am not sure of the
history of the inscript keyboard (Gora may know) but i think CDAC
developed the inscript layout . For those of us who use hindi this is
a super boon - compared the typewriter keyboard layout,

@ BOSS Linux - am not sure of the investments and the outputs but
another good thing about CDAC and Boss linux is their presence at many
IT events. The free CD's people may or may not use but what it does is
give publicity not just to linux but to multi language computing.
There was a time when they were ahead of the curve, unfortunately as
with many Govt and non govt projects its all probably personality and
motivation dirven and some other enthu folks must have been posted to
their equivalent of kaalapani and thats the end of their before the
curve production.

@ NRC-FOSS - am wondering if there are any on this list - i knew one
person from a lug list and this guy was a pain the the unmentionables
and even after joining FOSS has this demeaning condescending attitude
that is not good for anything leave alone FOSS. And if he is
reflective of NRC_FOSS the i think its better to leave them out of
anything. Am not sure what NRC-FOSS is upto but never hear of them
much , maybe because they are south india based, so any south indian
ubunturos have any idea what they are upto.


>     yes it  becomes much more murkier , is there a way to tap into these sources of funding and use it the way we want it . Yes there is no guarantee that this org or initiative will not land up in the same state for worse or good , it very easy pointing fingers and saying holier than though attitude. Do you see a way out shall we just ignore these thought process.


There are ways - most of them are under the table and in those cases
you need not develop anything, Under the table also gaurantees that
non delivery on time will increase your budget for yet more non
delivery.

I personally feel that its easier to push the govt agencies to deliver
rather than look to generate funds . This is true for core sectors but
for software am not sure under what model the govt operates best. A
compairision between NASA / NSA (USA) and DRDO (India)and what they
have delivered in terms of products software would clearly indicate
the gap.


What gora says in relevant - how much has CDAC every contributed back.
Probably not much. In a discussion with CDAC and one other related
government agency at a Delhi LUG annual do (forget the name now) there
was this technology being promoted by the government to promoted
distributed computing in villages. The problem was not the tech (which
was fairly good) but the licenses. The Govt agency has some rule that
if the govt spends money on something they cannot give it an open
license, they cannot give the code away because "its their property? -
Don't ask me why, but  thats what our government is about.

>
>     ok i get the answer here , but how? form one more org ?

I kind of disagree, yes we need some more creative groups but we also
need to pressurize the government in doing and delivering better, what
it has taken a mandate to do. It has to be concurrent. The govt has
immense resources and if we leave them they we all know an idle mind
is a dangerous workshop - we will end up with resources and creativity
being spent to spy on people (like under the UID) or on a couple of
crore just for tea and snacks for uncommon wealth organizers. We need
a pressure group to force policy change as well as for the govt to
deliver concrete action.

>    As I mentioned above, that's the answer. There has to be some way to break the log jam. How many among you are researchers/academicians? How     >  many among you have actually "researched" and implemented anything "new"?

Strange question - and allow me to say so , a bit rude, . Also i don't
have too high an opinion about researchers and academicians who write,
read and talk a lot but have very liitle to show in terms of new.
Would rather look for the doers. And then the doers who also write and
read.

**
Loco has nothing to do with new ideas - it its about making something
more applicable for a localised community and there is not point in
re-inventing a wheel because a wheel can't really be invented again.

I agree with the looking inwards and would look to have more ways to
promote open source to get more people to use it, to have more support
services (which will directly influence a huge section to change) etc
etc. New software tools that address inefficiencys, make the tech more
easily usable by an audience that is not computer savvy. (eg. Nokia
are big not only because of their cheap phones but also because of
their simple interface).

regards
ram