[Ubuntu-SG] [Bulk] Re: South-East Asian FOSS Collaboration

[John Thng]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Maung Myat Thu @ Billy Aung Myint <
billy at ubuntu.sg> wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 11:15 +0800, Rui Boon wrote:
> > Maung Myat Thu @ Billy Aung Myint wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 07:47 +0800, Muhammad Heidir wrote:
> > >
> > >> I am utterly disturbed by this loop. I know about its existence, but
> > >> now I know more why it happened.
> > >> Billy, your loop is well understood.
> > >>
> > >> Is it possible that we penetrate the use of FOSS starting at
> > >> educational instructors? If only they are guided and make known about
> > >> the existence of free alternatives and its benefits, I'm sure it can
> > >> be taken into consideration. Once we are able to set their mind open,
> > >> hopefully, they are able to extend this among their learners. That is
> > >> for educational part.
> > >>
> > I agree that if we focus our efforts on educational instructors, the
> > multiplier effect will be high. However we have to be mindful that they
> > have a certain inertial to changes. We will have to put forward our
> > argument on what can FOSS applications do for them that the common
> > applications cannot, bearing in mind that the latter group of softwares
> > has been conveniently made available for them (training, pricing,
> > implementation, integration)
>
> I do agree that they have certain inertial to change. But then everyone
> does. If we use this logic that some people have certain inertial to
> change then there will be no change at all. Singapore will still belong
> to Malaysia.
>
> Someone , somewhere , have to push for it. If later group of software
> have been conveniently made available for them then made them
> inconvenient. Teachers should teach what is good for the children and
> nation's future , not what is convenient to teach.
>
> If MOE believes that Windows is the future then go ahead with the
> training their teachers Windows. If you believe that FOSS is the way
> then complain to MOE why they are crippling the children with paid
> software when there are free and open software available everywhere.
>
> If you are a parent here and if you believe that your children future
> and learning can be further developed by using FOSS , then write to ST
> and ask MOE why they are forcing children to learn only one platform.
> Mind you , children should learn Windows too. The point is why they are
> learning ONLY Windows.
>
> > >
> > > Yup , thats definitely my point. Actually schools do have Linux. When I
> > > was in NP , they used to dual boot windows and fedora in the computer
> > > labs. I am not sure they still do but the problem is not that Linux
> > > isn't available to school , but its the lack of good teachers at the
> top
> > > level such as poly and uni thats cripples the whole thing. Its hard to
> > > teach something that you rarely use in practice and you will definitely
> > > will have no passions.
> > >
> > IMO, I will recommend strengthening the user base of open source
> > applications, like firefox and openoffice, first. As users get used to
> > those applications, and realised that they have no real needs for
> > windows, it will be the ripe time to introduce ubuntu.
> > >> In business organizations, (in my opinion) the reason why they adopt
> > >> redmond products, are in terms of resources (as highlighted by Billy)
> > >> and the amount of paid support that businesses can turn to should they
> > >> encounter problems, including the added security of receiving timely
> > >> patches.
> > >>
> > >> I know Red Hat Enterprise Linux is well-received because of paid
> > >> support. So much so that some adopters turn from free to paid support,
> > >> not from paid to free. This are one of the areas, FOSS might consider
> > >> if they have resources and the user-base is large.
> > >>
> > While there is definitely one group that depends on paid support,
> > conversely help from the community is sufficient for another group. See
> > Slashdot article on "Paid Support Not Critical For Linux Adoption" [1]
> > >> Anyway, thanks Billy for the heads-up!
>
> First , community isn't very strong as we would like to here. Sure ,
> there are about 50+ members here and 600+ members at LUGS. Of course , I
> have a feeling most members here belong to there as well so I am feeling
> there are less than 1000 Linux advocates. Out of all that , only about
> 40 or 50 are active on the mailing list and less are active when there
> are events.
>
> So slashdot article is definitely correct for US , not for here. One
> reason is , Singaporeans are very uniform in their thinking , I am not
> sure you realised it or not. There isn't much social deviants here.
> Think of Steve jobs or Bill Gates or Thomas Edison or Henry Ford or
> Michael Dell or Jeff Bezos. They are all weird by any mean. Gates was
> the guy who started micro-soft with Paul Allen( in the beginning they
> have dash in between) in 1975 by dropping out of Harvard.
>
> There is always a feeling to obey the authority here no matter how much
> we dislike it. How many people in Singapore like ERP? I can almost
> safely say none. How many protests? none. Here , everyone complains but
> everyone also obeys. And for that Linux is bad. If teachers or authority
> figures uses Windows , then windows is the right choice.
>
> Thats why teachers/MOE must be the first to start the ball rolling. And
> thats also why no matter how much we push , there are tons of resistance
> from everyone. Even my poly IT classmates refuses to use Linux and even
> go as far as buying original Windows.
>
> Think of it, how many people are using Linux exclusively now because of
> you? Your families not counted since you stay with them , I mean your
> friends. Can we have some figures?
>
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 00:08 +0800, Maung Myat Thu @ Billy Aung Myint
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> On Sun, 2008-08-10 at 20:14 폍㐲驦鴝誼⮢힇裘鲆襚낋炊奛秇ꮵꢧ霨⭹ꭢ缇鲢 come up for a
> meeting. I'm sure
> > >>>
> > >>>> we can share ideas, experiences and plan about promoting FOSS
> adoption
> > >>>> in the region. This will bring great benefits to each other
> culturally
> > >>>> too.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I heard that Malaysia and Indonesia has a lot of FOSS users due to
> its
> > >>>> low-cost(..free) and can be tailored to different languages such as
> > >>>> Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia. My guess is, FOSS can be
> readily
> > >>>> accepted mainstream, its just a matter of time. I would like to know
> > >>>> you thoughts about this.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Whereas in Singapore, most of the companies here prefers Microsoft,
> > >>>> because they come pre-installed, and Microsoft provides support
> > >>>> including most of the Administrators are MCSE certified. The problem
> > >>>> starts at the educational level, where students are overly exposed
> to
> > >>>> Microsoft based Operating Systems and Applications. Due to this
> > >>>> familiarisation and training conducted on Microsoft products,
> > >>>> naturally they are more accustomed to use it. If only we could
> project
> > >>>> to them the benefits and advantage of using an Open systems, they
> will
> > >>>> somehow understand.
> > >>>>
> > >>> Actually the problem is a recursive loop. Teachers themselves are not
> > >>> sure about anything other than windows so they will make a hell of a
> > >>> noise if schools buy non-ms systems and of course they can't teach
> any
> > >>> other than windows.So they teach windows to students who only learnt
> > >>> windows.
> > >>>
> > >>> Since everyone who got out of IT school knows windows , they are
> > >>> everywhere and are dirt cheap to hire and fire.Therefore companies
> love
> > >>> them. And the companies only buy windows systems because the people
> they
> > >>> hire only knows windows.
> > >>>
> > >>> Since companies only hire windows admins/programmers , schools only
> > >>> teach windows stuff saying market only wants windows skills. and this
> > >>> goes on and on and on and on and on.... sort of like a recursive loop
> > >>>
> > >>> Ramblings from former vice-president of NgeeAnn Polytechnic Linux
> Users
> > >>> Group,
> > >>> billy
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>> Anyway, I look forward to meeting with South-East Asians FOSS
> > >>>> enthusiasts!
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Best Regards,
> > >>>> supervivid
> > >>>>
> > [1] http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/09/0121210
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Rui Boon
>
>
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> Ubuntu-SG at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-sg
>

And by the way, the Higher Learning Institutions normally ask people to own
laptop. And usually they come with microsoft, office, and other proprietary
licenses for students. This pose one of the great problem.

Btw, I start to see GIMP and 7-Zip on the library computers in local uni.
But too bad they load Office 2007 and not OpenOffice.org in it. I felt
Office 2007 is a poison because of the new interface, once people got
addicted, how much you advocated it's quite difficult to adapt back to the
menu interface of other alternative office.

And greatly we need to spur the interest of using open source applications.
Competitions of creating stuff(audio/video/graphics) using open source
applications, is one of the ideas. Example: if we show people we could
create good graphics, audio, video using open source tools as comparable to
proprietary ones, it would help much.

Linux comes after we can teach those windows-only people to use
cross-platform tools on their windows first in their daily life. Be it
proprietary like Lotus Symphony, or Open Source Stuff. Cross-platform tools
is the key.

Btw, Asia is a very competitive place, and further more neighbouring
countries are starting to embrace linux and open source, hope we can become
competitive too. If we don't step fast, the moment Open Source runs over
Proprietary, and we are at the losing end at that time because we can't
depend too much on Proprietary and also the cost of running proprietary is
high.

From
John
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