Hi,
For all the people who didn't read Viraj's (excellent tho' long) post, I'd
like to emphasize the essence by hightlighting what he said at the end:
> SO, WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Organizations like Mandrake, RedHat,
> Turbolinux, SuSe etc. do sell their 'Products', which are
> well-packaged, at a small price. I implore you all to consider buying
> their offerrings, instead of paying the ISPs & telephone companies a
> fortune to download & using them for free. This cuts in two
> directions. It adds to the sales volumes of OSS promoting
> companies(so, officially competing propri. software) & at the same
> time makes these companies stronger to go ahead & develop high-quality
> software.
How true !! Even people who are OSS aware in India, prefer to download
software and use it (and end up paying the telcos.) instead of showing their
support by ordering stuff.
OTOH, services like broadband will certainly help accelerate the growth
of OSS in India, by promoting move active involvement as contributors as
opposed to consumers of OSS.
In this thread, I saw a lot of mention of how average users are not
motivated enough or would prefer to stick to their windows boxen. Well, while
that might be true, I don't see why that would stop OSS from growing. I
myself have converted almost all my friends who use windows to using firefox
and thunderbird *only* by suggesting it as an alternative. Even the most
insecure user who would resist changing his basic tools, can easily see the
obvious benifits of tabbed browsing and ability to block popus.
My point here being, OSS does not equate linux. There are tons of OSS
software for windows which far out perform proprietory software. The
introduction of broadband will ensure that, this software is more redily
available. Of course nothing can beat loyalty for out-of-the-box products,
but broadband would bring awareness and availabiliity.
Actually, I *do* imagine an OSS boom is possisble. It's only up to the
OSS PR department to make that a reality. ....ehe, that means you, btw.
Just my thoughts
Regards
Steve
--
Once, when the secrets of science were the jealously guarded property
of a small priesthood, the common man had no hope of mastering their arcane
complexities. Years of study in musty classrooms were prerequisite to
obtaining even a dim, incoherent knowledge of science.
Today all that has changed: a dim, incoherent knowledge of science is
available to anyone.
-- Tom Weller, "Science Made Stupid"
--
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