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Indian Government adopts an open source policy

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Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#41

Post by RobertoG »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #18
swayvil wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What retraining? I have several clients, computer illiterate old ladies, who use Ubuntu and Debian just fine. No retraining required. They just jump on that desktop and go.

Until something goes wrong. Like if they can't read the tiny font in the file menu. Then they google it, and discover they need to "sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool." Then they manage to actually find a terminal window and run the command, and install the tool, and turn up every available font rendering option, and it still doesn't solve their problem. That is just one real world example. Linux is an operating s…

People get use to Ubuntu very fast.

In my experience, the big problem in organizations are legacy documents and formats. Especially Excel. LibreOffice is good but it's not going to run the macros that were created 10 years ago by guys that are now retired in some beach.

The other big problem is specialized software (already amortized) that only run in Windows.

The funny thing is that kind of problems happens even between different versions of windows.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#42

Post by dangerlibrary »

infinity0 wrote: post #30
dangerlibrary wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you can simply zoom, using ctrl-+ or ctrl-scroll wheel. It's a common pattern that works across applications in windows and OSX, but for whatever reason isn't implemented in the file menu of Ubuntu systems. Maybe for open-source-y political reasons or maybe because component X of Y system included in the file menu already uses that shortcut. It doesn't matter - the existing knowledge of how to zoom in is us…

In many FOSS applications ctrl -/+ works too. I've had to mess around with audio and video on Windows too, it's not pretty. It definitely does not "just work". I've never needed to pipe data into a mic input channel on Linux. These days one probably wants "pavucontrol". I don't like arbitrarily changing UX either, but it's not like Windows doesn't have that problem. I had massive switching headaches moving to the new…

Nobody in this thread said that linux is unusable.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#43

Post by kumarm »

I know we are supposed cheer this as victory for Open Source. But anything a government of India (Current or former) does with Technology, I would take it with a grain of salt.

Here are recent Indian Government (or Indian States) Projects:

1. Cheap 35$ laptop. We all know how that turned out.

2. Here a App developed by a State Government with Multi Million Dollars budget recently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apgov.apsp...

Yes it has only 1000 downloads after multi million dollar budget and not even localized to local language. This is by a state CM's personal pet project who claims to be pro Technology.

When Governments like this announce any initiative, look beyond headlines, Someone is making merry of tax payers money.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#44

Post by jezclaremurugan »

I worked in the BOSS linux team from 2010-2012. I can probably answer some questions.

Let me address the most common sentiment.. Why BOSS when we already have Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat etc.?

Support - gov bodies moving to linux need guaranteed support at optimal cost.

Localization - if you are working with Indian languages primarily, BOSS linux provides a better experience out of the box.

Some customization - some depts. request and get further customized versions.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#45

Post by jezclaremurugan »

trequartista wrote: post #20

While this is excellent news, couldn't find answers to a few important questions: 1. Where is the source for Boss Linux. It's based on Debian, but couldn't find the link to view the source. It's all nice to talk about embracing open source, but shouldn't CDAC also publish the source for Boss Linux? 2. What is the update mechanism? How frequently will this distro be updated?

1 - I'll edit this with the repo link - it is indeed public but my google fu/memory fails me now 2 - Regular updates follow debian stable, new releases are once every 1-2 years.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#46

Post by jezclaremurugan »

kumarm wrote: post #43

I know we are supposed cheer this as victory for Open Source. But anything a government of India (Current or former) does with Technology, I would take it with a grain of salt. Here are recent Indian Government (or Indian States) Projects: 1. Cheap 35$ laptop. We all know how that turned out. 2. Here a App developed by a State Government with Multi Million Dollars budget recently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d…

I understand why you are cynical, but I've been part of the BOSS linux team couple of years ago and I would say it was money well spent.

To cite just one example - BOSS Linux was installed along side Windows (dual boot) in the free laptops given to students by the Tamil Nadu govt. This alone helped introduce thousands of students to linux.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#47

Post by swayvil »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #18
swayvil wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What retraining? I have several clients, computer illiterate old ladies, who use Ubuntu and Debian just fine. No retraining required. They just jump on that desktop and go.

Until something goes wrong. Like if they can't read the tiny font in the file menu. Then they google it, and discover they need to "sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool." Then they manage to actually find a terminal window and run the command, and install the tool, and turn up every available font rendering option, and it still doesn't solve their problem. That is just one real world example. Linux is an operating s…

Yes, I address my Linux using clients' issues for them. But it's the same with my clients who use Windows too. They can't fix it for themselves either.

In fact, I see about 5 times as many Windows issues as Linux issues. And it's easier to fix a Linux machine.

This story that you are telling about how Windows is easy and Linux is hard, and about how there will be this big transition cost, is just bs.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#48

Post by swayvil »

RobertoG wrote: post #41
dangerlibrary wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until something goes wrong. Like if they can't read the tiny font in the file menu. Then they google it, and discover they need to "sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool." Then they manage to actually find a terminal window and run the command, and install the tool, and turn up every available font rendering option, and it still doesn't solve their problem. That is just one real world example. Linux is an operating s…

People get use to Ubuntu very fast. In my experience, the big problem in organizations are legacy documents and formats. Especially Excel. LibreOffice is good but it's not going to run the macros that were created 10 years ago by guys that are now retired in some beach. The other big problem is specialized software (already amortized) that only run in Windows. The funny thing is that kind of problems happens even bet…

Ditto. Legacy documents and formats.

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#49

Post by dang »

rushabh wrote: post #24

This is based on a policy document released a couple months back. Here is a better article http://opensource.com/government/15/8/india-adopts-open-sour... In general, this is just intent. I am not sure how the government plans to implement this. Government in India is huge and complex and most of the arms run independently, which is great for IT services vendors like IBM, TCS and others since they make money by selli…

> Here is a better article

Thank you. URL changed to that from http://tuxdiary.com/2015/11/02/indian-govt-adopts-open-sourc....

Re: Indian Government adopts an open source policy

#50

Post by sliverstorm »

jezclaremurugan wrote: post #46
kumarm wrote: post #43

I know we are supposed cheer this as victory for Open Source. But anything a government of India (Current or former) does with Technology, I would take it with a grain of salt. Here are recent Indian Government (or Indian States) Projects: 1. Cheap 35$ laptop. We all know how that turned out. 2. Here a App developed by a State Government with Multi Million Dollars budget recently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d…

I understand why you are cynical, but I've been part of the BOSS linux team couple of years ago and I would say it was money well spent. To cite just one example - BOSS Linux was installed along side Windows (dual boot) in the free laptops given to students by the Tamil Nadu govt. This alone helped introduce thousands of students to linux.

... helped introduce thousands of students to linux.

Why is that so good, and so worth lots of government money?

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