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Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

thehindu.com

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Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#51

Post by aspidistra »

Oculus wrote: post #5

Aside from the city of Munich, are their any other governments that are using Linux as their main operating system?

The Spanish region of Extremadura:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuLinEx http://gobex.es/salaprensa/view/press/press/detalle.php?id=8...

(I think other Spanish regions have talked about wanting to use more open source software, but that might be LibreOffice rather than MS Office, rather than a full switch away from Windows.)

Here's another: Lausanne, in Switzerland (pilot):

http://www.24heures.ch/vaud-regions/lausanne-region/Lausanne...

The JoinUp website has lots of examples of open software use in public administration settings. Try digging around in the news archive:

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/all

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#52

Post by tatqx »

Slightly off note, but any movement by the Indian government should be appreciated, considering how much inertia they have :) More on the topic - way back in 1995 when CD-ROM drives became affordable and popular in India [1], I expected Linux to thrive in the country considering how nobody, especially students and enthusiasts, had the money to buy legit copies of Windows. Sadly that never happened. At least the universities could have done their bit to teach and promote Linux, but they too didn't.

[1] Internet connections were so slow that it was impossible for most people to download a Linux distro on off the internet. But there were a lot of computer magazines distributing various Linux distros on CDs for a Rs. 100 or thereabout.

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#53

Post by S4M »

auctiontheory wrote: post #12

It's about time. In fact, it's way past time. But don't expect Microsoft to give up without a great deal more fight, a legal challenge or two, and other tactics from their vast playbook.

What can they possibly do to prevent the state department to switch to Linux (except bribing some people)?

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#55

Post by leoc »

ekianjo wrote: post #46
crdoconnor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even North Korea, they're still training them on office/windows: http://imgur.com/lQQGjyu (taken in a school in pyongsong, autumn last year)

This is probably just to make it look like they do learn stuff on computers, but the level of poverty in NK is so appalling I doubt they have computers in most schools.

Oh, most people in NK never get a sniff of a computer. But it has some animation and IT-outsourcing businesses which are no doubt a nice little foreign-currency earner for the government:

http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/8242/north-korea-needs-set...

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1906219,00...

http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/8/153816-inside-the-hermi... (A¢M paywalled)

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#56

Post by groovy2shoes »

tatqx wrote: post #52

Slightly off note, but any movement by the Indian government should be appreciated, considering how much inertia they have :) More on the topic - way back in 1995 when CD-ROM drives became affordable and popular in India [1], I expected Linux to thrive in the country considering how nobody, especially students and enthusiasts, had the money to buy legit copies of Windows. Sadly that never happened. At least the unive…

> Internet connections were so slow that it was impossible for most people to download a Linux distro on off the internet. But there were a lot of computer magazines distributing various Linux distros on CDs for a Rs. 100 or thereabout.

As a teenager, the only Internet access I could afford was Netzero. Any time I had $13 to spare, I'd head to Books-a-Million and buy a copy of the Linux Format, if only so I could upgrade my Linux partition. Good times :) Do Linux mags still come with discs?

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#57

Post by gtirloni »

D9u wrote: post #14
zxexz wrote: post #2

Having spent some time in India dealing with scattered govt. Windows infrastructure, this is amazing news. This may also open up many new opportunities in computer education and literacy which is very deficient in the country. I really hope this switch does happen.

Some of the best hackers I know are in India, and they don't use Microsoft products... I'm talking truly gifted people. I myself am a BSD fanatic, but I recommend Linux based systems to all of my Windows using friends.

Some of the best hackers I know are in India, and they use Microsoft products... I'm talking truly gifted people.

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#59

Post by danford »

rams wrote: post #37
theyeti wrote: post #31

This may come as a bit skeptical, but IMHO the large scale adaptation of a Linux distro in Indian state departments seems a long way to. The lack of Linux operational training to the personnel along with replacement costs may call for an early demise to the plan to switch to Linux. While it does sound promising, the average government clerk in India, is computer literate in terms of Microsoft Office suite. Replacemen…

I was also skeptical till I noticed 2 huge deployments 1.Cafe Cofee Day is India's largest chain of cafes, sort of India's Starbucks. Their billing machines seem to be a custom Linux that boots into a console application (tastefully made)that's used for billing, taking orders at the counter, upload data etc. 2. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India the country's largest Insurance company with thousands of branche…

I would just like to add that in some cases linux can be better than windows at emulating old dos applications. I believe some large companies write application code based in the console because they stream the applications from some central server and not having a GUI puts less stress on the network, this is especially true for older companies. I worked at a call center for a while and we used multiple ancient dos applications running on windows xp to fill orders. The only other thing the desktops were used for was logging into your personal account and approving hours and looking at your schedule, which was done through some web app.
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