Indian State Encourages Microsoft Removal

cultrhetor writes "The New York Times reports that the communist government in the Indian state of Kerala is trying to remove Microsoft from its public institutions, as part of a campaign against monopolistic corporations. From the article: 'schools and public offices across the state are being encouraged to install free software systems instead of purchasing Microsoft's Windows programs. "It is well-known that Microsoft wants to have a monopoly in the field of computer technology. Naturally, being a democratic and progressive government, we want to encourage the spread of free software," M. A. Baby, the state's education minister, said by telephone.' The government is not banning Microsoft, but it is actively encouraging all 12,500 public schools in the state to install Linux."

Re:Boo

[belmolis]

Kerala is ruled by an ELECTED communist government within an overall governmental framework that is not communist. Private enterprise is alive and well in Kerala. Kerala also has the highest literacy rate in India (95%) and a lot of technically skilled people.

Dupe! ; link to newsforge article

[solferino]

1. This is a dupe. [slashdot.org]
2. In the original slashdot story I posted a link to an article on newsforge [newsforge.com] which gives better background context to this decision by the Kerala government. The article has some flaws i.e. "open source guru Richard Stallman", but still makes interesting reading.

Re:Boo

[1u3hr]

Even non-communist states set policies for the software they buy. They're not stopping businesses from doing so.

Re:Cautiously optimistic

[belmolis]

Because of the GPL, it isn't possible for a Linux company to develop the kind of control that Microsoft has.

Re:Boo

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

like the recent ridiculous coke and pepsi ban.

You're kidding - coke & pepsi were found (by a private lab) to have contained a pesticide called malathion [iol.co.za].

Is it really communism to want pesticides out of foods?

Re:Boo

[rm999]

Actually, Coke and Pepsi showed that research to be flawed, and as I understand it linked it to the water. Kerala banned it because they are anti-corporation - especially from the West. Behavior like that is only keeping foreign investment out of India.

It is communist to be anti-corporation, especially the way Kerala has done it.

Re:Cautiously optimistic

[babbling]

Because of the GPL, it isn't possible for a Linux company to develop the kind of control that Microsoft has.

Actually, it is. Due to the LGPL being used in most libraries, it is possible for a company to develop proprietary software on top of Linux. For example, if Microsoft had a Linux distribution, they could create MS Office for Linux, which only runs on Microsoft Linux.

I think the LGPL will eventually turn out to be a huge tactical mistake.

Re:Cautiously optimistic

[init100]

I think the LGPL will eventually turn out to be a huge tactical mistake.

Why would it be better if the LGPL libraries would have been GPL instead? The reason to be for the LGPL is that it should be unnecessary to have two libraries doing the same thing on the same system. If we would take as an example the GNU Libc, using the GPL instead of the LGPL would force users that want to run GPL-incompatible software to install a sepatare Libc that allows linking for such software. Thus, the LGPL was created for free software that has equivalent non-free software, such as GNU Libc. Free software that does not have non-free equivalents, such as Readline, are licensed under the GPL.

Re:Boo

[IndigoParadox]

I think he means Jane.

Nonsense from NYT as usual...

[jkrise]

"the Communist government in India's southern state of Kerala "

It is a democrtically elected coalition government in Kerala, led by a Communist party. And communism has no bearing on the discussion.

"The Education Ministry has an annual budget of 40 million rupees, or $1.86 million, to promote computer technology among the one million students"

One US dollar is about 45 Indian rupees or thereabouts. So, 40 million rupees would be less than a million dollars.

"Financial, rather than ideological, reasons may be at the root of the state's decision to promote free software."

Again, not true. People in Kerala have been using computers since the mid '80s actually. The VSSC (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre) in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala has lots of Sun graphic workstations supplied by Wipro in the late '80s. Many public sector undertakings, banks and the Railways have been users of Unix based systems for decades now. Many companies in India have realised that it's a total waste of time, money and effort to invest in Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco equipment and their closed-source zero-innovation ideologies for their computing needs.

The Indian branch of the Free Software Foundation is located in Kerala, again because of the high literacy rates, and the forward-thinking, proud and practical people of Kerala. Even if Windows Vista is released free for all the students in Kerala, they would not be inclined to waste their time.

Re:Nonsense from NYT as usual...

[Big_Al_B]

Seriously, the GDP of that country is less the MS makes in a year, why would they worry?

Wow. India's GDP is around $3.32 trillion dollars per year. I didn't know M$ was that profitable.

Oh, you probably meant the _state_ of Kerala's GDP Is lower the M$ profit.

Let's google that:

Kerala GDP == 89451.99 Cr ~= $18.37 billion
M$ FY2005 Net Income ~= $12.6 billion

Hm. I think you're maybe bad at geography *and* economics.