[PLUG] [OT] Re: Government Sponsored Vendor lock

[Mithun Shitole]

On Wednesday 28 July 2010 11:42 AM, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:

>> While everything that helps should be tried, the real ownership of the
>> apps is not with the software vendor but with their customer - Govt.
>> Besides PIL (which I agree is long drawn), don't know whether other means
>> such as RTI, media coverage, making such questions reach political parties
>> that can pursue it in the parliament (Sounds too much? But that's
>> officially supposed to be the way in democracy!) are feasible or not.

I think a thoughtful article in a reputed newspaper will really help 
spread the word. If anyone here at plug has connections with Reporters 
etc can take the initiative.

> FOSS did make inroads in that syllabus. Sudhanwa was instrumental in
> participating the efforts to replace software required in curriculum with FOSS
> alternatives such as gcc, postgresql etc. Lots of curriculum(at least in pune
> uni.) need foss alternative.
>
> However that has not resulted in any net value to students and educators IMO.
> Colleges have linux installations, many a times only one machine which
> somebody has setup long time ago and teachers are afraid to touch(I have seen
> redhat 6.2 running 3-4 years ago). Nobody knows how to install a linux distro.
> and do not think thats a problem to start with.

In my engineering days, I had convinced teachers to build a FOSS LAB and 
Installed a Fedora core on 20 Machines with NFS etc. It was really 
learning experience for me but I failed to create a eco system by which 
lab can be sustained. After completion of BE I got the call from teacher 
asking how to remove the "stuff"!

In most of the colleges, Linux is Alien stuff!