On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 9:23 PM, g...@sarai.net <g...@sarai.net> wrote: > > > On the face of it, BOSS Linux is a good project, and > if they achieve even part of what they claim to be > doing that will be a significant achievement. Having > said that, I have very strong reservations about how > CDAC, and to a somewhat lesser extent, other governmental > organisations in India, such as NRC-FOSS, relate to > the FOSS community. IMHO, they are still in the cathedral > model, with themselves as the centre, and have little > appreciation of how FOSS works. E.g., BOSS Linux pulls > happily from Debian, but contributes nothing back, at > least when I last looked.
I discussed with few people from BOSS in the last couple of months and can say that Gora's statement is still true. >You could say that is how > government in India works, but to my mind that mode of > functioning is exactly the problem. > > As stereotactic mentions, the goal should be to find and > fix issues with Indian participation in FOSS projects, > rather than to try to find problems with existing work. > Personally, I no longer see much potential in the > community trying to engage with the government: We need > to make things work on our own. I also disagree about > localisation, though: IMHO, while Indian-language support > is not being worked on in a systematic manner, it is very > important that such work be done. Agree on the localisation. However on the government engagement, Kerala state government, Assam government appears to be promoting FOSS in their schools and offices. Hope the other state governments and central government can pick up best practices from these places. FOSS advocacy organisations have an important role in this respect. Cheers Arjun -- ubuntu-in mailing list ubuntu-in@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-in
