Comment by kumarm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kumarm | Hacker News Reader

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.

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?

> Why is that so good..

It encourages tinkering which is especially important for students.

Also, many other general benefits that open-source brings. For example, open source code is more trustable than closed source.

Yeah but if GNULinux is free in the first place, why spend so much govt. money on it?

GNU/Linux is Free as in Speech, not Free as in Beer. Much like printing presses and political campaigns still cost money, so does hardware and especially so does the time to mentor someone on how to use GNU/Linux.

For many organizations, Windows is actually monetarily cheaper than Linux, particularly organizations that need to deploy non-web GUI applications for users who are never going to be comfortable on a terminal.

The one that I bought through Elcot -- in association with the TN Govt (in 2008) had OpenSUSE installed by default.

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