Respected Prof. Kannan and all FOSSouls,
Under the guidance of Prof. Phalguni Gupta (IIT Kanpur), we converted the entire lab syllabus of B.Tech. final year CS and IT of UPTU, Lucknow to FOSS in Jan 2007. When I came back from IIT Kanpur, I tried to implement this syllabus in my own UPTU affiliated college. It was a difficult endeavor to convert the computing culture of an already running organization. Removal of Turbo C++ became almost a war on Polio. When AICTE people came (repeatedly), they looked at GNU/Linux and its usage as freeware and asked us for Rational Rose and MATLAB. I have seen many kinds of AICTE inspectors and none of them appreciated FOSS. They had their own music to play and nobody was ready to listen a single statement why FOSS was used when a proprietary version was available in the 'market'! I have looked at this letter and I just hope that AICTE Inspectors may also read the same before going for any routine/NBA inspection. Regards, Mohit Singh GNU/Linux User Group, Meerut -- LUG@IITD - http://tinyurl.com/ycueutm
