> What drives such MOU's anand dear is not what is > more economical for the coffers of the motherland but > rather what the government gets in return for working > along with MS.
> So just cause MS software is inferrior and we choose > to use alternatives we have no right to enforce our > decision on others. I am not trying to make a case for > MS or for not purchasing RH. My point is that > companies like MS have far more $$$ to throw about and > bait the ministers/beaureaucrats than most of the > other teeny-meeny FLOSS companies. Was just wondering, what if linux users group from india join hands, and do a PIL (public interest litigation) in some higher court, petioning to force government departments to use commercial, non-open source software only if there is no cheaper alternative available. This may appear far fetched, but that the the only resort a citizen has. And we have many precedences. Look at the previous cases such as enforcing CNG based commercial vehicles in Delhi or Lucknow or whereever else. These were the right decisions to take, but an elected government in India would have never taken. These were enforced by the judiciary upon the governments, and was driven by the citizens like you and me. > And the Software from > Novell-SuSE or RedHat isnt any more cheaper. Try > purchasing a box of RHEL WS and lemme know the best > deal you will get from RedHat India. > I dont think that is true. While commercial GNU/Linux vendors may not be providing their box packs for free, the box packs contain much more than the operating system. For an organization using MS on 100 computers, Microsoft will sell you a license for 100 users and probably charge for 100 copies. You can always buy/download just 1 copy of your favorite Linux Distro, and make as many copies as you want to. You also get the full office suit, developer suits, and other useful utilities. Try getting a quote for MS professional edition with the office suite. > > Why talk about the governments faulty decisions to > spend its rupaiya on Crappy commercial S/W. What about > the total lack of infrastructure around the country > and the basic denial of essential commodities to every > human being within our borders. Lets first address the > more important issues at hand. Arguing about the > governments adoption of FLOSS is not going to take us > anywhere. There are far more important issues to > tackle. No one is claiming that FLOSS is suddenly going to solve all our problems in the coming years. But if Maharastra government is buying 10,000 copies of Windows MS to do word processing and email and browsing tasks, and lets say spending 10,0000 per copy, it had already WASTED 100 MILLION (10 crore) Rupees. 10 crore rupees going out of this country needlessly. 10 Crore rupees that may have been more wisely spent on infrastructure projects, or whatever. And thats just the initial cost, you grow up training a new generation who just learn MS, and would buy more MS when they grow up. > -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
