sk
--- On Thu, 15/10/09, jtd <[email protected]> wrote:
From: jtd <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [fosscomm] Another Struggle of FREEDOM for India : Follow Gandhiji
To: "Indian FOSS Community Network list" <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, 15 October, 2009, 1:08 PM
On Wednesday 14 October 2009, Karthik Shanmugam wrote:
> Hi Edwin,
>
> Yes, I agreed with him.
> September 1984 RMS began to work in GNU Emacs eventually to develop 'Free
> OS' at the same time in India 1984 November, Indian Government announced
> NCP(New Computer Policy) ... This is the historical, technical and
> political gap ... When a guy in the US talked about 'Free OS' India was
> relaxing import conditions ...
I presume you are berating the removal of import restrictions:
No. I try to point out how much we are trailing in technology NOT to rebuke NCP
1984 completely(mean meanwhile I don't agree with it completely since yet I've
to understand NCP 1984 completely)... The years are same so I try to I map it
logically ...
Because at the time we had a licence permit raj that bred corruption and
promoted inept manipulators as "industrialists". One did not require any of
the basic skills - technical, financial, marketing, administrative - just the
readiness to grease palms. If it wasnt for this "relaxing" by the late Rajiv
Gandhi, you would not be sending this email. Digging holes and filling em up
was after all the cornerstone of economic policy till then.
Businesses and the privileged within that eco system must face the blast of
competition - cooperation being one method of competition. Any barrier only
strengthens those within and further depletes those outside.
I need some time to reply, mean while others can share their views ...
The biggest opposer of computerisation was the left trade unions - the guys on
the inside having fun at the expense of 70% of the populace ekeing out an
existence on the outside.
The left trade unions! I remember during 70s one communist MP says, "In a
socialist society automation is boom" ... When I read about implementation of
railway reservation systems the people who were AGAINST are bureaucrat NOT
clerks.
If it ONLY the left against computerization why the congress and the JP packed
IBM and other companies?
The aim of trade left unions are improve the living conditions of the workers
and getting their needs met.
Have other trade unions(other than left) supported the computerization?
Please give some references, I'd like to understand
> In 1984 many Indians visited many companies
> in the US, the UK and Canada et al ... They failed to visit MIT ... If they
> heared about RMS and MIT, Indian IT business would be different ... Any
> history is history ...
TCS in 1984 (and almost every other large vendor i knew of ) wrote it's
applications on unix and cobol. The small guys did it on DOS. Everyone always
offered the source code (or rather the source was kept with you on a bunch of
floppies), as every application was customised. BTW afair the source code -
in assembly - for DOS was available at $100~150 and DRDOS was a lot cheaper.
There was ROMDOS too - two Eproms with dos or an add on card with EPROM and
some ram - no need for floppy or hdd. Networking was thru the serial port,
with 16 port serial concentrators used quite often (you saw them at the
airport booking counter) and novell netware, then the defacto standard.
In 87 a seminar was run by the ERTL on graphics and the main focus was X. Most
of us were throughly pissed off at this resource hog and wondered why the
seminar did not focus on assembly graphics routines (which everbody used
anyway), it being very fast and with a minimal memory and disk footprint.
Interesting ...
So open and free (though not for redistribution) was the norm.
At the time India did manufacture a lot of hardware in competition with
Taiwan. ANSA industrial estate in Mumbai had atleast 4 motherboard and
peripheral card manufacturers. Unfortunately we did not remove the
administrative bottlenecks and by 90 the technologist were all dead.
BTW most addon cards came with a manual that also listed the internal
registers. Writing to the chip vendor got you a whole set of manuals and
schematics - no mile long NDAs to sign.
You see innovation can grow anywhere and one must have no restrictions
whatsoever in bringing in those innovations, least of all by dumb officials.
This apart from the need for first class administrative and infrastructure
facilities.
Right now we are again likely to miss the bus as the government refuses to
remove the man in the middle - it's own self. Infact we continually see them
removing individual freedom in favour of a new bunch of manipulators.
Thus FORD motor company can import a 1980 mothballed plant from Oz, but you
and i cant import a second hand car.
And with stupid schemes like UID we see the government trying to repostion
themselves firmly in the middle.
--
Rgds
JTD
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