The Hindu : Software evangelists converge on India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 25, 2004

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National

Software evangelists converge on India

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JAN. 24. Suddenly India seems to have popped up on the radar of the global movement towards a free-and-open software regime, and its best-known avatar, ``Linux'' last week saw three of the world's leading evangelists of Open Software converge on India.

First to come here was Jon ``Maddog'' Hall, Executive Director of Linux International, a non-profit association of computer vendors, which supports and promotes the Linux operating system.

Here to assist at the launch of a new made-for-Linux-only mid-range server from Silicon Graphics Inc, Maddog's message at his press interaction in Bangalore was simple: Linux is set to swamp the desktops of the corporate world soon. How soon? He gives it two years. Headline writers in Australia, where Maddog moved after his India tour are having a field day playing on his name — and the chorus line of a famous Noel Coward ditty during the height of the British Raj here

(``Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun''). ComputerWorld headlined last week: ``Maddog and Linuxmen go out in the desktop sun''.

Next to land here, was Matthew Szulik, the head of Redhat, the company that sells the world's most successful distribution of Linux. He began his India tour by calling on the President, Abdul Kalam, and told this correspondent: ``I was very excited to hear at first hand, his vision for India by 2020 and was thrilled to see his deep interest in what open source software could do to realise this vision''.

Mr. Szulik was here at the same time as the free software movement's most visible and vocal advocate, Richard Stallman, who told the World Social Forum in Mumbai: ``Copyright is intolerable in the age of computers. People should be free to share''.

Now in Kerala, on what is now almost an annual visit, Mr. Stallman is slated to have meetings this week with both legislators on both sides of the political spectrum — to drive home his view that the state would benefit by realising all its e-governance goals through the free and non proprietary route.

Why are all these advocates of software freedom, suddenly heading here? One possible answer is the perception that huge markets are set to open here.

In an interview with C/net recently, Martin Fink, author of the book ``The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source'' says: ``In developing countries that don't have a Windows legacy — like India and China and the Eastern Bloc — we see some pretty significant volumes.

However, he adds that while open software may provide solutions in the enterprise sector, the Linux desktop is — unlike Windows — not mature and adds that it is ``an area where hype is ahead of reality by orders of magnitude''.

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