Re: Kerala evolving new vistas in e-governance

[thaths@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Sudhakar Chandrasekharan)]

Arun Sharma wrote:
> First it was China, now it's Kerala. I'm not trying to sound cynical
> here. But the obvious communist influence is not to be missed.

The communism in Kerala is different from the one in China.  China (I
must confess that I've been to China once - that too a remote part of it
for half a day) is a dictatorship.  Kerala (where I've been umpteen
times) is a thriving democracy.  The various communist parties in Kerala
are not communist in the typical sense of the word.  Communism in Kerala
is seen as a way of improving the worker's life.  Even the Congress
party is part of a communist alliance (not with the Marxists) in
Kerala.  Kerala is one of those places where communism and religion are
not mutually exclusive.

> I don't believe that communism is completely evil. But a lot of people
> I've chatted with on the net, do. 

Then again, quite a few people on the net consider the free market
economy to be equally evil.

> And they argue that Linux and GPL
> have nothing to do with communism, because they are all about "freedom"
> and one can't talk about freedom and communism in the same sentence.

Communism, as practiced by China, N.Korea, Cuba etc. might be against
freedom.  But there are quite a few democratic socialistic / communist
parts of the world where freedom is compatible with freedom and the
government - Finland, Sweden, W.Bengal and Kerala, just to name a few.

If we are to be made uncomfortable whenever the 'C' word is mentioned in
the same sentence as the GPL, we should equally be uncomfortable when
the GPL is mentioned in the same sentence as Libertarianism and the free
market economy.

Whatever the form of government, Linux and other free (as in zero cost
/and/ freedom) software are tools in making computers more affordable
and better for individuals, governments /and/ corporations.

Thaths