Re: Free Software Company

["Amit Sathe" <nsathe@xxxxxxxxxx>]

My comments are inline..

Amit


> On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Arun Sharma wrote:
>
> What will be the percentage of 100 crore Indian population that has
> invested in the IT industry stock?

I think free software is a great advantage to the home user : his computing
rewquirements are limited, he does not need very specilaised software and he
has the time for trial and error.

>
> : basic shops in major cities, which pray for MS be more successful, so
>
> Quite simple, they will turn on to free software tools as demonstrated
> by the big and small training institutions in India (including
> NIIT) that has once shunned away Linux, now offer training in Linux for
> cozy sums.
>
> : that their target markets are bigger.
>
Thats true, India's software exports are more than 1.7 bn USD ( pl correct
me on that if wrong ) but i am doubtful if any of them use Linux .

> When target markets become bigger (as shown by the interests of NIIT in
> Linux), your anxieties on the fate of visual basic shops will fade away.
>
> : That's an unsubstantiated claim. Free software hasn't demonstrated any
> : wealth generation capability or hasn't saved any significant amount
> : of money that was flowing out of the country.
>
> You might be tempted to term the following as isolated cases not fit for
> generalization, but they demonstrate a lot:
>
> 1. River Valley Technologies with a team of 45, is entirely on
>    non-proprietary software and is in the sixth year of existence.
>    Whereas our competitors in our area of activities in this country
>    have shelved out hundreds of thousands of dollars for their
>    software requirements, we are yet to spend anything for it.
>
>    At least, two agencies (Indian Express and another our own client
>    from UK) visited us to make themselves convinced of our claims on
>    usage of non-proprietary software.

Indian express seems to be an interesting example of a coporate switching
over to linux. by the way there is an ERP sytem coming up under the gnu.

>    And we have a decent turnover every year.
>
> 2. Internet Applications Group (a company in the STP, Trivandrum)
>    use 50% proprietary and 50% non-proprietary.
>

Well i do the same ! I am gradually shifting tpo Linux but some devices ( my
internal modem ) do not work so again one has to plan beforehand. The
awareness is also low about linux.

> 3. The Indian Express newspaper have adopted Linux as their operating
>    system and developed their own typesetting system for their
>    daily.
>
> 4. BooksAlive, an inventory control system for the book publishing/
>    distributing/reselling enterprise  written in Java, PostgreSQL
>    as the database engine, preferred operating system Linux, reports
>    with TeX replacing Crystal reports is running in many shops in Kerala
>    for the last one and half years and saves plenty of money for the
>    user on proprietary software/OS. BooksAlive is GPL. The performance
>    rate of BooksAlive is impressive.
>

That makes interesting reading.. do you know of any other accounting system
( other than Gnucash which i have installed )
under  Linux ?

> The above have demonstrated beyond doubt that non-proprietary software
> can generate money and can save substantive foreign exchange outflow.

In India's case it is a net exporter of software so it would work against
us..
>
> Lastly, you sadly overlook large number of ISP's that use a variety of
> non-proprietary software at the server side.
>
>
> : > The downside of your proposition: Can you imagine US voters will still
> : > consider the economy as a key issue, if (as a hypothesis) the freedom
> : > of press is curtailed?
> :
>
> My question was in an US election, can economy be a key issue if free
> press is curtailed?
>
> :
> : 1. Per capita income of $6000 per year was the knee of the curve where
> :    the rate of illegal software fell significantly.
> : 2. Statistically, India was pirating less software than it's per capita
> :    income indicated, so India should be encouraged by decreasing prices
>                                        ----------------------------------
> :    of software.
>
> Item number 2 above sadly contradicts with what you have posted on
> 13 Sep 2000
>
> <arun>
>   As far as India as a developing nation is concerned, given the current
>   import/export situation, India has more to lose by software getting
>   commoditized and worthless by means of tools like GPL. It'd be good
>   for India if software continues to be expensive.
>                ----------------------------------
> </arun>
>
>
> --
> Radhakrishnan
>
>