Gene, please ignore my previous email on the same issue, consider this one: (Swapnil)

Gene wrote:
Again, these are separate matters. They are very important considerations, especially when thinking about individual use. But this does not remove the problem of being at the mercy of those who decide what kinds of large scale systems are to be deployed by governments, and how accessible online services will be.

Gene, very true, and that is the reason why stories like these matter, as they ask questions. Agreeing with you I would give an example, a very interesting episode: schools in karnataks state (5 grade) have chapter on MS Office, so when the kid reaches home and find OpenOffice running, he demands to spend INR 7K and buy MS Office. So, you are correct, but ELCOT (an organisation in Tamil Nadu) has done great job in influencing government dicision and adoption of Linux anf FOSS has increased. Also Microsoft builds a lot of pressure on decision makers to buy their solutions. I recall a meeting with a guy from a neighbours country's IT ministry. He said that they had to buy licences from Microsoft as there was great pressure. So, their FOSS project was under threat but he was assured that the licences will rot in store and they can continue working on Linux. For my recent story I called up CBSE spokesperson as MICROSOFT is in CBSE's curriculum. Imagine an institution set up by public money fills the pocket of a corporate. So, we need these the kind of will power formar guy showed at government level. But we as citizens are also the stakeholeder, we need to build pressure. You know when India rejected OOXML to be approved as ISO, Microsoft sent letters saying that IIT Bombay, the biggest IT temple of India, worked againts nation's interets. A US based company is accusing our institution as working againts nation's interest? This is now a serious matter.

Fortunately, currently India, Venezuella, Brazil, Denmark and South Africa have filed objections with ISO on the approval of OOXML. ISO is under great pressure, I interviewed Roger Frost, though he was very cooperative, but pressure from the ODF community will discourage them from doing what they did at BRM.

Gene, the best thing that OOXML episode has done is making people aware of the dangers of using closed source or closed standards.

Not even Gnu/Linux necessarily removes this onus, for we have to consider the various flavors of Linux: Debian, Knoppix, SuSe, Yellowhat, Redhat, and how they are to be maintained and managed. Not all Linux flavors are equal. Users in environments that deploy Linux on a large scale are still at the mercy of whoever is in charge of the IT management end of the system.

These options are, in my opinion, far more open standards-based than anything else on offer, and they present a better platform for deciding real international standards. This is why so many private investment companies are desperately seeking ways to patent Linux or sue it out of existence for purportedly violating someone's claimed (but usually prior art-based) patents. FOSS and Gnu/Linux represent a sizeable threat to commercial interests.

Here I can't understand certain things, so please bear with me for a while. What I feel is, various flavours of Linux is the beauty of Linux, you can choose which one you want depending on your need without any interoperability issue. But we have been tamed to live in a world without options. As you mentioned, Knoppix is good for IT admins who want to restore data, it is NOT to be installed on machines. I meet Klaus Knopper every year and that's pretty clear -- Knoppix is a LIVE distribution. Debian is also for servers as they focus on stability and due to that their stable branch (currently Etch) stays pretty old. I liked SuSE for its integration,  after Microsoft-Novell deal I stopped using it. Red Hat's RHEL is for servers and its Fedora may be for home users. But for an ordinary user the best choice are Ubuntu, Mandriva or PC Linux OS. These flavours are more easier than Windows to use and install. In our office, we use Linux on 80 % machines. All my friends have been converted to Linux and Ubuntu comes handy. So, I suggest a home user must go for Ubuntu. (Ubuntu is based on Debian and Mandriva on RedHat). Additionally there is NO interoperability problems within Linux. In office I use Debian and at home I have Fedora 9, Mandriva and Ubuntu installed on same machine and I keep switching, just for change without affecting any of my files or work. Its like having 4 different cars and all are like BMWs, Lamborginis, Ferraris...:-)

India is one of the biggest adopters of FOSS. Also in India most of the institutions are migrating to Linux, many banks have migrated to Linux. I was at NXP semiconductors last month and even they have migrated their back end from Unix to Linux. So Linux is catching up. As you mentioned being at the mercy of those who deploy it I agree, but we are the end users, they can't deploy what we don't use. We need to demand. We need to build pressure. And they will budge.

> These options are, in my opinion, far more open standards-based than
> anything else on offer, and they present a better platform for deciding real
> international standards. This is why so many private investment companies
> are desperately seeking ways to patent Linux or sue it out of existence for
> purportedly violating someoneąs claimed (but usually prior art-based)
> patents. FOSS and Gnu/Linux represent a sizeable threat to commercial
> interests.

I completely agree. But, as far as patent of Linux is concerned, I couldn't get what you wanted to say. Last year MS claimed that Linux infringes on it patents. I did a major story and even interviewed Linus Torvalds, who is usually not accessible (to read his interview, click here ). That threat from MS was only to get some Linux players in its camp. They did get Xendros, Linspire, Novell etc. It was a FUD. Microsoft couldn't name a single infringement till date (read full story which I did: The Conspiracy Theory:Linux Violates Microsoft's Patents  ). But after the Novell deal, RMS came out with GNU GPL V3 which ensures that there is no such case repeated. RMS is pretty smart at that one and Eben Moglin doesn't leave any holes. And with biggies like Sun, IBM, Google in FOSS camp (I am not certain if Sun will be comfortable with Linux in the light of its Solaris), there is going to be hard time for the closed source players. All we need to realise it that there is a major threat and if we don't stop using proprietary software, we will be at the mercy of those corporates which assuse our nation's biggest institution as working againts nation. This is challeng to all citizens....Are we still sleeping?

Swapnil