Tamil Nadu (India) Shutting the Door On Microsoft

aprasadh writes "The government of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, has begun initiatives to convert all of their IT systems fully to OSS-based software. (The link is a copy of a news item that appeared recently in the Deccan Chronicle, an English-language daily.) The managing director of the IT procurement, consulting, and training agency for the Tamil Nadu government describes the reasons why he has chosen OSS, and also how he dealt with Microsoft executives." From the article: "Initially, 99 per cent of government systems have been running on Microsoft systems but then 2007 will be a watershed year for the state IT sector... We have already dispatched 6,500 Linux systems to village panchayats and another 6,100 Acer desktop systems with Suse Linux operating systems are on their way. We are procuring 20,000 desktop systems for schools, which will run only on Suse Linux... I require at least 500 trainers to train 30,000 state officials across Tamil Nadu in the next six months."

Microsoft-olatry

From TFA:

Mr Umashankar . . . said all the ELCOT servers were on Redhat Linus.

Sounds painful.

In good sadness, though, India's push for OSS seems to be in direct proportion to its Microsoft-olatry: last I heard, most institutions there prostrate before Redmond.

Suse?

Am I the only one that was excited to read about this, until it said Suse Linux?

Re:Suse?

but Microsoft will find it tough without a huge country like India buying their software packages

Yes, but for another reason. Ok, it might be tough for Microsoft losing a large customer base like India, but I think that the migration of a large number of Indian programmers to Linux poses a much larger thread to Microsoft.

One of the most often head FUD arguments against Linux is that there are not enough programs and this alone would be a reason why Linux isn't ready for the desktop. We all know the chicken/egg problem Linux had to deal with for a long time. With more and more countries considering Linux and a growing user/developer base this argument gets more and more ridiculous. And Indian isn't known for having the worst programmers.

Even worse for Microsoft: Linux still has a little (!) problem with hardware and drivers. There are still too many hardware producers, which do not provide drivers or even specifications of their products. The situation got much better in the last years, but if one is honest, one must admit, that going into a shop and buying an arbitrary piece of hardware can still be result in quite a disappointment for Linux users. Maybe the hardware producers can afford to ignore the Linux users in Europe and America (stupid and short sighted, if you ask me), but can the afford to lose a whole country like India? Yes, Tamil Nadu might not be the whole India, but if this switch works, and there is no technical reason that it doesn't, the rest of India might follow quickly. Over night the remaining hardware/driver problems might be gone. And with that another FUD 'argument'.

Losing India might be the worst that can happen to Microsoft. And not because of some unsold Office and Vista packages in India.

Re:Suse?

Plus, there's also big movement in Europe. And Europe is the part of the world that CAN pay. They are choosing to switch because of Microsoft's monopoly. They want free choice and INTEROPERABILITY.
That will boost India's software companies and both will benefit. Especially that companies are changing their business models. Now, with FOSS quite widespread, they change from selling product to supporting them. Look at RedHat.

So India will soon have what Europe needs (cheap support, free software) and Europe has what India needs - cash, foreign currencies especially.

Mutual benefit.

Re:Suse?

Plus, there's also big movement in Europe. And Europe is the part of the world that CAN pay. They are choosing to switch because of Microsoft's monopoly. They want free choice and INTEROPERABILITY.

True, but there's another issue that's quietly getting attention: Microsoft's potential control over government's computers.

There was a funny example of the problem in the recent discussion here of Vista's DRM. When people mentioned MS's ability to disable your software remotely, one reply was that they've had this ability since XT. Really! This is a huge sword hanging over anyone that needs reliability and control of their own computer systems and data.

This is a really good issue for OSS supporters, and it should be used as a "talking point" at any opportunity. Do you really want a giant American corporation with such power over your computer's software? Such questions can really get the attention of government administrators.

Re:Suse?

Man... just the other day, I stuck a Ubuntu CD in my notebook, which I specifically selected for Linux-compatibility, and everything just worked! I have bluetooth, sound, accelerated graphics, everything! It even connected to a nearby unencrypted wireless network automatically.
I also installed Windows from scratch... what a pain, I had to go and download each driver, then restart the machine at least 5 times to get them all installed and up and running, and then I had to install my programs which all took restarts as well. Such a pain.

My point? Get the correct machine, and Linux IS easy, and works out of the box. Just like you can't run Windows on a PowerPC, and wouldn't even try, get crappy hardware like a cheap laptop with no Linux support, and it won't work.

Re:Suse?

Contrary to popular belief, using Suse does not turn you into a vile subhuman ogre. Also, it didn't say what Suse they were migrating to, so if they're downloading free copies of OpenSuse, I really don't see why you'd even care. The various SUSE distros are wonderful operating systems, and they are (mostly) FOSS, so even if you don't agree with the Novell deal, I don't see why you feel the need to keep trolling about it.

Re:Suse?

You're absolutely right. Don't forget that over 40% of Linux code comes from company employed programmers. And it's still Open Source. Like for example RedHat. And Suse. So there shouldn't be any grievances about it - those companies push FOSS to market and give all FOSS community sense of direction.

And coming back to India - that's brilliant news. Think that India has over 1 billion people. All of them will be Linux users. And finally they will come as cheap labour (IT support) to UK/US to promote FOSS. And don't forget about opportunities of opening cheap Linux support call centres there.

We should be celebrating!

Jumping The Gun, Are We?

And coming back to India - that's brilliant news. Think that India has over 1 billion people. All of them will be Linux users. And finally they will come as cheap labour (IT support) to UK/US to promote FOSS. And don't forget about opportunities of opening cheap Linux support call centres there.

By my calculation we're talking about 0.003% of those 1 billion people. And Indian call centres for linux will likely be pricier than their Windows counterparts (smaller pool, rising demand). Those call centres are already rising in cost anyway.

Not that it isn't a promising sign... but to suggest all of India will embrace linux seems unrealistic.

Pity it's only Linux - what about the alternative?

I think it's pretty clear that the Tamils should run Tiger.

Re:Pity it's only Linux - what about the alternati

"And so you believe. Who told you ? The chaps who had phantasised WMDs all over the by now destructed place ?"

I am a Tamil, From Sri Lanka.. lets just say I know a bit more than the average person.

Tamils in Sri Lanka have been severely disenfranchised over the years by a few Nationalists.

I was going to write a bit about it, but read up on Black July.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_July [wikipedia.org] is a good starting point.

Tamils have suffered terribly in the years since independence, and organised killing, and rape by groups suspected to be associated or controlled by the Government of Sri Lanka is common.

Although I was born in Sri Lanka, I have lived in the UK since the age of three, having emigrated here since 1979. However, sometimes when I go to Sri Lanka, The fact my passport has my Place of Birth as "Jaffna" I am noticeably treated with suspicion by some people.

The LTTE are seen by many Tamils in Sri Lanka as the only hope for them. In many cases, the LTTE has provided a lot of change in Sri Lanka. However, their overall egalitarian view could cause more issues than solve at this stage. Also the use of killing to achieve the goals is another thing I am a bit objectionable about. This is why they are view by many as terrorists, even though their mandate, and their intentions are Freedom Fighters. Although most of what they do are for self defence, some actions do indeed go far beyond self defence. Certainly the LTTE are NOT on the same scale as Al-Queda, etc.

Yes you are totally correct about the Buddhist Clergy, and certain ultra nationalist factions. A lot of lies and propaganda exist there, were the general populace is hood winkled to believing that Tamils are the cause of every problem.

However, I have many Sinhalese Friends, who are frankly amazing, so maybe now is the time to capitalise on friendships, rather than war. I just feel there is too much bloodshed already, and people have to put behind old prejudices, and actually look forward. I know its not easy, I have been through the heartache of hopes being dashed. Therefore I criticize both the government and the LTTE for not really working hard to capitalising the short lived ceasefire, and showing true leadership rather than rhetoric.

The Problems in Sri Lanka are immense, and rather than tell you everything, I simply invite those who wish to know, to find information, readily available on the Internet from both sides.

One thing for sure, the war back home brings tears to my eyes. Sri Lanka was and in some ways still is a beautiful country, with some very smart educated and intellectual people. Had there not been a war, Sri Lanka would be on a par with Korea and other far east "tigers".

Re:Pity it's only Linux - what about the alternati

The Tamil Tigers are not terrorists. They have an Air Force.

Out Sourcing

Sounds like someone forgot who butters thiri bread. MS may pull their call centers out of India now. Oh, wait, maybe that's a GOOD thing.

It's a scam!

I require at least 500 trainers to train 30,000 state officials across Tamil Nadu in the next six months.

If anyone is interested then please deposit a small sum of money $1,000 into my bank account to cover the cost of getting your visa and other associated paperwork. Because I am so desperate for trainers I will be paying $100,000 so it is really only a very small sum of money.

I wish them ALL success

The numbers outlined looks good, but then they have always looked good. It really comes down to getting people who can actually make it happen. But if any one country has the IT manpower to make it happen, I'd say it was India... and cheaply too.

I hope there are many eyes on this move. They plan to move pretty quickly and so people will not become quite so bored as when other such projects are projected to take 5+ years and often peter out or are otherwise persuaded not to continue.

I also find it interesting that this particular Indian state seems somewhat uncorruptable. I'm not saying that anyone opting for proprietary software is corrupted, but I am saying that this guy's hard-line lacks any sort of compromise or wriggle room for Microsoft to persuade them against this. If Microsoft can't buy them, I have to wonder what these people are like.

And just to put it out there -- I could probably be bought by Microsoft if I were to find myself in a similar situation. So I have to admire this Indian state's dedication. But I'm guessing Microsoft has only begun their campaign of dirty tricks, leverage and persuation. Rather like one U.S. state's intention to move to OpenDocument, while Microsoft could make the IT guy budge on his plans, they simply when around him and bought his bosses.

But the bottom line is that if these guys are successful, a lot of people will be noticing.

Microsoft has it right that the future is software as a service... well, at least the service part anyway. The software part should not be proprietary.

Not the first (and not the last, I hope)

Kerala was the first state to do this - slashdot story [slashdot.org] (and the oblig. dupe [slashdot.org]).

But those stories paint Kerala as some hippie commune full of comrades - I've been following the developments in Kerala [dotgnu.info] for a while and in general all that makes sense.

Of course, most of these states are picking F/OSS for economic reasons - but not exactly about freedom and stuff. I've heard whispers from the gubment that it is the support contracts which are deal killers for F/OSS in general, but of late the government has started taking a socialist approach of doing it in-house rather than contracting it out to vendors (well, it doesn't sound socialist when a company does I.T, right).

Re:Not the first (and not the last, I hope)

Considering that Kerala has achieved the highest literacy rate in India, and achieved life expectancy and health indexes [expert-eyes.org] to rival the first world when it'd been on a third world budget for decades, and is for that matter a leader in that country's impressive development in IT, I should think that its endorsement of Linux should have done folks here proud, whether or not Kerala's government has voted communists in and out and in again or not.

But, Tamilnad has smart people too, so this is good news, especially if you find all that business of helping the working poor help themselves a radioactive concept and are keen to keep your distance from it. ;)

Microsoft's price

The official offered the XP operating system for about Rs.7000 while he quoted Rs.500.
...
ELCOT is not the loser when Microsoft did not accept our price of Rs.500; on the other hand, Microsoft loses out due to our big volumes involved," he said.

In other words, the guy wanted XP for 11 dollars [google.com], but Microsoft would only offer it for 158 dollars [google.com]. Nice.

Microsoft Linux

I think within the next 20 years (when Vista is dead) Microsoft will make it's own Linux distro and sell support. It is possible the deal between Microsoft and Novell is the first step on this road. Microsoft cannot beat Linux.....therefore why not join it and buy (and try to put down other distros) as much as possible!

They're Safe

And since they went with Suse, they're safe from being sued by Microsoft, thanks to the Microsoft-Novell deal.

E-Governance efforts of Umashankar

Mr. Umashankar, IAS officer is a staunch supporter of open source software. You can see his commitment towards opensource in the EGOVINDIA [yahoo.com] group. He is the popular member of this active group. I believe his actions are in true spirit.

MS overquote?

7000 rupees is about $150 USD right? That's not cheap at all. Not for XP volume licensing. Not in India. Not in the US.

30,000 government officials?

"We will train over 30,000 government officials in Linux Operating Systems and Open Office

Just how many people live in this state anyway?

Re:30,000 government officials?

From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] the population is just over 60 million which gives it a population roughly equivalent to the UK so 30K civil servants isn't that outrageous - especially as they inherited their civil service from the UK. Furthermore

The sixth most populous state in the Indian Union, Tamil Nadu has the largest urban agglomeration nationwide. Increases in literacy have caused Tamil Nadu to report the second lowest decadal growth in population in India. Globalisation brought increased export opportunities, making Tamil Nadu the fifth largest economy among the states of India. The growing demands for skilled labour have caused the increased number of educational institutions in Tamil Nadu. It has the highest number of vocational training institutions in India. Chennai, which was known until 1996 as Madras, is the fourth largest city of India and the state capital. Chennai is the home of Marina Beach, one of longest beaches in the world. Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirapalli, Salem, Thirunelveli and Tiruppur are other large cities (Corporations) of Tamil Nadu.

so it's not exactly a quiet backwater.

Re:30,000 government officials?

And this is what (imho) we westerners seem not to get: when (not if) the switch to OSS happens it won't be here in the west: China and India make up some (half?) of the world's population, and once they come on board ... MS et.all are toast. And with them out, our IT staff becomes second-rate as they become irrelevant.

Perspective Re-calibration.

MS et.all are toast. And with them out, our IT staff becomes second-rate as they become irrelevant.

Your perspective has drifted and needs to be fixed. You seem to equate M$ with US and US technical excellence. Most people would throw away a meter like you, but a new faceplate and a few twists should have you back in operation.

Developers and IT staff at IBM, Red Hat, Novel, Ubuntoo, Mepis, Chrysler, Lowes, GE, and so on and so forth, would tell you that M$ and those who know only that are already second rate. They would not share you assessment of "our IT staff," nor do they fear foreign "competition". In their world, the more the merrier. American excellence does not have to be anti-social.

Hmm ..

The Information and Technology Minister - Dayanidhi Maran belongs to the same political party as the one in Tamil Nadu and he is seen hobnobbing with Billy [hindu.com] on launching MS products in India

hey..

Am I hearing chairs flying around?

Do we need to hear about this?

As Good as this news in, does the slashdot community have to constantly reminded not only of the benifits of open source but more annoyingly, of every single government and private organisation which switches from Microsoft to oss?

Re:Do we need to hear about this?

Slashdot gives you full control over the subjects you see on the homepage. If you have Linux selected, then yes, you'll repeatedly hear when Linux is deployed in favor of Windows. Since it seems you do include Linux on your Slashdot homepage, were you hoping to read about kernel scheduling latency, NUMA architecture, futexes, and devfs? I'm happy hearing about India choosing Linux.

Good Riddens ?

If their "SEO" & "Website builder" strategies are any indication of how their government operates, I bet Microsofts' real reaction to this would be more along the lines of "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, ya cheap bastards !".

Everything needs to be free....

Free Land [hindu.com]
Free TV [yahoo.com]
Free GOLD!!!! [rediff.com]

The only complaint is rice is cheap not free [hindu.com] - can you imagine paying nearly $0.50 for 10 Kilograms (22 lbs)? Govt. these days....
....just kidding- TN is pretty good when it comes to most things comparitively. Glad that they went through with this - whatever their reasons may be (empty coffers must likely), the path they have taken is a brave one. There may be some FUD initially, but typically these govt. officials do nothing more than what they are told to do on the PC (i.e. press ALT-P, type, click on OK etc... - of course in TN, everything must be in Tamil as well). So there wont be any complaints like "This new Nvidia card is not working on my PC" OR "how can I get this to recognize my new USB external hard drive"...
Congrats SUSE - you got yourself 30,000+ new users who wont complain much. Having said that, everything will get blamed on the "new SW" - including printer jams, network failures - anything.

Penguins sighted in Andhra Pradesh

I took a driving license test in Andhra Pradesh (a state just north of Tamil Nadu). I was required to take a computer based multiple choice questionnaire that was hosted on a RH box. And that was two years ago.

This is where windows will crack

Microsoft is in a "can't lose" situation with VISTA in the developed world - OEM systems will all be shipped with it no questions asked, and most businesses will drink the TCO cool-aid and go with what they think is safe. But the margins are much tighter in the developing world, making proprietary software unaffordable. Their choice is either piracy, (and MS is really putting the squeeze on that) or FOSS.

If FOSS can do the job at all they will use it, even if there are a few warts to deal with. The windows install base will start to erode not in America or Europe as expected, but in the emerging markets. MS themselves knew that when they came out with those international editions of XP at fire sale prices, but they were deliberately crippled in how many applications they could run.

Do we care

Hell, to start with 99% of computers ran pirated windows, no revenue for Microsoft anyway. Why should one care if they migrate to OSS.

If it can happen anywhere...

...it'll be India.

I know a lot of us have experienced the despair of offshore IT "help desks" and many of those are in India. But they're just cowboys jumping on the outsourcing bandwaggon. Their days are numbered, for the most part.

This part of the business gives a false impression of what the state of IT expertise in India is *really* like. It's pretty darn good. There are plenty of highly competent IT people there and, yes they generally have a huge advantage in terms of cost-of-living vs. expected-income. However, despite the rhetoric about the Internet making geographical location irrelevant, I don't see it happening just yet. For most of my work I still have to fly to the client's site.

But, in their own back yard, Indian IT workers are in a position to do what the hell they like. They have the expertise, culture and work ethic to make it work and there is no way that anyone can force a second-choice solution on them. And if they see MS as second choice...

Piracy?

Isn't most software in that part of the globe pirated anyways?

Neat, but does he have to be such a jerk about it?

"India can live without Microsoft packages and even progress but Microsoft will find it tough without a huge country like India buying their software packages," he said.

The article almost reads like he's doing this specifically to piss off Microsoft, or to get them to lower their prices. So you're switching to open source, just do it and shut up already.

Replace "Tamil Nadu" with "South Carolina"

read the article replacing "tamil nadu" with south carolina. believe it or not, the IT economy of south carolina is probably at least as large as that of Tamil Nadu. If the government of South Carolina suddenly decided to use all OSS, would we see half of the globalization-implications-scope comments we see here? No. Rather, linux fans would highlight this as a significant but ultimately small victory for OSS and the rest of the world would just shrug. After all, slashdot duly posts some article every time some town or municipality's government switches fo linux, but some of us notice that even at the rate of one a month, it would take centuries for the world's governments, much less the world as a whole, to take up linux.

The proper solution for governments, indicidentally, is OPEN SOURCE SOTWARE, that is OPERATING SYSTEM NEUTRAL/AGNOSTIC. That is to say, it should run equally on Windows, Linux and Macintosh without too much problem. the operating system is not an interesting question (in fact, it can be OSS but microsoft only... i dont care) any more than the mouse is. the open-ness or closed-ness of the application software itself - that is, the bits of code that embody government policy about voting, welfare, whatever are the important bits to be OSS as long as we have reasonable trust that the underlying OS is fair (and, despite whatever hyperbole you might see here on slashdot, windows and osx are both certainly 'fair' in this respect - microsoft has not created any OS hooks that anybody knows or reasonably suspects to, say, detect voting software running on xp and change the results even though the software itself is correct).

that' nice, because...

... every time an IT system is converted from Windows to OSS, a chair in Redmond gets its wings!

success rate?

Is anyone tracking how many of these announcements actually succeed, vs. how many give up after getting enough concessions / advertising dollars / lobbying money from microsoft?

A cry for decency in abbreviations

The second "S" in OSS stands for software. It's not OSS software, it's OSS.

Oh god, what have I become? *pulls the trigger*

LUG

A few years ago I used to be part of the Chennai LUG (Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu). I used linux simply because it was fun to hack, and was never one for the advocacy. But there were a bunch of guys in the LUG who were a lot more into the whole freedom thing and would go to great lengths to educate the public and/or meet with the political honchos and get them to make some changes. I used to think they were crazy (still do :-), but also admired their perseverance. I guess their hard work and a lot of others' is paying off.

Never understood why

Why would a developing nation worry about using american owned and priced software? Linux is free, they can train their own people to support it and make software. Hell they don't even have to respect the GPL, so they can keep everything they do in house. Then if it turns out to be worth anything they could sell it to other developing countries. This scenario would of course suck for america, but isn't this what linux is supposed to do? Destroy the US?

All OS' are out of date.

I think this whole discussion should be irrelvant. All OS' are based on systems designed over twenty years ago by Technical people for technical people. Back then Technical people were the majority of computer users. Not anymore the average user really just does not care. They want to do there email, run their programs and not be bothered. And there needs to be an OS that does that. I have experience with Apple, Linux, several Unix flavors, DOS, and Windows going back over twenty years, and I don't think any one of the OS' allow the average user to just USE their computer. The Beast in Redmond needs to be slain, but I don't think Linux should be the one to do it. Something new needs to be made.

It's Kind of Funny

It's kind of funny how they end up going back into the embrace of Microsoft. :(

More on Government initiative on linux

Before you appreciate ..politics plays a major role than cost and usability. M$ can easily buy off these politicians into using M$

On linux front lots of activities by the Gov..G.O way back in 2002 on OSS.. http://www.tn.gov.in/gorders/IT/it-e-10-2002.htm [tn.gov.in]

Linux based OS compatible for Govt offices says experts http://www.tn.gov.in/pressclippings/archives/pc200 3/newindpress/newindpress15072003.htm [tn.gov.in]

The Door Doesn't Shut, It Swings

OSS? Not hardly. Switching to SUSE simply means switching from one department of M$ to another.

Re:What a laugh!

1 lakh = 21363 USD aprox. lakh 100 000 rupee crone 1 million rupee more ignorance in cultural diversity shining through smile they are your future customer/boss

Re:What a laugh!

Here's a country that's just learned to count, and it thinks it can go up against the most powerful country in the world, with a long history of mathematical excellence.

"Just learned to count"? I know the US educational system has a bad reputation, but isn't this a bit of an exaggeration?

Re:What a laugh!

Aside from your obvious racist attitude, the concept of zero and the rules governing it [wikipedia.org] for modern mathematics were first described in India [wikipedia.org]. Since this is the first axiom for natural numbers [wikipedia.org] it could be argued that the Indians were actually the first to be able to count as we understand it today.

Bob

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

You say "National self interest" as if it's a good thing. As the internet is helping demonstrate the physical soil borders we were used to in the 20th Century are outdated. Microsoft may be making money for "Americans" but it's also making money in each country that is taxed by those countries, and employing people in those countries.

OSS != free software. Free software != the best software. At least, not in every case.

I imagine that the next few centuries are going to be interesting as globalisation *really* kicks in - see AllOfMp3 as an example of what can happen.

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

Microsoft's worldwide power peaked around the year 2000, other multinationals (including US based) and countries saw the danger in Microsoft's monopoly and are now in the process of breaking it. This benefit's the whole world including the USA. If you saw the movie The Lord of The Rings, well it's like that, people start off as nice guy's...and then power corrupts!

Irritating moron

I'm Dutch so I'm using euro's. In india they use rupees, and large amounts of Rupees are expressed in lakh rupees or crore rupees. A Lakh Rupee is one hundred thousand rupees and a crore rupee is ten million rupees.

For you ignorant fool the conversion gets you 1698 Euro for 1 lakh rupee.

You are probably a US'ian, so you probably think your dollar is the only valid currency in the world. The rest of the world doesn't think so:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_03/wallenwein 060303.html [gold-eagle.com]

Now, that the euro (a) exists, and (b) has already achieved a tremendous amount of penetration of the international currency markets and even central bank reserves to some extent, and (c) has not lost decisively in value but has gained back all "losses" to date, the stage is set for a slow, gradual, but complete takeover by the euro of the dollar's role as the international reserve currency.

This process will not be allowed to take place too suddenly, because a complete and rapid "crash" of the US economy would still hurt too many countries that are dependent on the US market for their exports. Their export routes will have to be shifted first.

Rather, the US economy will be allowed to slowly suffocate under its own dollar-weight, letting it go into a gradual recession, with gradual deflationary pressures exerting themselves at first a la Japan (now happening), which the Fed is presently proceeding to "fight" with mammoth inflation, and that will eventually help bring about hyper-inflation.

--

You know, I used to be rather fond of the US, I've travelled through 35 states, and know the country well. With your current government, the US is loosing goodwill at a tremendous rate, and your personal kind of stupidity doesn't help. But who cares, you're likely an adolescent male anyway.

Bart

It doesn't

Using FOSS involves no economic loss to the US whatsoever. Microsoft is not the US. Although Microsoft employees may earn less and their shareholders get less in dividends, and they may pay less tax, this is balanced by the increase in profitability of all the companies saving money by not using their products.

If you mean the loss of profits from foreign sales (i.e. the export market) this is a completely separate issue. The mere fact that other countries try to avoid buying MS products means that in the long or short term income from this source will dry up. From the point of view of the US, it is probably better that other countries continue to buy US products (Red Hat, Novell) than that they either do not develop an IT infrastructure at all, or develop entirely home grown solutions.

The history of every major industry is one of declining prices. This leads to economic expansion, not contraction, whether it is steel, cars, television. Software is not exempt from economic laws.

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

Well unless you have some plan to eject America into space and make a new world just for it, I find your comment to be very pompous.

Re:American Economy? Anyone?

Once I did a phone interview for a position at MS. The guy on the other end was certainly from India, and a terrible English speaker.

I know my grammar slips a lot (I blame the Internet for deteriorating my English :-) ), but understanding the questions under stress was hard enough without understanding the freaking English he was speaking.

Several times I had to ask him to repeat the question, and I could notice that at some point he became upset about it. Even though I correctly answered > of the questions (they were in the line of "can you create a P-time program to solve this NP-time problem?"), they sent me the "We decided to pursue other candidates at this time" e-mail.

If there are MS recruiters reading this post (we all know you read /.), please refrain from using poor-English-speaking programmers on job interviews.

Re:Looking forward

The UK will be the last Microsoft stronghold, not the USA!

Re:Not possible in first world countries.

this would be true if it were necessary 1 trainer for each linux user.

One thing that MS and most people like to forget is that trainers are necessary if you are deploying windows too.

tecnical training and support for windows are not free!!!!

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

Who was the Slashdick who modded me redundant? I can't really think of a more appropriate topic for this post and for this forum.
The global balance of power is shifting more rapidly right now than in the last 100 years, and America (by most calculations) would appear
to be the big loser. America has very little industrial/export capacity left and two if its remaining powerhouse industries are tech
and pharma. I'm a huge supporter of OSS, and yet I frequently wonder about larger issues like the general balance of trade because
geopolitically and economically it is clear that America is teetering.

Redundant? Uh... wow. Sorry for boring you with uninteresting and non-current issues.

Yar screw Sony and Micro$oft. Wii rocks. Apple really loves me. SCO is stoopid. Yay Google. LOL Penguins, get it? OMG Ponies! Yawn.

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

I, for one, am embarrassed for my country because of the likes of Microsoft. World Domination with such a patently inferior product is such an American trait, and the reason most of the world hates us. For now, I'll back other American tech companies like Apple, and any other inventive and inspiring company. When (if) Microsoft starts making compelling products, I'll start rooting for them.

Re:Just how open ?

No I didn't miss that part, I also didn't miss the part that lets me know there's going to be an undertrained staff using this stuff in the beginning.

That is, unless India just naturally has technically gifted people working in all government positions.

That was funny & you know it.

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

Your arguments are the same arguments that I head on why IBM should remain in the lead back in the 80s. And just like today, IBM was killing innovation and lots of good jobs. In fact, it was the reason why I became a big supporter of MS. By mid 90's, I was very opposed to MS. It was obvious that having a single monopolistic company who expands by taking over partners will lead to lower jobs, not more. IBM did this, so has MS. Once MS loses its monopoly, the marketplace will be free and we will quickly see a very large number of software companies and jobs, similar to what was in the 90s.

OK, here's an opinion

***At what point does our loathing of Microsoft and our support of OSS equate to a massive economic loss to our own nation? At what point do American supporters of OSS achieve a shot to their own shared national foot?***

Is this not essentially the same argument we heard three decades ago when consumers on the coasts started buying smaller, cheaper, higher quality Japanese cars instead of the gas hungry, shoddily built, creations from Detroit that cornered like buckboards? It's not MY fault that Detroit didn't start delivering cars that (sort of) met my needs until the 1990s. The American Automobile industry wasn't killed by its consumers or competitors. It commited suicide.

It's likewise not MY fault that Microsoft is not delivering superior products with accessible source code at reasonable prices. If Microsoft's perception of its long term self interest is flawed (and I think it is) why blame the messengers?

Re:Here's something I'd like to hear opinions on

I am not American - neither is 95% of the world's population.

I'd say that "technological freedoms and associated liberties" are very much in my "national self-interest", and in the "national self-interest" of 95% of the world's population.

Except that I'd also suggest that it is in the long-term interests of America - heck, even in the short-term, many firms would benefit from greater competition and choice within the IT market. Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?

You fail to understand the cost of Microsoft to America. How much time do you think is wasted on dealing with spam, viruses, re-installing unstable Windows, etc, etc? America needs Microsoft like it needs more calories in its diet.

Of course, if you think ripping off other nations is in America's self-interest, just remember ... we outnumber you. Play nicely.