Another Indian State Moving To FOSS 119
james.infidel writes "The Hindu, a leading national newspaper, reports that the Communist government of Kerala (the state with the highest literacy rate in India) has announced its all-out support for FOSS in the draft IT policy announced yesterday. The draft also calls for preferential treatment for companies coming forward to work in the FOSS domain.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:commies? (Score:5, Informative)
When people say "Communist government of Kerala", they actually mean a democratically chosen government which is influenced by some Marxist concepts.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:commies? (Score:4, Informative)
Democracy and communism aren't mutually exclusive, you know.
Re:commies? (Score:5, Informative)
The government in Kerala is elected by the public. Even a government dominated by communists cannot impose a truly communist state. Private enterprise exists in Kerala, which could not in a communist system. And the state government does not control the economy the way it would in a communist system. People can democratically remove the government in elections and choose a non-communist government. Because of all these reasons, I thought it was important to make this distinction clear.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Troll? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The roots of Kerala's literacy culture can be traced back at least to the Hindu rulers of the 19th century. The Queen of Trivandrum issued a royal decree in 1817 that said, "The state should defray the entire cost of the education of its people in order that there might be no backwardness in the spread of enlightenment."
So I read "Kerala (the state with th
Well..more like Socialist.. (Score:5, Informative)
But I am glad to find my state laying out the red carpet for FOSS.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well..more like Socialist.. (Score:5, Informative)
The Communist Govt put forth night schools for Seniors so as to increase literacy across the state, as a result of which we hit 100% literacy rate.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Dunno, I poked around a bit and my original statement seems pretty close to accurate. Look over this [unu.edu] & this [cpim.org].
Interesting aside, while looking for stats on GDP I came across the concept of PPP, purchasing power parity, an attempt to equilibrate per capita income by taking in to account differences in the purchasing power of increments of geld in various countries. Since poorer countries tend to have lower prices, no
Someone's missing something (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That'd explain it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Incidentally, Kerala and their neighbors in Tamil Nadu have some of the most breathtaking Hindu temples in India, some dating back to Medeival Chola-Dynasty construction in 9th century.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you misread the summary. He said highest literacy rate, not highest illiteracy rate. Kerala is essentially 100% literate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
By the way, as a lay observer, I really admire Kerela and the way their communist party interpreted Marx in a non-Leninist, non-Maoist way. It really is a different animal from what most people think of as communism, but I think it's a lot closer to what Marx intended.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Impact on population and demographics (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Tranlation of the draft IT policy (Score:5, Funny)
Computers make a difference.
1.2 In the production processes of today's world, information and knowledge mean a great deal more than material resources and physical inputs.
Knowing how to use them is good
1.3 ICT has opened up the possibility of radically different information exchange patterns by facilitating faster and more efficient dissemination of information. It can play a vital role in sustaining the democratic ethos of the Indian society and ensuring a high level of transparency in governance
Nobody controls the net
1.4 Having achieved high physical quality of life index and social infrastructure development, Kerala is ideally positioned to use ICT as a catalyst for the all-round economic prosperity and social uplift of its people
We haven't completely exhausted the budget
1.5 ICT and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) have by now turned into major sectors of economic activity in the country. Over the past one-and-a-half decades, these sectors have shown remarkable growth in the country, both in terms of export revenue and employment generation
This is a good source of tax revenue
1.6 In almost every sector of socio-economic activity ranging from industrial production to education and public healthcare, ICT now plays an important role in optimizing the processes, thereby improving the quality and efficiency of human endeavors
The net is cool
1.7 Growing importance of ICT in the present-day world leads to the emergence of a divide, which can be called the "digital-divide," between those who have access to sophisticated ICT infrastructure and those who do not. This is a matter of concern to civil society at large; and a challenge that has to be overcome through conscious intervention, both from the Government and the sections on the privileged side of the "digital divide
Web junkies don't riot
1.8 The Government has a comprehensive view of ICT as a vehicle for transforming Kerala into a knowledge-based, economically vibrant, democratic and inclusive society. By the term "inclusive," the Government means that the benefits of the socio-economic transformation possible through ICT should reach every single citizen of the State. This policy document defines the Government's vision, mission and strategy for achieving the same.
We're gonna spend lots of money
Re: (Score:2)
Old news (Score:3, Informative)
more p.c. way to say "Microsoft lock-in"? (Score:2)
*SNIP*
On second thought, don't say that. What was that about my high pitched voice!
NOT COMMUNIST (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that the USSR, Cuba, and China are/were not democratic doesn't mean that democracy and communism are incompatible, anymore than the large number of capital
Re:NOT COMMUNIST (Score:5, Informative)
To be frank, you're flat out wrong. It's not a matter of opinion, or some kind of "west vs east" brainwashing. It's a simple matter of definition.
You're mistaking "communism" with "marxism." Marxism is a political system based upon extreme socialism, but which usually misleadingly refers to "communism" instead. Marxism, in fact, advocated democracy as part of the theory, but later political figures who paid lip service to the concept paid that same lip service to democracy.
Communism, is an economic method that is very easily explained. Quite simply communism is the concept that a smaller group (commune or communist cell) within a larger economy can share some or all resources and the decision making regarding those resources. Theoretically this shared resource allocation and decision making results in greater efficiency. In practice this works very well for small cell sizes and very poorly for large cell sizes. This is because as cell sizes increase to the point where decision making is affecting strangers, people stop caring about them and act disinterestedly or selfishly. As a result correct decision making is not motivated and further the consolidation of so much power into so few hands lends itself easily to that power being seized by a totalitarian regime.
I would willingly admit that the communism, as defined by those who derived from the theories of Karl Marx, is not the opposite of democracy. In practice, it certainly is.
This is not the case. You are trying to define "communism" as only extreme applications of communism with very large cell sizes or in fact socialism, where everyone is in one cell. This is completely wrong. All states subscribe to a blend of capitalism, socialism, and communism and the communist component is applied almost everywhere in ways that are not Marxism. The atomic family within the US completely fits the definition of a communist cell. A family shares a home, utilities, food, etc. and the decision making is made collectively, although not necessarily equitably. Aside from that, within the US, co-ops, communes, and monasteries are all communist cells. For example, I know a lot of people in a server colocation co-op. They all donate time or old servers or money to maintain a number of co-located servers which they share for Web hosting, e-mail, IRC, and a number of other services. Together they get better rates, to the point of being absurdly cheap. That also fits the definition of a communist cell, even though they only share one given resource. In many places around the world villages act as officially recognized communist cells, most of which are democratically operated. To claim that all applications of communism are anti-democratic is simply uninformed.
Moreover, automatically assuming someone is brainwashed because you didn't bother to consider what communism really implies kind of detracts from whatever point you thought you were making.
The US was subjected to a planned and directed campaign of propaganda designed to confuse and misinform the public about what communism is, ironically, in a cold war against socialists. Claiming that people are brainwashed is not so far fetched. Economists recognize that every economy is to some degree socialist and to some degree communist or it is unlikely to be stable for any length of time. China and Cuba both practice more socialism than is the norm. The US is about average, but applies it in uncommon ways. China and Cuba are also both capitalist to a large extent and both are moving more and more in that direction.
If you're looking for extremely communist countries (as opposed to socialist), look to countries with very large communist cell sizes. Madagascar, for example, theoretically has three layers of government: communes, states, and national. Realistically, the states basically do not exist. Most of the country lives in small villages and each village, acts as a communist cell sharing a large number of resources. Whether that extreme cell size is benefici
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
As I said, the parent seemed to have done some study, but history does tend to g
Re: (Score:2)
Also note that the Manifesto uses the word revolution a lot, and in very different contexts, because the word had
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of us would probably consider the Communist Manifesto to be a reasonable source of information
Communist manifesto is a politically motivated document. It does not define communism, but defines the goals of a particular group that call themselves communists. It is like saying that democracy is defined by the charter and bylaws of the american democratic party. Is a belief in the christian god prerequisite to democracy? Is a formation of committees with at least 1/3 women prerequisite to democracy?
I
Re:NOT COMMUNIST (Score:4, Interesting)
"Communist nation" is an oxymoron.
Just because western media has chosen to call these states communist does not make it so. They don't even call themselves communist, but socialist, just as the Soviet Union also never claimed to be communist, since making that claim would shake the very ideological foundation that the Soviet leaders used to excuse their massive abuses of power and lack of democracy. Their excuse was that the sacrifices of the people was needed to build a society that could once in the future become communist - Soviet leaders presented this future as anything from a couple of generations to a thousand years into the future, all the while they moved their country ever further away from the ideological principles they claimed to believe in.
You certainly appear to not have "considered what communism really implies".
For one, communism implies the withering away of the state. The state in Marxist theory has as it's primary purpose the oppression of one class by another, and so in a classless society the state would cease to exist in any meaningful form. Or did you miss that part of Marxist theory? It's the central thesis of Lenin's "State and Revolution"
Presumably you also missed the whole "classless" part. A society where the state retains power over the populace simply can't be communist as that power need to be exercised by someone, and those "someone" would have privileges that make them a separate class from the populace at large. And unless you truly are brainwashed it should be blatantly obvious that countries like Cuba and China are as divided by class as countries like the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You have been brainwashed* into believing that communism == Leninism and Maoism and therefore Kerala cannot be communist. In fact however the Leninist and Maoist systems as they have developed historically are misguided aberrations and not at all the only possible communist systems. Many European countries have had communist parties for a long time, and their political pro
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, it's early. Few would deny that overthrowing the Batista regime was legitimate.
Re: (Score:1)
Now, the problem is that when people hear the word "communism"
Re: (Score:2)
While I am not in wild disagreement with the other things you write this is simply not true. In fact, communism means the dying off of the state, see the great other posts in the current subthread or read up on marxist theory. Or, heck, even Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
(em
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
What have happened with Slashdot? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
ok but (Score:1)
Go for it Kerala! (Score:2)
Surely the fact that Kerala has a communist majority in its democratically elected government is pretty irrelevant beyond making a headline to get USians excited?
Quid Pro Quo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
On a more serious note, you assume North Americans can never compete with Indians when FOSS is part of the mix. That is a bit of a sad statement and I hope that will not be the case. Obviously it changes the landscape but I sure hope that we will find that companies with North American developers will find ways to compete in that environment.
If you believe in a free market economy you will have to apply that
Re: (Score:1)
``India is profiting from outsourcing of American jobs.''
And the USA is profiting from cheaper labor.
``Software seems to be one of the last industries to actually employed Americans. If India is going to FOSS, then software industry would suffer from the lost customers.''
Perhaps, but I think there always will be demand for work done on-site or with at least a realistic possibility of getting people on-site. This includes software development.
``Call me stupid, but isn't trade done bes
Re: (Score:2)
Corporate management would be profiting from cheaper labour. Everyone else (at least in formerly in IT) would be having to deal with working three jobs a week flipping burgers at Burger King or McDonald's. (Or the unskilled equivalent)
Anyone who thinks that the open (and out) sourcing of India is based on anything morally enlightened is a naive fool. It's about money, plain and simple. Of course they're going to try and make it out to be about morality...the s
Re: (Score:1)
For goodness sakes. Don't be stupid. (Score:2)
Jeeeez.
Microsoft attempted to reverse the decision (Score:2, Funny)
Literacy (Score:1)
This is ironic (Score:1)
When an old article on Slashdot is posted, everyone gets on top of it like white on rice. But when an old article about Linux [financialexpress.com] is posted, it seems to be coined as "another victory..."
This began in August 2006.
FOSS? (Score:2)
They are confused (Score:1)
the highest literacy rate (Score:2)
(a) The literacy claim is propoganda, or
(b) The literacy claim is true, but for reasons entirely unrelated to Communism, and that the Communist state government is causing a large number of other social and economic problems.
I realise that this isn't a popular attitude around here, but contrary to what is popular, Communism is *not* a viable answer to all the world's ills, any more than Steve Ballmer's
Re: (Score:1)
What I don't get is why communists in India don't have mandatory public education. Must not be very good communists in the first place if they can't assure a 100% literacy rate for reading the central party's five year plan.....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with communism though is it continues to use humans to make business decisions.
My personal favorite solution- bypass the humans and use expert systems on computers to make business decisions.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Capitalism also works, only not with humans. But the proof that communism works with computers is in the multi-tasking code in the operating system of your choice (Unix, Linux, MacOS, even Windows in a poorly designed way, all show that without corruption and with enough data input, communism works). The problem encountered in running such operating systems on human beings is a severe lack of data collection, usually restricted down to just price a
Re: (Score:2)
No, modern operating systems use preemptive multitasking, which is more like a dictatorship. The scheduling analogue to communism would be cooperative multitasking, of the sort implemented in "classic" Mac OS -- and it turns out it doesn't actually work s
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
The problem encountered in running such operating systems on human beings is a severe lack of data collection, usually restricted down to just price and want, rather than need and productive capability, being overriding motives.
I completely agree. One of the pesky "wants" of humans is freedom. If we could just get rid of that urge for freedom, folks would be happy to obey the Master Computer!
Re: (Score:2)
Far more dangerous than freedom in the population, is freedom in a ruler. A good example is Hong Kong- no political freedom to speak of, but maximum ecconomic freedom, which basically means the corproations can do whatever the hell they want. By contraining the ruler to predetermined programming, the population can have comparatively more
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Correct- think how much better it would be if the US Constitution were as constraining as an operating system! "Library not found" would take on a whole new meaning.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
For instance: Greed bubbles in the stock market. They happen every 20 years or so because human beings forget that greed is evil. A machine would never forget- and would avoid investing in stocks whose price to (earnings+assets)/shares ratio is greater than 1 to begin with (which is *ALWAYS* a bad idea).
Another good example would be the 1954 Ukranian famin
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What I don't get is why communists in India don't have mandatory public education.
The article and many like it are more than a little inflammatory. By "communist government" they mean "democratic government run by a political party that favors the ideals of communism." Communism is not even a form of government, it is a economic method. When people talk about "communist governments" they are often referring to places that instituted extreme amounts of socialism which resulted in a totalitarian government
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
there are 3 programmers of Indian descent within eyeshot of my cube and more down the hall. there are what, 700 million? people there. Ghandi was arguably one of the greatest leaders in all of human history. India is a nation with a brilliant history spanning millenia, and a rapidly modernizing, vibrant economy developing a democratic government that has to deal with dozens of ethnicities and religions
700 million? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
And were he alive, he'd appreciate it if you'd spell his name correctly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's not an English name, so while there may be a generally accepted spelling, there is no single "correct" rendering in English.
"Ghandi" is a simple misspelling.
The initial consonant of that name is exactly equivalent to the "g" in English "gab" or "gap" or "gall." There is absolutely no reason to use "gh" for its transliteration. This misspelling is especially egregious because the great man's native language, Gujarati, has a another, distinct sound (and letter) for which "gh" is both a logical and widely-employed Roman transcription.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)