First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference [LWN.net]

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 13, 2005 2:19 UTC (Sat) by fjf33 (subscriber, #5768)
Parent article: First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

It's funny, I was visiting Infosys' Bangalore campus last week and got to talk to one of the founders. He started talking about the social responsibility of the company and himself so I asked him if they were doing anything, personally or as a company regarding Linux. His answer was: "I know exactly what you are talking about but until there is a demand we are not doing anything." The most telling thing however was his face, I don't think he expected a question like that, he looked like a deer caught in the headlight.

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First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 15, 2005 2:42 UTC (Mon) by rganesan (subscriber, #1182) [Link]

> It's even more funny that out of 1000 000 000 odd people there only very
> very few free software developers.

It's unfair to compare with the number of free software developers with the population of India. Less than 1% probably even have access to a computer. However, considering the number of software developers in India, I have to concede that the number of active contributors or even the number of people who know about free software is quite low. Fortunately this is changing. Linux and other free software is being increasingly used in many colleges and awareness is increasing every day. I expect the situation to considerably improve a couple of years down the line. This conference is one of the ways to increase the awareness.

> And out of all the software developers
> (free and non-free) very few of them have computers at home and out of
> those who have computers, very few of them have internet connection.

This fortunately is no longer true. PCs and broadband access at home is pretty affordable now. Middle income households with kids going to school are increasingly buying PCs and getting an internet connection at home.

> My point is that programming is not a fun activity for most of these so
> called "software engineers". It's just another means to make money.

Sadly this is true. However, this is not a India specific problem. But, like I said, situation is definitely improving in India.

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 13, 2005 8:46 UTC (Sat) by riteshsarraf (subscriber, #11138) [Link]

Boy! You made that guy uncomfortable.
Lot of companies make noise, "We support Free Software", "We have a
complete team" blah blah blah.
But in truth nothing like that. Forget Infosys, I'll give Intel's
example. An Intel representative claimed in a seminar that they support
Free Software and do a lot of work before the launch of their product in
regard to support Linux. Asking her why Centrino support in the Linux
kernel wasn't done early before the launch of the product left her
flabbergasted and I got the infamous corporate reply, "We'll take it
offline!" :-)

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 13, 2005 14:09 UTC (Sat) by achitnis (guest, #20) [Link]

What is the Infosys context here? This event is at the Indian Institute of Information Technology!

About Infosys...

The facts you have at hand seem to clash with the ones I have. Maybe we should compare notes.

Infosys has the single largest formal FOSS user group in India (InfyLUG), numbering in the thousands.

They have a *huge* FOSS lab, where they are constantly working on stuff, testing, improving etc. And not just Linux, but in *BSD, Cygwin and many other FOSS apps and technologies.

And they eat their own dogfood - they deploy FOSS stuff wherever they can, and advise their clients to do so, too.

Infosys encourages its developers to get involved in FOSS projects and activities, and *doesn't* insist that developers put in Infosys' company name when they contribute something.

They cater to HUGE clients who *demand* FOSS technologies, methodologies, licenses, etc. and therefore Infosys constantly runs workshops and seminars inhouse to educate its developers and managers on these things.

Nandan Nilekani, Gopalkrishnan, Narayan Murthy and other top level people are fairly FOSS savvy, and support FOSS at all levels.

Infosys groks FOSS like few other companies that I have seen. Sure, they are in the business of making money (and are extremely good at it), and sure, not everyone in the company may be as clued in on FOSS as everyone else (they do cater to clients using MS technologies as well, including Microsoft itself), but that doesn't take away anything from their FOSS related activities.

They were a top sponsor of India's largest FOSS conference last year (http://linux-bangalore.org/2004).

Among other things they hosted a lunch for all the speakers of the event at Infosys, where they also gave them a guided tour of the facilities, including the FOSS labs, and had a discussion with people working on FOSS technologies in Infosys, including kernel development.

My reason for pointing out this factoid is that the speakers included people like Harald Welte (Netfilter, GPLviolations.org), Brian Behlendorf (Apache), Scott Wheeler (KDE), Werner Almesberger, Andi Klein, Deepak Saxena and others.

So you don't have to take my word for anything - I am sure they can tell you all about it.

Which Infosys founder did you speak to, exactly? Maybe I can help clear up this misunderstanding.

Disclosure: I am one of the organisers of the Linux Bangalore conferences.

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 13, 2005 15:48 UTC (Sat) by fjf33 (subscriber, #5768) [Link]

I believe it was Narayana Murthy but I had to look up the name to get a face so that is not too reliable. What you say is more in line with what I expected, it may be that I turned a conversation into an area he didn't expect given we were a group that did not mention Linux or FOSS at all during the open questions and I only asked it from him during tea afterwards. He was actually talking about his personal involvement in the community (general not FOSS) and how much social responsibility Indian corporations and Indians in general have which I can say I did see and very much appreciate. He was actually talking about how he donated a certain amount to a transplant clinic to bring the costs down to the point that transplants were available to the poorer groups. His answer to my question was that he was aware of what I mentioned but that it did not make commercial sense at that point but that they would support it when it did. I am paraphrasing since it was about 2 weeks ago. If I came through too negative I am sorry I didn't mean to. What really suprised me was his look when I mentioned it more than anything and I may have read more than I should. Thanks for the background info.

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 13, 2005 16:39 UTC (Sat) by achitnis (guest, #20) [Link]

I guess the real story lies in the question that was asked, I guess. NM is extremely fair, and knows just how big a role FOSS already plays in his company's operations.

I suspect some crossed wires, or a misunderstood question somewhere, because he wouldn't say that they aren't doing anything in this space when I know that they were (in 2004 itself) addressing a market estimated to be hundreds of millions of US$ in size - a pure FOSS oriented market.

You sure you didn't ask him when he is going to start using Linux on his desktop or something? It would be hilarious, and *would* catch him in an uncomfortable position, because he once modelled for a Windows XP ad. :)

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 13, 2005 16:43 UTC (Sat) by fjf33 (subscriber, #5768) [Link]

Nah, but that sure would've been funny. I think I mentioned the Linux based sub $300 computer that an Indian institute had developed (IIT?).

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 19, 2005 9:41 UTC (Fri) by lawgon (guest, #31936) [Link]

thrilled to know that infosys is into FOSS - can you give the URL where one can evaluate/download their FOSS products?

First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference

Posted Aug 19, 2005 18:17 UTC (Fri) by achitnis (guest, #20) [Link]

A "lab" does not produce products, it is used to test and understand stuff, and improve performance by tweaking parameters, etc.

"Contribution" is in their personal capacities - Infosys people are involved in many projects, but unlike some companies, they are not forced to tag their company's name to the contributions. The preferred place for their work is Sourceforge.

For a sample, check out http://mir-os.sourceforge.net/