FOSS.IN: A report [LWN.net]

FOSS.IN: A report

Posted Dec 8, 2005 4:36 UTC (Thu) by botsie (guest, #1485)
Parent article: FOSS.IN: A report

You're dead on accurate with a lot of your comments. I doubt if most foss.in delegates (like me) would disagree with your comments -- heck, I recognize some of those quotes. :)

I don't think the situation is irretrivable, however. IMO, the problem is solvable using a three-pronged strategy:

* Work through the work place: use employers to encourage people to contribute. Approval of the establishment is important in India.

* Catch 'em Young: Work on students directly to counteract the influence of the education system.

* Guide them in: provide a structured guide for these people to learn to work in chaotic environment that is the open source community.

These ideas are easier said than done, but the goal is important IMHO.

-- Biju

(Log in to post comments)

FOSS.IN: A report

Posted Dec 8, 2005 18:21 UTC (Thu) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link]

Wipro most assuredly sees the advantage in adopting Free Software. However they do _not_ see the advantage of contributing, and the standard etiquette of Free Software participation completely escapes their employees. When you see an email from Wipro on a mailing list, it invariably takes the form of "Please do my job for me." I should note that many of my friends in the USA see these messages, fairly or unfairly, as "Please help me steal your job."

Here's the very first hit on Google for "wipro postgresql mailing list archive", but you can just as easily find similar examples on many other mailing lists:

Dear all,

How to define FOREIGN KEY in a table ???

Thank You,
Best Regards,
Vijay

************************************************************
Vijayendra Mohan Agrawal
Wipro Technologies

[end]

Here's the signature from a Wipro email that crossed the mod_perl list only two weeks ago:

...
Can some one please help me to resolve the problem and please let me
know if I am using the wrong configuration options.

Regards,
Sunil.

Confidentiality Notice

The information contained in this electronic message and any attachments to this message are intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s) and may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender at Wipro or Mailadmin@wipro.com immediately and destroy all copies of this message and any attachments.

[end]

Now, I know you see these types of signatures from companies other than Wipro, but it's always incredibly rude. Please give me free help for using your free software so I can make money, but don't violate my confidentiality policy.

So I think Corbet is correct. At some major Indian companies, free software is seen as a good way to improve the profit margin, and not as a global effort to improve the human condition.

FOSS.IN: A report

Posted Dec 9, 2005 20:18 UTC (Fri) by kravi (guest, #34351) [Link]

You seem to be too harsh on Wipro employees. Or maybe I feel that
way because I am one of them :)

You have made three points in your comment:
1. Wipro uses open source software.
2. Wipro employees ask stupid/annoying questions which amount to
"do my work for me".
3. Wipro does not contribute to open source software.

Apparently, the combination of these factors has made you angry..

I will try to give an insider's view of these things. Note that I
am NOT representing Wipro here nor am I defending it. Just stating
a few facts. Most of what I say here applies to almost all major
Indian IT companies.

1. Using open source software: Wipro (and most major Indian IT companies)
is a software services company, which mostly means "we do as we are told".
The decision to use open source software is mostly taken by the client
organization.

2. Bad questions happen - all the time and on all mailing lists.
(Similar annoying questions appear on our internal mailing lists as
well and I have pointed several people to the "How to ask questions
the smart way" document by ESR). Singling out a question by one Wipro
employee and saying this is typical is being grossly unfair.
Many of us use our personal mail-ids when interacting on mailing
lists precisely because we don't want the ugly confidentiality notice
attached to our mails. So please don't assume that the kind of question
you pointed out is typical of all Wipro employees.
(And the bit about stealing someone's job: Does anyone seriously believe
that decisions like outsourcing are based on who knows Perl better??)

3. Just like clients ask Wipro to use open source software, they
sometimes ask that we contribute code to open source projects as
well. This has happened many times and keeps happening. But you'll
never find out that Wipro is involved because all such contributions
are routed through the client organization.
This doesn't mean that Wipro consciously encourages such contribution.
It is just incidental.

Software services companies like Wipro and Infosys don't have a
business model that requires them to be a part of the open source
community. It is the clients who determine the involvement of
such companies in the open source community. Is that a good situation
to be in? Definitely not. But that's the way things are at the
moment..

Surprisingly, even in some of the big IT companies with a well-publicized
"open source strategy", there are groups which don't understand open
source based business models. I have had the frustrating experience of
working with one such group. There was a mortal fear of releasing any
code because the competition would then benefit from our engineering
efforts. The fact that the competition should first have the hardware
to make use of our code was lost on the managers.