FOSS.IN: A report

Posted Dec 10, 2005 17:04 UTC (Sat) by gnu (guest, #65)
In reply to: FOSS.IN: A report by markc
Parent article: FOSS.IN: A report

> I thought I was dealing with individual personal traits but this article
> in dicates it's a national tendency. Now I know that I can adjust and allow
> for it. Thanks Jon!

Jon stayed in India for a week. With all due respect to Jon, you cannot generalize what probably is a trait for afew thousand developers and thrust it upon a whole nation. A lot of developers are in town contributing to many projects quitely. I know a afew very talented people sending bug reports, reproducing them and actually fixing them. These skills are very important too, not just conceiving and producing brand-new software.

Given the state of information infrastructure, I believe, those contributing to the projects small or large are doing a remarkable job. Until recently getting a reasonable DSL connection was very tough. Things are slowly changing. A lot of things needs change in future, a lot of these initiatives should come from the Govt. I strongly believe, things *will* change for good.

There are quite a lot of very talented developers I have seen here, most of them haven't been introduced to Free Software or are not interested for their own reasons. I do not believe that "Indians" as a whole need handholding to do everything. That's completely wrong generalization to make. I have seen bad american/european developers too who make more noise than signals. IMHO, it is wrong to classify talent based on region. We are going back in time to WWII timefreame if we do so.

The west should stop seeing Indian Software Industry through just Wipro and Infosys. There is a lot more happening here without publicity than what the West really know. It is sad to see Indians being tagged based on afew thousad people who attended a particular conference.

FOSS.IN: A report

Posted Dec 11, 2005 6:44 UTC (Sun) by achitnis (guest, #20) [Link] (1 responses)

> It is sad to see Indians being tagged based on afew thousad
> people who attended a particular conference.

Ah, actually he isn't doing that at all - the people who attended this conference clearly are *not* the kind of people he was talking about.

However, it is a fact the Indian software industry (if one can call it that, given that one doesn't actually see any Indian products anywhere, and the industry is largely an extension of the American/European software industry) is creating a culture of "micro-managed software development", and does not actually encourage individual contribution or innovation. This has been a complaint voiced by many people who have dealt with developers in India, and is precisely why we are driving FOSS as a way to break this situation.

At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, let me point you at this slide show:

http://atulchitnis.net/talks/innovate-students.pdf [PDF]

It is something I tag onto the end of every talk I give at colleges and even companies, and should explain things a bit more.

And also have a look at this:

http://dot.kde.org/1134244310/

This is something that is a direct outcome of that "particular conference". This is the first time that we have seen something like this happening in India (a non-corporate initiative), and hopefully it is a sign of things to come.

FOSS.IN: A report

Posted Dec 11, 2005 13:04 UTC (Sun) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link]

> culture of "micro-managed software development", and does not actually
> encourage individual contribution or innovation. This has been a complaint > voiced by many people who have dealt with developers in India, and is
> precisely why we are driving FOSS as a way to break this situation.

A lot of students from India are active in many of the mailing lists related to Free Software, but we fail to see their names once they cease to become students. One of the things that anyone need to have to contribute to Free Software projects (Yeah, I don't like the word "foss" and the "Other word which starts with O") is a drive to contribute to the community. This is necessary and sufficient condition for any participation in the Free Software projects.

I disagree that no innovation is happening in the Indian Software Industry. Again, generalization based on lesser number of data points is as bad as telling a lie.