Re: [native-lang] FLOSS in Kerala

Hello Gora,

Gora Mohanty wrote:

> OpenOffice on the CDs might work, but the CDs themselves are largely
>
>a publicity gimmick, and pretty worthless in my opinion.
>
They do however contribute strongly to create awareness and "buzz" which 
is very important for Free Software. If it was so worthless, how come 
the people handing out the CDs in Chennai witnessed a riot from people 
who were eager to get them?

> Half of the
>stuff in it does not install properly, some of the fonts overwrite
>system fonts in Windows and do not uninstall properly. There is no
>clear licensing policy for the software, and the TDIL (Technology
>Development in Indian Languages: a division of the Ministry of IT
>of the Government of India) people do not seem to have a clear
>roadmap of what they are doing, nor do they show any particular
>inclination to support FLOSS. There was a rather scathing review of
>the Hindi CD in a Hindi newspaper local to Delhi. It is a crying
>shame really, as at least the fonts from the CDs would have been
>useful if released under an open-source licence, or even into the 
>public domain. Don't let the hype carry you away.
>  
>
Thanks for your point, Gora. What you're saying basically is that these 
CDs end up harming more the cause of Free Software than serving it 
because of quality problems (esp. concerning the fonts)?
Raman, Rajesh, what is your answer to that?
Best Regards,
Charles.