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Moderators: Thaths/Fred | Moderators: Thaths/Fred | ||
[http://lawgon.livejournal.com/26885.html whats wrong with the foss movement in India? Blog by Kenneth Gonsalves] | |||
==Lack of awareness== | ==Lack of awareness== | ||
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'''The country has the second largest number (second only to USA) of | '''The country has the second largest number (second only to USA) of | ||
RHCEs/RHCTs and Linux awareness (or lack of it) is not really the case | RHCEs/RHCTs and Linux awareness (or lack of it) is not really the case | ||
in point.''' - [http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan | in point.''' - [http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay] | ||
For the past couple of years, my day job has been consuming 80% of available | For the past couple of years, my day job has been consuming 80% of available | ||
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Big IT boom in India gives people jobs easily; and when you do a cosy job, you lose | Big IT boom in India gives people jobs easily; and when you do a cosy job, you lose | ||
half of the motivation. It is a case of innovation being killed due to complacency.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14880 Sameer Kelekar in ilug-goa]</ref> | half of the motivation. It is a case of innovation being killed due to complacency.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14880 Sameer Kelekar in ilug-goa]</ref> | ||
"If being complacent means that you lose your coding skills then the skills | |||
were not honestly obtained." - [http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay] | |||
"I'm not sure, if my almost-insignificant issue comes under the topic of | |||
complacency. But Indian Software Engineers work for an astounding 10 hours per | |||
day , on an average. So, after 10 hrs of sitting in front of the PC, dealing with | |||
pressure deadlines , a competition for that coveted onsite opportunity or even a | |||
genuine passion for the work, coming home and again coding free software is | |||
definitely not for the weak-hearted. That is to say the least for people who | |||
spend most of their weekends and vacations inside the cubivle as well. This is | |||
opposed to our colonial cousins who more often than not have a 8-hour day and a | |||
5-day week." - Raseel. | |||
==Social Setup== | ==Social Setup== | ||
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The whole atmosphere around is counterproductive to innovation and risk taking. Those who fail are not looked upon well by the Indian society. What matters to the society in India is success; the means does not matter.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14880 Sameer Kelekar in ilug-goa]</ref> | The whole atmosphere around is counterproductive to innovation and risk taking. Those who fail are not looked upon well by the Indian society. What matters to the society in India is success; the means does not matter.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14880 Sameer Kelekar in ilug-goa]</ref> | ||
" I would say that the infrastructure and the social environment that | |||
encourages | |||
the high wire act of risk taking is not really in place. Folks invest in stocks | |||
nonchalantly, yet figuring out how to strike out a business venture is still | |||
that arcane art of black magic."- [http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay] | |||
We also are not trained to think in a creative manner. Succumbing to authority comes more natural to Indians rather than being free and think freely. Of course there are exceptions, but in general as a rule.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14880 Sameer Kelekar in ilug-goa]</ref> | We also are not trained to think in a creative manner. Succumbing to authority comes more natural to Indians rather than being free and think freely. Of course there are exceptions, but in general as a rule.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14880 Sameer Kelekar in ilug-goa]</ref> | ||
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==Education System== | ==Education System== | ||
Also, we are to blame to quite some extent. Our education system does not encourage free thinking, or even thinking for that matter. It is learn by rote. IMHO, all CS/IT courses in india are more of History courses.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14889 Dhaval Giani in ilug-goa]</ref> | Also, we are to blame to quite some extent. Our education system does not encourage free thinking, or even thinking for that matter. It is learn by rote. IMHO, all CS/IT courses in india are more of History courses.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14889 Dhaval Giani in ilug-goa]</ref> | ||
What is required is actually a revisit of the syllabus and teaching basic facts which would equip the students to learn on the job. The training courses which the big companies (Infosys, Wipro, TCS etc) put their new recruits through can be taken as either they don't expect the system to output required knowledge or they don't expect the system to be up to the mark when it comes to educating the students.<ref>[http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay in his blog]</ref> | |||
Students in most institutions (exceptions are IITs, IISc, NITs, et. al.) live in their own shell, without any exposure to the real world or the industry. So, | Students in most institutions (exceptions are IITs, IISc, NITs, et. al.) live in their own shell, without any exposure to the real world or the industry. So, | ||
they don't have the technical know-how or skills for any development, let alone FOSS development.<ref>[http://mm.glug-bom.org/pipermail/linuxers/Week-of-Mon-20061204/055839.html Shakthi Kannan in glug-bom]</ref> | they don't have the technical know-how or skills for any development, let alone | ||
FOSS development.<ref>[http://mm.glug-bom.org/pipermail/linuxers/Week-of-Mon-20061204/055839.html Shakthi Kannan in glug-bom]</ref> | |||
There is a _huge_ gap between academia and the industry (exceptions are IITs, IISc, NITs, et. al.), so the academia folks have absolutely no idea what the | There is a _huge_ gap between academia and the industry (exceptions are IITs, IISc, NITs, et. al.), so the academia folks have absolutely no idea what the | ||
industry is doing. Industry is more focused on servicing international clients, for obvious reasons.<ref>[http://mm.glug-bom.org/pipermail/linuxers/Week-of-Mon-20061204/055839.html Shakthi Kannan in glug-bom]</ref> | industry is doing. Industry is more focused on servicing international clients, for obvious reasons.<ref>[http://mm.glug-bom.org/pipermail/linuxers/Week-of-Mon-20061204/055839.html Shakthi Kannan in glug-bom]</ref> | ||
The lack of contributions is not because we have bad students - it because we have a bad system that needs fixing. And needs to be fixed in an evolutionary way. One of the things that happens when you wish to change a monolithic system that was created to serve a different need (read: create an army of clerks and later on administrative service boxwallahs) one would like to understand the ramifications of the manifestations of change. The short and sweet story might be to look at the following points: | |||
* Revision of the curricula at the high school level | |||
* Encouraging more "relevant" industry interaction (and not "lip service") | |||
* Establishing local mirrors for various FOSS operating systems<ref>[http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay in his blog]</ref> | |||
"Here's what I think needs to be addressed when talking about education at the | |||
collegiate level. Do note, I hold the belief that we don't have bad students - | |||
the sheer numbers of Indian students doing exciting work in the US, UK, ANZ | |||
regions are proof enough. What I think is that we have a system that is flawed | |||
since it was created to meet a different demand set. And what I additionally | |||
think is that instead of fixing the system from within we are trying to put in | |||
patches that might just take the car across the culvert but never over the | |||
highway that our country is trying to rush through." - [http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11940.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay] (list below) | |||
So, where's the list of that needs to be done ? Here goes: | |||
* Catch them young: Start off a culture of code sharing and more importantly coding in small module bits that can be integrated to projects | |||
* Encourage industry to talk: Encourage and in fact aggressively court the industry to be part of both the curriculum designing process as well as the curriculum content delivery methods | |||
* Teach the methods: Teach the methodology for collaboration of content i.e. be it documentation, source code or patches. Teach students how to do it, wherefrom to learn, whom to turn to and why it is important to have peers review the work | |||
* Teach FOSS: Put in a module for FOSS that talks about programming techniques rather than programming languages. Think about integrating and incorporating pieces from SICP and HTDP along with the GNU Coding Standards in order to ensure the output of quality of code | |||
* Setup Linux Labs: Deceptively simple to setup if one has servers and reasonable bandwidth. Includes setting up of a Version Control System for code commits, a staging server and a development server, a couple of OS mirrors or at least their update mirrors (local) and a few workstations. Set them up on the network, get the network services up and running, put in place a nice printer (one that will take in duplex heavy duty print jobs) and you are reasonably done. | |||
* Encourage content sharing between institutions: Take a look at OCW from MIT and figure out if the same can be easily applied in the current context | |||
* Allotment of marks, could be avoided, and an end term / semester project with viva-voce to grade the student is better. Marks for theory, marks for practicals, marks for assignment / tutorial, isn't better for teaching / learning FOSS. | |||
==Financial Constraints== | ==Financial Constraints== | ||
Secondly getting exposure in the various international forums is not cheap. What I mean by this is, there is only some extent to which you can learn from books. To learn more, you need to first do something, understand what happens, why it happens, interact with experts. This happens by writing research papers, | Secondly getting exposure in the various international forums is not cheap. What I mean by this is, there is only some extent to which you can learn from books. To learn more, you need to first do something, understand what happens, why it happens, interact with experts. This happens by writing research papers, participating in various conferences. Most of them are very expensive | ||
participating in various conferences. Most of them are very expensive | |||
by Indian standards.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14889 Dhaval Giani in ilug-goa]</ref> | by Indian standards.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14889 Dhaval Giani in ilug-goa]</ref> | ||
There is a disagreement to this view as well. The one good thing FOSS does is democratize the process of inclusion. Sure enough there are barriers to entry in some aspect but nowhere is the entry barred. <ref>[http://sankarshan.livejournal.com/11456.html Sankarshan Mukhopadyay in his blog]</ref> | |||
[Ram]:One may start with contributions (good content matters) to online and print magazines, like for example, www.linuxgazette.net | [Ram]:One may start with contributions (good content matters) to online and print magazines, like for example, [http://www.linuxgazette.net linuxgazette] [http://www.samag.com/ SysAdmin]. This would surely provide the necessary confidence to the individual and push them forward to do much more. | ||
==Bandwidth== | ==Bandwidth== | ||
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Google Summer of Code, Redhat scholarship, Novell internship, NRCFOSS projects ... | Google Summer of Code, Redhat scholarship, Novell internship, NRCFOSS projects ... | ||
== We don't have rockstars== | |||
"Why are there are no FOSS *Rockstars* from India - people who are larger than life | |||
(taj might qualify). And there are FOSS contributors to be found India, but as shres | |||
put it bluntly - "contributors are hard to find" - the whiteboard at foss.in is proof | |||
that there are enough." [http://t3.dotgnu.info/blog/conferences/no-foss-nitc.html Gopal V] | |||
"Do we need evangelists right now ? No, but we need mentors and they would only come | |||
out of the folks contributing. Some would make good mentors, some not so good, but we | |||
need them all the same. We don’t need rockstars - they tend to complicate things." | |||
[http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2007/03/05/long-discussions-and-then-a-post/ Sankarshan Mukhopadyay] | |||
"We have one - Abhas Abhinav of deeproot" - [http://lawgon.livejournal.com/29218.html Kenneth Gonsalves] | |||
== Sources and notes == | == Sources and notes == | ||
<div class = "references-small"><references /></div> | <div class = "references-small"><references /></div> | ||
=Indian FOSS Contributors= | |||
Even with all these challenges we have some [[contributors]] which we can be proud of. | |||