Hi Linuxers, Now, if you folks saw the ad from BigApple in the Indian Express yesterday, you should see *tremendous* potential in it for both Linux and Linuxers.

[BigApple is at http://bigapple.in/]

You have expertise in installing and troubleshooting Linux. You have a shared knowledge base. You guys are helpful and open minded. You deserve to take this up and benefit from it either by credit or by cash.

Here is how I think you can go about doing it:

(1) BigApple is selling Pentium 1, 2 and 3 based PCs at prices as low as Rs. 3000/- !! Which means their target customers are the low income group. Naturally, they cannot afford to buy a licensed version of Windows. And obviously, you cannot expect Windows XP or Win2000 to run on those low end machines - trust me - I have an old P-1 166 MHz with 128 MB RAM and it is *pathetic* with anything more than Windows 98.

(2) Enter Linux! Damn Small Linux, Feather Linux, Flash Linux, UTUTO Linux, SLAX Linux, and obviously, Knoppix.

(3) I hear someone shout: "But Linux is not dumb-user friendly". Google for XPde, EDE, xfce. These *mimic* the Windows Look and Feel, running over X, and since they are just desktops, you can always switch your Linux distro keeping the look and feel the same !! We could have someone providing a migration application which would shift all your data from one distro to another, but set up the same desktop and of course, restore your data as well. (Just save all the migration settings and desktop data in an xml file)

(4) We have GnuBharati already, so, BigApple can pre-install GnuBharati onto their PCs for non-English users - Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, etc. - that's a *big* user base.

(5) People basically use PCs to make text documents, spreadsheets, presentations(Open Office), listen to music, watch movies, play games, chat, surf the web, send and receive email. All these apps are stable and mature on Linux long ago. You know more than I do :-).

(6) So, what remains is user training, that is, *if* you still find XPde / EDE / xfce not good enough. NOTE: this situation is highly unlikely, but nevertheless. There are one hell of a lot of unemployed BSc and ITI-trained youngsters. Since the PCs come at Rs.3000/- to Rs. 5000/- and in Marathi or Hindi, everyone will want to own a computer. So, if these guys go around every house installing PCs, they will make a decent income as well. (I should be a Minister, don't you think? :-) :-) )

(7) None of the people who have bought P4's will ever revert to P3,2,1. I mean, that does not happen, simply. So, we are not troubling anyone's market share. Means, nobody will trouble us with litigation, threats or pressure. And, since nobody really purchases Windows licenses for home PCs, Microsoft wont lose any income either. So, this is clean business, without hurting anyone's revenue or business.

(8) What has brought about this new change? BigApple kept aside the traditional profit hunger for the benefit of a non-targetted market segment. Normal hardware assemblers are out-and-out profit-hungry people. Even if they *can* provide older processors for cheap, they will say that they cannot, and so, they force the latest, unnecessarily high tech products down our throats. BigApple has decided to be different. So, poor folk in this country will also get computers.

(9) Triband / DataOne is good. Majorly. Its freakin' cool! So, now, since your computer is going to be used only for mail, office documents, music and web surfing, you can depend on Web2.0 providers like Google, ZOHO etc. for online storage of your documents.

So, in simple words, ********************************************************************************* Your old P3,2,1 PC is a *thin client* for your ZOHO / Google server! *********************************************************************************

(10) Now to the *fairy tale* angle: One Rs.5000/- PC in each village of India with *one* high speed broadband connection means that village is connected to the world for about Rs.1000/- a month. Permanently. Yup!

(a) If you keep a program running that will relay weather forecasts, Thunderstorm warnings, farming information, rates of foodgrains, business outsourcing to villages from cities (idea released under GFDL), etc. you have a heaven just waiting to descend onto the Indian landscape.

(b) e-governance. I think "samajhdar ko ishara kafi hai".

(c) [more applications waiting to be invented in the near future by FSF / Mum-LUG / BigApple ]

I guess I have taken a lot of your time by now.

The big idea is out. Run and grab it! (Gosh! I sound like an ad maker !! ;-) )

Wishing you all (at least some) success with this new idea, Best wishes, A badly trapped M$ slave :-)

Btw, I am NOT a BigApple employee! Instead, I'm a poor M$ ASP.Net programmer venting out my frustration at being forced to buy Windows XP Pro for $149 + INR 1800+ as custom duty and shipping charges (= INR 8000+) , because all my customers have Windows (pirated, of course) on their machines. One thing that does strike me is that these folks find *Windows* difficult to use!! So maybe there is some *important* lesson for aspiring desktop Linux support engineers.

I emailed the CEO of BigApple and it seems this potential of Linux wasn't so clearly envisaged by them as well! Yet another reminder that Linux is yet to catch on.

PS : EDE = Equinox Desktop Environment