On Monday 23 Mar 2009, Rony wrote:
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Sunday 22 March 2009 17:58:55 Raj Mathur wrote:
context of KG's statement ``if the govt adopts foss, they are dependant on westerners who have developed it?'', which is patently incorrect
this is not a statemnt, it is a sarcastic comment on the idiocy of classifying software on the basis of country of origin
It does make a difference if the software is closed and in control of outsiders. Openness of a software removes these boundaries. Tomorrow if there is an international political crisis, the country of origin of the closed software can force the company to stop dealing with an individual Nation/s.
That goes for any closed software, even indigenous ones. Reason - toolchains. Infact every element in the system will have to be indigenous. Something impossible in today's electronic systems. The more the number of closed components the worse it will get.
FOSS is a free open pool. We don't really know what information goes out of a system running closed software when it connects to the suppliers' websites for updates.
Just one of many such important points. Like the PMO office mail system infected with some virus or the other for a full 3 months. Mails from the Services did not reach the PM. Maybe they reached Gilani.