On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 15:36:23 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@thenilgiris.com wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 02:15 pm, you wrote:
3 persons per billion is a very high percentage no?
It's not that bad considering the PC penetration and the broadband cost in India.
what has this got to do with involvement in FOSS? - i know for a fact that one indian contributor to XFCE did a major part of his work on diallup - i have done so on a much lesser scale on sloooow diallup. I was even involved in one project where contribution was by email.
Does this apply to all/most of the people who contribute all over the world to FOSS ??
It is a myth that only writing code is contributing to FOSS. Let me help you debunk that. AFAIK all of the following can be considered as contributing to FOSS. 1) Writing code. 2) Designing a website for some FOSS project. 3) Doing artwork for FOSS project. 4) Writing article on FOSS / Giving a talk at the local LUG. (just look at the number of Indian contributers on linuxgazette.net website). 5) Anwering to questions on mailing list/webforums/IRC. 6) Distributing CDs and evangelising free software in your neighbourhood. 7) Filing bugs and testing software. (and this is an incomplete list . . . )
Free software is useless without good documentation and users/testers/integrators. (Is this suprising ??).
I won't even talk of the literacy rate and per capita income.
this also has nothing to do with the subject. On this list alone i would bet there are 100+ computer literate persons with broadband access - how many of them contribute?
This has everything to do with the subject. Do you mean to say that more than a billion people in India with access to computers and are developers as well not contributing to FOSS ??
In a country where drinking water and food are still major issues, contributing to free software is least of the troubles.
Come off your high pedestal and take a look around.
The reasons lie elsewhere. Maybe we should conduct a poll to find why those who dont contribute dont?
maybe fred has better statistics, but a think a total of around 150 - 200 FOSS contributors in a country of our size is demeaning ...
You need to get the facts right (reread my post above and ask the question again). Have a cold coffee and chill. You are having one of those FOSS developer burnouts. :)
For the record I am a software developer and do contribute to FOSS.
:) cheers Vinayak H