Opinions Opinions Venkatesh Hariharan Sandeep Menon, Mukul Mahajan, Ashutosh Dhanesha, (Venky), head—open source director Linux business, director, Tetra Information country manager—Linux, affairs, Red Hat India Novell West Asia Services Pvt Ltd IBM India Being die hard Indians, we all feel proud to see the ‘Made in India’ tag on just about anything. But what about distros? Don’t we need this tag here too? We threw open this debate to the community... he loads of requests for in the industry feel about this issue. current position into that of a net distros that LINUX For giver to the open source community, You receives everyday is Disparate views rather than giving a clear answer to testimony to the fact that The top-shots from two of the biggest the core question. The important T Indian Linux fanatics love Linux and open source companies in point is that both Red Hat and Novell to try out new distros. But isn’t it high the world— Red Hat and Novell— have the community and commercial time that India had a distro of her stressed more on the need for versions of their distros available in own? We tried to find out what people localisation and changing India’s India, and these are really popular 34 SEPTEMBER 2006 | LINUX FOR YOU | www.linuxforu.com C M Y K Opinions among the enterprise and SOHO users. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY AN INDIAN DISTRO? Venkatesh Hariharan (Venky), An Indian distro can be defined as a customised distro for Indians, in their local head—open source affairs, Red Hat languages. As Sandeep Menon, director Linux business, Novell West Asia, states, India, compares the soul of the open “If SUSE Linux is available 100 per cent in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil or Bengali... source community with the concept would you not call it an ‘Indian’ version of the distro?” From another perspective, Indian distros can also be those brought out by of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam (the Indian companies. world is my family). “The need of the hour is to increase India’s contribution to the global community Mahajan, director, Tetra Information gain sufficient market share.” and to localise critical open source Services Pvt Ltd. He seems pretty Mahajan also underlined the need software to Indian languages. Many clear in his view about the for a good support system behind this Indian open source contributors, sustainability of an Indian distro. distro. “The Indian government, or particularly those involved in Tetra is a leading consultancy firm in some major IT players like Infosys or localisation, already work with global the field of Linux and open source, TCS, should be ready to support and open source organisations like Pango, and according to Mahajan, there is fund such an initiative,” he GNOME, KDE and OpenOffice, and scope for an Indian distro to thrive in reaffirmed. contribute code, translations and bug the current market. fixes to the global open source A clear mandate...at last community. Such ‘upstream’ Touching upon the need Ashutosh Dhanesha, country contributions must be encouraged so Though the general opinion on the manager-Linux, IBM India, has a clear that we can be seen as leaders in issue seems in favour of an Indian view on the subject. “We do not need open source and not just a country distro, all major ‘supporters’ could not an Indian Linux distro,” states that downloads and uses OSS,” says clearly articulate the actual need of Dhanesha. “There are already good Venky. such a distro. Mahajan did try and distros available—both free and For Sandeep Menon, director sum up the prerequisites and the commercial. It would rather make Linux business, Novell West Asia, the ‘must haves’ for sustenance of an more sense to build more solutions for issue is not about an ‘Indian’ Indian distro, when he said, “When Linux. Instead of investing resources distribution. “The question is about distros like Red Hat and Novell are on creating one more distro, it would the need for localisation—the need able to generate so many eyeballs, be better if there are more kernel for Linux as well as accompanying and other international distros are contributions from India.” tools and packages to be available in entering the market, it is the right Indian languages. That is the critical time for somebody to come up with So do we have a definite requirement if Linux is to help an Indian distro. But the distro should verdict? increase the IT penetration in India,” have a larger perspective and The answer, unfortunately, is ‘No!’ asserts Menon. sufficient investment capability in The idea of an Indian distro seems Looking from a ‘neutral’ player’s both R&D and marketing to generate secondary in the minds of industry perspective, we approached Mukul good brand equity, so as to be able to leaders. The bigger issues according to them are localisation and improving India’s place in the global WHAT THE ‘BOARD’ SAYS open source community. What Here are a few responses to this topic, posted on LFY’s bulletin board: emerged from this discussion was a Yes, an Indian distro would be a cool idea, provided it takes into consideration need to work on improving Linux and the following points: open source penetration in India. There are innumerable important Most Indian users are still bandwidth-starved, so the distro must provide all solutions that are still not available on the necessary packages for playing multimedia formats (video and audio) and also other packages that Indian users expect as ‘factory loaded.’ the Linux platform, and of course, not Similarly, it would be great if the distro includes diallers for popular Internet to forget the need for localisation. service providers (like cyberoam, Sify, etc.) Perhaps the best way would be to Most important, proper channels/mediums must be used to inform people mobilise geeks and non-geeks alike to about a friendly distro, as India is a land of tech-ignorant people and they come within the open source ambit. need to be well-informed about Linux and open source. Distros would follow naturally... —posted by ‘Pat’ what’s your bet? Yes, definitely! I would love to see Tux in Indian dhotis and turbans. By: Atul Goel and Sujata Banerjee, —posted by ‘abi’ LFY Bureau www.linuxforu.com | LINUX FOR YOU | SEPTEMBER 2006 35 C M Y K.