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Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 21:23:30 -0000
To: erumbugal@yahoogroups.com, tamil@..., agathiyar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Fwd: Re: Tamil linux is not ready for market
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From: "bala2pillai"
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--- In tamilinix@y..., "bala2pillai"
Anbulla Venkat,
The premises for your conclusion mostly affirms my experience.
However, I am afraid your conclusion is based on rather narrow
premises. Primary in your mind is the to-be-Linux hack.
Primary in my mind, is the to-be Tamil networked group worker -
the beach head for which is Thamil Innaiyam. The communicator, the
writer, the motivator, the student, the viral marketeer, the
inventory
plan coordinator, trust builders, business doctors, career doctors,
legal doctors, mental health doctors, online seducers, the publisher,
the copywriter, the press release distributor, the Tamil business
plan
coordinator, the Tamil for business language tutor, the Tamil trade
representative, the Tamil compere, the pricing strategist, the
researcher - the list of self-employed, independent workers/SME/SOHO
goes on. [Incidentally, this is where growth is]
Let's look at it through an analogy. Let's say Linux is the engine of
a car. And let's say all these group workers need a Tamil car. Now
the
questions they will have will be:-
a) can I use the car with my children?
b) can I drive it to work?
c) can I drive it to customers places?
d) can I drive it to suppliers?
e) my wife likes a blue colour car with leather fittings - can I have
one?
Notice: no mention of what the engine is like? Why? It is a much
lower
priority, since it is taken as a given that you won't call a lump of
metal that cannot go from place A to B reliably, a car.
So equally, the to-be-networked Tamil group worker is not going to
hack with the computer. He wants a black box that enables him to do a
lot of things (building rewarding relationships, social and
career/business) with a small set of tools. He only needs the minimum
reliable tools to **extend** and to **reach-out** with his mind. This
is mind-centric *not* tools-centric.
Cost of the unit, is nowhere as important as proof that the group
worker will make more from the suite including unit, than he would
without it. Thus, yes, a large
awareness/publicity/promotion/organisation/work field prioritisation
budget, a pro-rata portion of which would be allocated to the unit.
In other words, the tools are an insignificant component of this
Thamil Innaiya Erumbugal
initiative that we call "Tamildom Outside" (a playful take off from
"Intel Inside".
Would you still hold on to your conclusion that "Tamils are not ready
for Linux" given Tamildom Outside?
anbudan../bala
bala@t...
Founder/Producer, Thamil Innaiyam (since 1995)
http://www.tamil.net
sydney, australia
--- In tamilinix@y..., "vvenkataramanan"
> Lately, I have been seeing a lot of postings and cross-postings in
> making a tamil linux platform for sale, wish list for tamil
programs,
> etc. IMHO, Tamil is not yet ready; in fact, we are nowhere near in
> passing linux to end users. Why?
>
> Before continuing, read that these are words from one who is using
> linux from the early days (1994); who has a strong interest in open
> source and tamil and is a tamil linux evangalist.
>
> India is still the largest market for tamil linux and Linux has
just
> come to India. To tell the truth, there are no india specific linux
> distros and the-entrepreneurs-out-here, would do better to think
why
> and how one should make an english indian linux distribution before
> venturing into tamil linux.
>
> First of all, the market for tamil linux is not in the enterprise
> sector, it is only in the schools, colleges and households. Because
> enterprise users (those apache-SQL-perl-php biggies) do not want
> tamil linux. They are and will be happy with redhat (which if not
> making an indian specific distro. is having distributors in india).
> It will be foolhardy to target these biggies with a tamil localized
> version.
>
> Well, IBM endorses Apache, Oracle is ported, SAP is out there,
> Netscape is now Mozilla... These lables are fine. But Indian linux
> will be a different world.
>
> Then the real market in india like with the mozilla-koffice-gimp
user
> group. This is academic and home user base. These people's main
> concern are price. In India, internet is done at a snail's pace.
> Linux and internet are inseparable, to install, to get user-group
> support, to upgrade rpms,... any success in linux can be spoken in
> terms of net connectivity. So, to make a linux distro successful
one
> need to make some nice tools that will extract every bit of those
28K
> modems, will beat the hell out of VSNL, Satyam, etc. If your
> indialinux is going to be successful it can only be because you
> provide a better use of those 58K boxes at homes with the VSNL
> gateway. It is a hard work, one need to do that before thinking of
> selling linux boxes in rupees. Households can be turned away from
> Microsoft only because they can afford a polished GUI (like ximian)
> right with their old MMX-266, good speed with modems and then good
> user support. I know that a couple of people like Bharatlinux
(aweful
> loot of RedHat sources), Indlinux, etc tried. But they cannot move
> much because they do not address the problem of connectivity at
shoe-
> string hardware and user support. The only indian linux distro
(again
> RedHat rip) that gets loaded in kids machines over there is PCquest
> linux. That is because nice and simple articles keep appearing in
the
> mag. month over month for the last 5 years.
>
> Now, that said, if you want to make tamil as your strength in linux
> box - well you are going to be disappointed if you talk to people.
I
> did and I am. Indian kids awefully lack opensource culture. I come
> from IISc - the mecca of indian science. I saw Richard Stallman in
> flesh and blood way back in 1993. That was an experience in the
real
> word (In Jimi Hendrix sense and not Microscoft XP way). We had a
GNU
> culture in IISc (that is why the most innovative computer hardware
> ever thought in India, the simputer OS is GNU copyleft-ed).
> Unfortunately, none of the IITs (IIT KGP is a little exception)
> viewed upto Stallman, Linus or Eric Reymond their only hero was/is
> Bill Gates, Real strength of linux is in charming and storming the
> kids - these kids then take it to business. But our kids are not
> shown the way. If we do that now, 3 to 5 years down the lane, we
will
> have a generation ready for it; they will hack the Sony Playstation
5
> to run linux.
>
> If we need linux boxes to run in tamil (out of the warp) - you need
>
> 0. Make sure that your system is capable of dual boot (windoze need
> to be there)
>
> 1. Fully installable linux tamil tools (something like rpm -ivh
> tamiltools..., should get you the whole lot of things need to run
it
-
> fonts, localizations, userguides, console utils) at one click.
>
> 2. Make a tamilterm program (that will run console commands in
tamil
> shell)
>
> 3. Hack all the cheap printers to test if tamil comes out there.
>
> 4. Demonstrate that you can run tamil under Koffice or StarOffice -
> most importantly, make a spreadsheet run in tamil - for all the
> grocery stores, They aleady have PCs and they will only be too glad
> to bill their customers in linux :-)
>
> 5. Localize installation utils like drakconf. or redhat's installer
> in tamil - given them confidence as the OS unfold in their machine.
>
> 6. Finally write tons of howtos in tamil. If you start a company
> selling tamilinux boxes, you need to appoint atleast 5 people full
> time translating all the existing howtos in tamil (and be mentally
> prepared to release them under GNU doc-lic)
>
> Before that do a complete survey of what they did in Mexico, China
> and Thailand to make the kids, civil servents and housewives run
> linux.
>
> If you think that you can cash on the windfall in the name of
linux's
> current popularity - think twice. Linux is a hard nut to s(h)ell.
I
> have been approached in the past by a japanese company for this, I
> said these to them - linux is not ready for tamil (or tamil is not
> ready for linux), yet. Sadly after about 11 months, we still are in
> the same state.
>
> I will be happy if some-guy like P.Asokan, who knows the difference
> between Debian and Mandrake, who has his feet already wet on
chennai-
> rainy-roads comments on my posting.
>
> Happy new year and Happy linuxing.
>
> venkat
> Toronto
--- End forwarded message ---
