On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:54:01 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@thenilgiris.com wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 04:19 pm, you wrote: i think that the key word is 'self-taught'. ppl who have taught themselves are more likely to contribute - but the majority of ppl developing in linux in india are doing so because their employers mandate it. We have two firms in ooty - each employing around 30-40 ppl - exclusively linux. But, if tommorrow the respective bosses shift to windoze or mac, the whole lot would shift without a murmur. In lb2004, i noticed that the number of attendees without degrees in IT was minimal, whereas i think that in other countries one would find a lot of college dropouts (or guys who have just scraped through) keynoting. I have a feeling that if you poll the top 50 indian contributors to FOSS, you will find very few with formal qualifications
I agree with the "self taught" part. That is a good observation.
solution: go to this segment - doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, middle level management, teachers, lecturers, small business men. Just for an experience of what this means, lurk on gnumed devel mailing list for a few days. When ppl like this get involved, then applications that they need start getting developed.
You need to have a good understanding of computers to write "complex" software. But most programmers do not know much about other fields e.g. medical. This is partly because of 'division of labour' (remember it was taught in primary schools :) There are exceptions though such as Con Kolivas (a kernel hacker and a practising doctor :) which is an example which springs to mind immediately.
Programmers can collaborate with people from other professions and write software for them. It is a well established fact that FOSS does not work well in most niche areas unless some experts from that field write software for themselves or collaborate with programmers. examples include complex software for astronomy, medical imaging, software that controls particle accelators, biomechanics etc.
since this segment typically uses pirated M$, they are not dissatisfied enough to look for an alternative as happens abroad.
FOSS doesn't offer many alternatives for "niche areas". FOSS thrives when there is a huge userbase and active people giving feedback. FOSS stutters where there is a small and very specialised userbase. There are notable exceptions to this though.
i have no contact with the academic world, but i would like to ask how many lecturers program their own bits of software to help them teach ?
Confusion yet again. Teaching and programming are two different things. You can be one and not the other easily and still be good at your job. Just as every hacker does not know how to write a research paper or give a seminar. But brilliant programmers and academicians are quite competent at both. This is again besides the point. This again brings me back to the focal point of your earlier post that suggests that you need to program to contribute to open source which is simply untrue.
just a few paise worth
my 2 paise worth too :)