Day: February 6, 2003

Consumer Linux Distributions

Robin Miller writes on the rise of (potential) mass-market desktop Linux versions:

$99, give or take $20, seems to be the new price point for full-featured, consumer-level Linux distributions. This is a great deal for non-technical users, since most of the new-wave consumer Linux products give users a much prettier and easier experience than traditional, all-GPL distributions tailored for a geeky user base. Whether or not the current explosion of Linux use by ordinary people is “good” is still open to question, but I suspect the answer depends more on who is doing the answering than any other factor.

A friend and I were recently discussing what people need in a computer. He said, “If you have a) web browser , b) email program, c) word processor, you’ve covered the entire needs of 75% of all PC buyers.”

Forms Management

Adobe and Microsoft are both pushing into the forms segment. Adobe is adding staff to its ePaper division (which includes Acrobat), and Microsoft is pushing ahead with XDocs. WSJ explains why:

With online traffic expanding, there is little doubt companies want to change the way they process information. For years, big corporations labored to automate their financial, personnel and customer-relations departments, installing big “enterprise” software systems and database programs to store data in neat rows and columns. With the proliferation of Web sites, the spread of e-mail and the broader use of video, audio and other less orderly types of data, this approach must be expanded to store, catalog and access the growing reams of “unstructured” data in documents.

The shift is the logical next step for corporations trying to turn information into intelligence.

In its simplest form, a forms-management system might automatically distribute a customer order to several departments, such as manufacturing and invoicing, and then send the data to a computer keeping track of the company’s finances. In a more complex application, a pharmaceutical company may collect clinical data from thousands of doctors, including verbal descriptions of a patient, and route it to researchers for analysis and ultimately to the Food and Drug Administration.

802.16 Wireless MAN Standards

EE Times writes about the recent approval by IEEE of the “802.16a specification for wireless metropolitan-area networks (MANs) in the 2- to 11-GHz range, giving a seal of approval to technology that one executive said could enable a disruptive change in communications.” It will be interesting to see how it plays out vis-a-vis the 802.11 WiFi rollouts that are happening now. Adds EE Times:

Roger Marks, chairman of the 802.16 committee and a wireless director at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s labs in Boulder, Colo., said that in an ideal world 802.16a can serve as a backbone for 802.11 hot-spots. Still, some wireless LAN advocates promote 802.11’s use as a MAN, even though its medium-access control protocol is fundamentally optimized for shorter-range topologies. At the same time, Marks said, others have talked of using 802.16a within the enterprise as an adjunct to 802.11a or 802.11g. If the 802.11e working group has trouble providing true quality-of-service prioritization for wireless LANs, then it might make sense to take 802.16a directly to an end user, Marks said. Otherwise, “it’s more efficient and more cost-effective to look for the ways 802.11 and 802.16 complement each other.”

Issues with Open-Source Software

Sebastian Bassi writes about the challenges faced in making open-source software mainstream in developing countries. He identifies three key issues: Ignorance (“OSS stuff (GPL, GNU/Linux, source code, binary file and so on) is not always easy to get if you are knowledgeable about computers”), Corruption (“If the software is free (or at least significantly cheaper), how can the politicians profit from it?”)and Piracy (“Since software is almost free — you have to pay $3 to your favorite software dealer — people can’t see as an advantage the free nature of the OSS”).

Extremely good points. I don’t think that there is an immediate solution. What is needed is that a bottom-up change needs to take place – starting in schools and colleges, coupled with increasing awareness that there is a reliable and affordable alternative. An open-source software ecosystem needs to be created with multiple different entities working together.

Trails of Ideas and People

It is fascinating to think how we get new ideas and meet new people. Both follow trails. Ideas and epiphanies move incrementally and then make a big leap every once in a while. When that happens, we should stop and think what triggered that. Was it a comment someone made, or something we saw. A similar trail applies to meeting new people. Who introduced (or referred) us to this person. What’s the chain of people that was followed to get to meet this person. (After all, we are all only six degrees apart.)

I try and do this now much more than I used to. What are the events and who are the people making a difference. Who bring out the best in me when it comes to ideas. Who help me reach to the most new people. Can I do more of that. It may start off as just an intellectual exercise, and could end up as a valuable marketing and business aid.

TECH TALK: The Rs 5,000 PC Ecosystem: Colleges

The second leg of the computer education initiative revolves around making connected computers available in colleges, with legal software. Here are six ideas:

1. Create computer labs, of the kind we discussed for schools. In colleges, there would be many more computers, since students will be spending a lot more time on computers. In fact, given the Rs 5,000 cost, it should be possible to provide a computer in every hostel room. The 3-year cost for such a computer would be about Rs 10,000 Rs 5,000 for the computer, Rs 2,000 in maintenance costs over the next 2 years, Rs 2,000 as the loaded cost for the thick server, and another Rs 1,000 as networking and finance costs. Thus, over a 36-month period, the cost works out to Rs 300 per month. This could be recovered through student fees, if not provided by the institution.

2. Consider setting up WiFi networks, rather than running wires across the place. This creates a wireless envelope allowing for connectivity across the campus.

3. Provide each student with a permanent email address of the form name@graduationYear.instituteName.edu (or something similar). This email address will not change even after the student graduates. The difference is that while on campus, each student is given a mailbox, while after graduation, the email is forwarded to another address specified. In addition, every student can be given storage space on the server for his files and mails. Access to the students accounts will be possible from any computer on campus, since all these computers are the 5KPCs (thin clients).

4. Make public all research work and projects done by the students. This makes it possible for others to see what work is being done, and instead of duplicating the efforts, work on complementary projects. In fact, students should be encouraged to publish personal weblogs (again, this becomes possible since they have access to a computer in their rooms). What the weblogs do is work as a mechanism for students to build up their profile during the time they are there in the institutes.

5. Ensure that all students learn computer fundamentals logic, data structures, programming languages and networking basics. Knowledge of what computers can do is going to be critical in whatever professional activity they do be it in engineering, arts, management or medicine.

6. Encourage faculty to publish their lecture notes and presentation online. In fact, the widespread use of computers can create for a richer interactive environment between faculty and students.

On the software front, the server would comprise of three sub-systems, built on Linux and open-source software:

  • Messaging, consisting of email, instant messaging, proxy, firewall, anti-virus, and a global address book.
  • File, Print, Applications Server: this is the thick server. It also serves as the Central Repository Server (a Digital Library) and has all the Linux/Open-Source software needed. This is replicated at each college, and updated regularly. This ensures that when students need software, its available locally on the LAN to experiment with.
  • Content Management and Collaboration: Calendaring, Weblogs, Website management, Knowledge Management (creating Communities of Practice) and other collaboration applications.

    The set of ideas outlined here can be applied to every educational institution. Engineering colleges, can, however, do a lot further in building out the 5KPC Ecosystem.

    Tomorrow: Engineering Colleges

    Continue reading TECH TALK: The Rs 5,000 PC Ecosystem: Colleges