News.com:
This is something which Bill Gates would not like to hear. The Indian government is trying to encourage the use of computers across the country by distributing free CDs that contain localized versions of popular open-source applications.
To start with, the government has started distributing Tamil-language versions of various open-source applications, including the Firefox browser, the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and the Columba e-mail client. About 3.5 million copies of the CDs will reach Tamil speakers worldwide, according to R.K.V.S. Raman, a researcher at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a Bangalore-based government organization involved in R&D, design, and deployment of IT solutions for human development.
“We have had a tremendous response to this (initiative),” he said. “In the first two weeks of the campaign we got about 100,000 hits daily on the web site offering CDs, and about 2,000 to 3,000 downloads (of Tamil-language applications). We have already sent out around 50,000 CDs and have a backlog of 35,000.”
The next stage of the project is to distribute CDs containing applications in Hindi, the national language of India, and subsequently in all 22 national languages.
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