ELCOT’s Linux story
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_g72GcaIdc]
Its a self produced video of ELCOT’s (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited) success story of its migration towards Linux based systems.
Things to look for:
- Their Linux flavour is
openSUSESUSE. - Several references to Novel. Novel as in “Original and of a kind not seen before”.
- Cost saving figures.
- Many employees using Laptops just as in a typical IT company.
- Many officials speaking good
engishenglish. :) - ELCOT’s new low cost ATM machines.
Titbit as told by Bhuvaneswaran:
ELCOT is the topmost client for Novell with more than 40,000 SuSE desktops. They surpassed Fujifilm which is using 8000 SuSE desktops.
thro’ ILUGC.
Update #0: Would be good if ELCOT could provide mirror sites (India specific) for projects hosted at SourceForge. Or mirrors for Ubuntu, may be.
Update #1: Guys, ELCOT is using SUSE Enterprise Edition.
“With SUSE Linux Enterprise, we no longer have any worries about viruses. This aspect of security used to be a real concern because we know of other e-government systems, which have collapsed because of malicious attacks.” more.
Krish said,
July 19, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Sorry for nitpicking the ELCOT video, but by Suse Linux Desktop they mean OpenSuse and not SLED because SLED is commercial. ( but costs way less than MS alternatives, of course). And internet doesn’t magically become blazingly fast just because you put Linux ( as stated in the video )
But the overall migration idea is very very helpful to a developing country like India. The money saved can do wonders! Again, printing farmer IDs is a data-entry problem than a software coding problem but to use Linux for real-world problems in a large scale is amazing.
I’ve been thinking about problems facing India and *everything* can be traced down to population. More demand, less supply. If only our forefathers were prudent!
Roopa said,
July 19, 2007 at 6:12 pm
“Special drivers and softwares are also developed here. These are made available free in our website. This includes a Tamil font…”
special softwares like a font? I’m excited! ;)
The video reminds me of our reading sessions in school where every student is supposed to read a para from the textbook…these people must’ve done real well in those sessions! :D
Jokes (n criticism) apart, am glad to see Linux making a breakthrough in the govt. sector…and the fact that Novell gets the limelight here makes me feel all the more excited (guess why? :))
Krish said,
July 19, 2007 at 8:39 am
Sorry for nitpicking the ELCOT video, but by Suse Linux Desktop they mean OpenSuse and not SLED because SLED is commercial. ( but costs way less than MS alternatives, of course). And internet doesn't magically become blazingly fast just because you put Linux ( as stated in the video )
But the overall migration idea is very very helpful to a developing country like India. The money saved can do wonders! Again, printing farmer IDs is a data-entry problem than a software coding problem but to use Linux for real-world problems in a large scale is amazing.
I've been thinking about problems facing India and *everything* can be traced down to population. More demand, less supply. If only our forefathers were prudent!
Ponnarasi.K said,
July 19, 2007 at 8:12 pm
:( next post puriyumnu nenakren!
Adiya said,
July 19, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Come on Thrattle give me a break. we produced around Lakh + s/w engginner over the decade. competting very high in the developer pool and still we don;t have proper eGoverance system in place. i am seeing more of Microsoft Vs Linux bangwagon approach and Cost cutting around elcot parlance rather than any thing conservative.
Considering RedHat 3.0 ( which i started off )to SuSe now its very stable in all aspects and implementing that is not big deal.
All we need a paperless egovernace system to solve our Tax paying problem ( rather than run behind each n every thalisar office ) or good kisok to find out whats my willangam certificate , how can i run a will against property to stop piracys to various other thigns in the area.
people are not trying to address that and mooting to Microsoft Blue Screen. its purely a techie thing that which is best Microsoft r Linux. All i am seeing a Costing efford been taken rather than promoting, procducing new infrastructure for people.
further considerting the s/w system what we have, pre-estimating the volumen of data what they have they don;t feel a marginal differnet between linux or ms if they systems correctly.
Well before getting into some thing i can haul that i don;t have atomic rights to yell at our our government systems as i drained my brain to some other place.
but i feel its wrong its W.R.O.N.G.
Couple of good things which i observed.
1. they established a good data-center – Which is the base of any eGoverance system.
2. Office environment looks cool, neat and having nice infrastructure.
3. Sr. Admin, few other staff members sounds more confident in doing what they want.
thats the way to go but the velocity is poor.
In nutshell i see this YouTube as just a cost cutting PPT by some managers rather than anything postivie to tamilnadu people.
Yours
Yet another crazy s/w developer labourer wanted to bulid good s/ws around.
Adiya said,
July 19, 2007 at 9:01 pm
similary our kaladhin maran cheated the whole tamilnadu community by saying “He developer a tamil s/w packages”
its an utter crap by shipping tamil-fonts and layrered 3rd party s/w is not the thing. anyways thats how other side of coin looks like.
Roopa said,
July 19, 2007 at 12:42 pm
“Special drivers and softwares are also developed here. These are made available free in our website. This includes a Tamil font…”
special softwares like a font? I'm excited! ;)
The video reminds me of our reading sessions in school where every student is supposed to read a para from the textbook…these people must've done real well in those sessions! :D
Jokes (n criticism) apart, am glad to see Linux making a breakthrough in the govt. sector…and the fact that Novell gets the limelight here makes me feel all the more excited (guess why? :))
Ponnarasi.K said,
July 19, 2007 at 2:42 pm
:( next post puriyumnu nenakren!
Adiya said,
July 19, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Come on Thrattle give me a break. we produced around Lakh + s/w engginner over the decade. competting very high in the developer pool and still we don;t have proper eGoverance system in place. i am seeing more of Microsoft Vs Linux bangwagon approach and Cost cutting around elcot parlance rather than any thing conservative.
Considering RedHat 3.0 ( which i started off )to SuSe now its very stable in all aspects and implementing that is not big deal.
All we need a paperless egovernace system to solve our Tax paying problem ( rather than run behind each n every thalisar office ) or good kisok to find out whats my willangam certificate , how can i run a will against property to stop piracys to various other thigns in the area.
people are not trying to address that and mooting to Microsoft Blue Screen. its purely a techie thing that which is best Microsoft r Linux. All i am seeing a Costing efford been taken rather than promoting, procducing new infrastructure for people.
further considerting the s/w system what we have, pre-estimating the volumen of data what they have they don;t feel a marginal differnet between linux or ms if they systems correctly.
Well before getting into some thing i can haul that i don;t have atomic rights to yell at our our government systems as i drained my brain to some other place.
but i feel its wrong its W.R.O.N.G.
Couple of good things which i observed.
1. they established a good data-center – Which is the base of any eGoverance system.
2. Office environment looks cool, neat and having nice infrastructure.
3. Sr. Admin, few other staff members sounds more confident in doing what they want.
thats the way to go but the velocity is poor.
In nutshell i see this YouTube as just a cost cutting PPT by some managers rather than anything postivie to tamilnadu people.
Yours
Yet another crazy s/w developer labourer wanted to bulid good s/ws around.
Adiya said,
July 19, 2007 at 3:31 pm
similary our kaladhin maran cheated the whole tamilnadu community by saying “He developer a tamil s/w packages”
its an utter crap by shipping tamil-fonts and layrered 3rd party s/w is not the thing. anyways thats how other side of coin looks like.
Ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 8:33 am
@Krish
Welcome to thrattle. Could be OpenSuSE but Novell does support ELCOT in someway. Internet speed is just a myth. :)
The ELCOT’s site has some performance information of certain printers under Linux & Windows. Linux in many cases looked faster.
I never thought of blaming our forefathers for our population. More population means more work force to searve that population. I don’t get where the population serves as a roadblock.
Ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 8:40 am
@Roopa
> special softwares like a font? I’m excited!
Excitement is important than exactness. :D
Yea! I too felt so. Like newsreaders reciting expressive news. Would have been much better if they were allowed to speak-out in their language of choice. Transcribing them & adding subtitles isn’t tough.
Yea certainly, the move in total is for the good. Ho you from Novell? I somehow always thought that you from Oracle. :)
Ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 8:41 am
@Ponnarasi
Vaanga. :) Pls do post relevant comments at relevant posts. :)
Ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 8:59 am
@Adiya
> Come on Thrattle give me a break.
Antha NRI maathriyea peasureenga. :)
> still we don;t have proper eGoverance system in place.
If all the good talent had worked for the govt, we wud hav had such systems in service. :) The govt had helped the IT crowd to thrive but failed to make use of them.
Cost is definitely the driver of Linux technologies. Freedom is the fuel. Several tools & utilities is like its gear transmission system. Viruses are like the scorching heat from the Sun. Microsoft’s marketing has laid a toll-free road. With all this you get a pleasant journey which is nothing but “Computing”. :)
> cost cutting PPT by some managers
:)
> its an utter crap
I too got one – nothing useful.
I think we need people from the Industry to be a part of Govt’s advisory board. The IT policy should mandate that. It shud also ensure that the companies have some milestones to serve the govt they work with.
> Yours
Looks like something is boiling. :)
adiya said,
July 20, 2007 at 9:11 am
:) boil it properly and don;t milk it. :)
right from the Adam i am glueing to the fact of Cost but Open-Source / Linux is not a Cost reduction formula. developing stable applicaiton is “The Cost Reduction Formula”.
i built few OpenSource Stack but its quite flux oriented. means u need developers or some form high-end tech support to drive it. either u can take that pain or leave it to MS kind of gaint.
:)
Roopa said,
July 20, 2007 at 12:38 pm
@adiya,
Open-Source / Linux is not a Cost reduction formula
well, if I can do the same job – that Windows can do for me – with Linux/Open Source, at a free or much lesser cost, then that is cost reduction. Atleast, that’s what I can infer from what my dictionary says is ‘cost’ and ‘reduction’.
developing stable application
now, probably stability has a different meaning in your world but here, having my Windows hang up every now and then for absolutely no apparent reason is NOT stability, let alone the applications built over it. You probably need to use Linux a little longer to get a feel of what stability is.
Btw, if you want a paperless egovernance system, the first step towards it is cost-cutting. I don’t think the tax money that we pay would be sufficient to satisfy all the politicians (and their immediate families…in some cases, two immediate families) and also pay Microsoft for the OS and the respective application vendors for each application needed. In such a (political) scenario, moving towards Linux is definitely a big step…and a positive one at that!
@Ranjhith,
hmm IP’s do give away a lot of information don’t they? anyway, what you thought before and what you inferred now are both right :)
btw, please, please don’t spam-filter out my comment! :)
ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 3:03 am
@Krish
Welcome to thrattle. Could be OpenSuSE but Novell does support ELCOT in someway. Internet speed is just a myth. :)
The ELCOT's site has some performance information of certain printers under Linux & Windows. Linux in many cases looked faster.
I never thought of blaming our forefathers for our population. More population means more work force to searve that population. I don't get where the population serves as a roadblock.
ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 3:10 am
@Roopa
> special softwares like a font? I’m excited!
Excitement is important than exactness. :D
Yea! I too felt so. Like newsreaders reciting expressive news. Would have been much better if they were allowed to speak-out in their language of choice. Transcribing them & adding subtitles isn't tough.
Yea certainly, the move in total is for the good. Ho you from Novell? I somehow always thought that you from Oracle. :)
ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 3:11 am
@Ponnarasi
Vaanga. :) Pls do post relevant comments at relevant posts. :)
ranjhith said,
July 20, 2007 at 3:29 am
@Adiya
> Come on Thrattle give me a break.
Antha NRI maathriyea peasureenga. :)
> still we don;t have proper eGoverance system in place.
If all the good talent had worked for the govt, we wud hav had such systems in service. :) The govt had helped the IT crowd to thrive but failed to make use of them.
Cost is definitely the driver of Linux technologies. Freedom is the fuel. Several tools & utilities is like its gear transmission system. Viruses are like the scorching heat from the Sun. Microsoft's marketing has laid a toll-free road. With all this you get a pleasant journey which is nothing but “Computing”. :)
> cost cutting PPT by some managers
:)
> its an utter crap
I too got one – nothing useful.
I think we need people from the Industry to be a part of Govt's advisory board. The IT policy should mandate that. It shud also ensure that the companies have some milestones to serve the govt they work with.
> Yours
Looks like something is boiling. :)
adiya said,
July 20, 2007 at 3:41 am
:) boil it properly and don;t milk it. :)
right from the Adam i am glueing to the fact of Cost but Open-Source / Linux is not a Cost reduction formula. developing stable applicaiton is “The Cost Reduction Formula”.
i built few OpenSource Stack but its quite flux oriented. means u need developers or some form high-end tech support to drive it. either u can take that pain or leave it to MS kind of gaint.
:)
Roopa said,
July 20, 2007 at 7:08 am
@adiya,
Open-Source / Linux is not a Cost reduction formula
well, if I can do the same job – that Windows can do for me – with Linux/Open Source, at a free or much lesser cost, then that is cost reduction. Atleast, that's what I can infer from what my dictionary says is 'cost' and 'reduction'.
developing stable application
now, probably stability has a different meaning in your world but here, having my Windows hang up every now and then for absolutely no apparent reason is NOT stability, let alone the applications built over it. You probably need to use Linux a little longer to get a feel of what stability is.
Btw, if you want a paperless egovernance system, the first step towards it is cost-cutting. I don't think the tax money that we pay would be sufficient to satisfy all the politicians (and their immediate families…in some cases, two immediate families) and also pay Microsoft for the OS and the respective application vendors for each application needed. In such a (political) scenario, moving towards Linux is definitely a big step…and a positive one at that!
@Ranjhith,
hmm IP's do give away a lot of information don't they? anyway, what you thought before and what you inferred now are both right :)
btw, please, please don't spam-filter out my comment! :)
Adiya said,
July 20, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Roopa thats a good debate. welcome to my comments.
ok let me put this way..
Cost Cutting = **Actual Software Cost + Support + User experiance + Less Maintenance/Stability + Apt fittment to the requirment space.
**Actual Software Cost = can be from Open/Closed Source
**Support = Kind of Extra techincal support that is required. ( ither open or closed system will have its own support features. either u can hire a techical person or go for hot wire support )
** User experiance = its all accountable to Windows Blue Screen to linux shadow file configuration to driver compatibility matching to whats so ever
** Apt fittment to the requirement space = we don;t need an elephant for plowing and bulls may not be used in war tactics.
its an amalagamated desicion of all + techies choice + management injection.
by all means Buying an open-source system may reduce cost to an extend but not as u think. Its not an install once and run without any problem kind. it has its own factors of “Can of Worms”. its a wrong notion that OpenSource Stack throws up easy going thing.
Believe me “No one in the world will develop s/w for free”. exceptionally few passionate nerds wanted to throw their ideas to OSS pool later people who promoting it use it a differnet way.
** Example
1. JBOSS – acquired by Red-Hat and pushinh JBOSS chronologology in a different way.
2. MultiThreaded TagLibs developed by on fellwo chennaimate dropped it in between
3. CraigMcmillan who was intially part of SunMicrosystems moved to Apache foundary 7 years back produced Struts Web-framework ( suppose to be a proved MVC guy ) and later moved back to SUn again and produced JSF which is kind of contraditory to Struts ( not exactly ).
if a firm believe in Struts then either firm have to promote that framework using inhouse techies or go for an ASP.Net fully supported closed software. just an example.
Ok.. comming to eGoverance steps. well i am looking forward to see such PPTs from a XXX govt s/w firm rather than we built our infrastructure in a cost reduced manner. my point – i appreciate their move, definitely its gonna take some ribs off thats for sure. But its a not a heruclean task they did to show-off after all these technologies are highly stablized. if u happen to work with RedHat 2 or Suse 1.5 and implement the same then i would defenitely say its a grt8 job.
well i am not against their movie or YouTube thing.
a person love to work with OpenSource system, belive in strong visioned management policy, wanted to work with tight technical areas and always keep away from the show-off PPTs
Thanks roopa for ur comment. feel free to drop lets fight over comments in a positive way. :)
Adiya said,
July 20, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Roopa thats a good debate. welcome to my comments.
ok let me put this way..
Cost Cutting = **Actual Software Cost + Support + User experiance + Less Maintenance/Stability + Apt fittment to the requirment space.
**Actual Software Cost = can be from Open/Closed Source
**Support = Kind of Extra techincal support that is required. ( ither open or closed system will have its own support features. either u can hire a techical person or go for hot wire support )
** User experiance = its all accountable to Windows Blue Screen to linux shadow file configuration to driver compatibility matching to whats so ever
** Apt fittment to the requirement space = we don;t need an elephant for plowing and bulls may not be used in war tactics.
its an amalagamated desicion of all + techies choice + management injection.
by all means Buying an open-source system may reduce cost to an extend but not as u think. Its not an install once and run without any problem kind. it has its own factors of “Can of Worms”. its a wrong notion that OpenSource Stack throws up easy going thing.
Believe me “No one in the world will develop s/w for free”. exceptionally few passionate nerds wanted to throw their ideas to OSS pool later people who promoting it use it a differnet way.
** Example
1. JBOSS – acquired by Red-Hat and pushinh JBOSS chronologology in a different way.
2. MultiThreaded TagLibs developed by on fellwo chennaimate dropped it in between
3. CraigMcmillan who was intially part of SunMicrosystems moved to Apache foundary 7 years back produced Struts Web-framework ( suppose to be a proved MVC guy ) and later moved back to SUn again and produced JSF which is kind of contraditory to Struts ( not exactly ).
if a firm believe in Struts then either firm have to promote that framework using inhouse techies or go for an ASP.Net fully supported closed software. just an example.
Ok.. comming to eGoverance steps. well i am looking forward to see such PPTs from a XXX govt s/w firm rather than we built our infrastructure in a cost reduced manner. my point – i appreciate their move, definitely its gonna take some ribs off thats for sure. But its a not a heruclean task they did to show-off after all these technologies are highly stablized. if u happen to work with RedHat 2 or Suse 1.5 and implement the same then i would defenitely say its a grt8 job.
well i am not against their movie or YouTube thing.
a person love to work with OpenSource system, belive in strong visioned management policy, wanted to work with tight technical areas and always keep away from the show-off PPTs
Thanks roopa for ur comment. feel free to drop lets fight over comments in a positive way. :)
krish said,
July 23, 2007 at 2:28 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2540271.stm
From the Article
” In the early 1950s in India, women gave birth to an average of six children.”
“massive population is still the number one problem facing India.”
Basically, there is more competition for our limited natural resources.
To give an ballpark estimate of our problem, USA is a country with 3 times the area of India and 1/3 times the population of India.
Nithya N said,
July 23, 2007 at 7:13 pm
hmm…looks like a lot of hot discussion has been going on, on what looks plain simple to me. Linux is effective in cost reduction in the sense that it’s open source OS. but it was recently found that power wise linux turned out to be expensive. and by power i hop you know what i mean. i strongly feel that with a litlle more seasoning, linux would come out as the best ever Open source OS.
krish said,
July 23, 2007 at 8:58 am
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2540271.stm
From the Article
” In the early 1950s in India, women gave birth to an average of six children.”
“massive population is still the number one problem facing India.”
Basically, there is more competition for our limited natural resources.
To give an ballpark estimate of our problem, USA is a country with 3 times the area of India and 1/3 times the population of India.
Nithya N said,
July 23, 2007 at 1:43 pm
hmm…looks like a lot of hot discussion has been going on, on what looks plain simple to me. Linux is effective in cost reduction in the sense that it's open source OS. but it was recently found that power wise linux turned out to be expensive. and by power i hop you know what i mean. i strongly feel that with a litlle more seasoning, linux would come out as the best ever Open source OS.