On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:56:58 -0400

Sean Moss-Pultz  wrote:

[...]

quoted text
> Think: The collapse of so many hi tech companies on our stock exchanges

> has humbled many. Creators within the digital world -- no matter how

> novel and exciting -- will have no value unless they impact the material

> world directly.

>

> So this is my call to all of us today. Our work must begin to impact the

> material world. We have the tools. We have the knowledge. We must use

> our knowledge to transcend the digital world.

[...]

Coming into this thread late, as I was travelling. Firstly, thank

you for a nicely-written, and passionate posting. I am a little

curious, though, what exactly do you mean by the "material world"?

From part of your message (the reference to companies collapsing

on stock exchanges), this seems to be largely a definition based

on financial health, though the rest of your message seems to

indicate otherwise.
I am also of the view that FOSS developers need to get out of the

software ghetto, and take a larger view of the world, and the

possible impact on the world of the software, and hardware that we

jointly produce. In my opinion, FOSS has managed to overturn

"traditional" thinking in the world of software because it was not

considered a significant-enough threat to entrenched interests

till it was too late. We have the possibility of making such efforts

count in ways which really make a difference to people in the

world, but that work will be much harder, both because of more

external opposition, and because of our own failure to visualise

and cater to real needs.
> Hardly a day goes by for me without thinking about this elegant idea.

quoted text
> The smart phone has become too complex. Our challenge is to make it

> simple and wise.

>

> Yes I am well aware of the distance between us and this goal. The

> complexity of our system pains me as much as I'm sure it pains you. But

> starting today, I hope we can become more conscious and more focused on

> simplicity and wisdom.

[...]

(I will take the liberty of snipping your well-reasoned points---which

 are already being followed-up to, in order to add a perspective of

 my own, which comes from living in India, and working on localisation

 efforts in Indian languages.)
As many of you might be aware, mobile phones are a huge success story

in India. Currently, India has the fastest-growing population of mobile

users, and it is likely to remain that way for a while, as the per-capita

usage is well behind even countries like China. This revolution is

happening not only among the rich, as poorer sections of the society have

been among the first to appreciate the cost/benefit ratio of a mobile

phone. I have personally seen rickshaw pullers using mobiles. To my mind,

a killer application on mobiles in India will be support for Indian

languages on the hardware, in a manner transparent to end-users. The cost

of an OpenMoko phone will also need to come down significantly, but that

can come from sheer economy of scale.
I would like to know about people working on such efforts in an open-source

environment. There are various people (e.g., Nokia) trying to do such

things, but as Sean points out, we can do it better. Such work will also

have implications for console-mode support for Indian languages in free

operating systems like Linux, which can again be a big win for FOSS

penetration in India.
Regards,

Gora
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