Microsoft's Bill Gates to visit India, Dec 06, 2005

When Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates begins a four-day visit to India on Tuesday, he'll see a country moving increasingly toward open source operating systems - the chief rival to his company's Windows software.

They are promoting a plan that would require all state-owned companies and government ministries to use open source by 2005. And they would require all computers assembled in Vietnam to be sold with open-source products installed on them.

The prime minister is expected to take up their proposal this fall.

To get young people comfortable with the free software, the government plans to distribute computers to 5,000 schools nationwide next year -- all of them equipped with open source.

It's another example of SCO offering the least possible amount of information for maximum publicity. The company still won't tell people, except under non-disclosure agreement, which portions of code allegedly violate their rights -- a red flag. Meanwhile, it's mining the PR for all it's worth.

Linux software has made good headway in undermining Microsoft in corporate networks. Now a Silicon Valley company believes Linux will do the same in the consumer electronics market. But here the incumbent isn't Microsoft. It's Alameda-based Wind River Systems, which has established itself over the past two decades as the leader in embedded software.

The Japanese government is considering using the free Linux software program when it upgrades its computer data files for public servants in 2005.

Q: What do you care about?

A: I still care about the technology and the community. The people putting it together. And I do care about if someone has actually copied stuff into Linux that they don't have rights to, I'd be upset about that. I care about software rights. Right now I'm taking a leave. From what it looks like, as long as it is contract rights between SCO and IBM, I don't care at all. IBM can defend themselves. And if IBM ends up having to say OK we did something bad, it's not my problem.