Sometime back I had posted a letter to the editor of LinuxForYou.It seems that they never learn or never listen. Take the case of the article titled “OSS Adoption in India: The NRCFOSS Way!” To quote from the article:

BOSS (Bharat Operating Systems Solutions) is a Linux distribution that has been developed by CDAC for enhancing the use of FOSS in India. This product has been developed specifically targetting the Indian environment. BOSS has a pleasing desktop apart from a feature that supports Indian languages. Subsequent versions of the product are expected to support the education domain as well. However, the main goal has been to localise BOSS into all 22 official Indian languages so that IT can reach even the masses that are not conversant with English

The last time I checked nearly everybody was doing L10n work upstream either via distributions viz Fedora, Debian or Ubuntu or via projects like GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla. So the question that can be asked is: Why another distribution ? And more specifically why not contribute directly upstream ? Spending money and throwing resources to re-invent the wheel is something that we are generally getting good at while doing the necessary PR spin to make it appear like a virtuous job. Just to put a fine point on things, BOSS is actually a souped up Debian looking inanely like a Fedora – make whatever you want to make out of it.

But the issue is not with BOSS or the effort. I am kind of fuming at LFY. Where’s their sense of their importance in the scheme of things gone ? Instead of blandly and blithely reporting all this – where are the questions ? When will LFY realise that blind hagiography will end up doing more harm for FOSS in India rather than amateur reporting style ?