Brinjals and Dragons

[ I do not see anything wrong in making this public. I asked these questions as an "individual" and being somebody who believes in the open source ideology, their answers rubbed me the wrong way. It is sad, very sad that most companies do NOT understand open source and take it for granted. I just _HAD_ to rant and vent my anger, so here goes. Disclaimer : This is my PERSONAL opinion which I will not pass as undeniable fact. It is _MY_ point of view. I do NOT represent any organisation. ]

Dear Mr.Sridhar,

I was really put off by your answers to my questions about your stance on open source. To put it straight, it seemed to me like you were beating around the bush. You were not clear about it. That’s not wrong. It’s perfectly ok to NOT have an opinion about it or even have your OWN opinion. It’s ok to not believe in it. But it is NOT ok to be hypocritical about it and say something on your website that you do not believe in.

Your website represents you. What it says, I will assume is what you believe in or what you represent. When your 20 PhDs can write nice content for your home page, why the rip-off treatment to the open source page? If you do not care about it, why do you even have a page about it? Do you use it as a buzz-word that clients find attractive? I hope you understand that “contributing” isn’t necessarily the same thing as “using” open source technologies (well, unless you also put your money where your mouth is and promote it, or take that extra step to file a bug, push feedback or perhaps atleast send a thank you note). It is NOT wrong to be using open source technologies without contributing back but to claim that you contribute back when you don’t is wrong.

It is also wrong on my part to assume that you do not contribute to the open source community but based on the non-truth you put into your answers, it is hard to trust you. Perhaps you do contribute though. That’s my point, if you do, then that is what you should have on your open source page, rather than copy-paste content from other sources on the internet. Write about what YOU believe in and what YOU did; NOT what _somebody else_ believes in. It baffles me that somebody else’s stance can be your stance, word-to-word.

Please don’t give me crap that you own seven other companies and perhaps google displays similar content from the websites of those companies; or that other companies actually ripped off the write-up from your open source page. I will NOT buy that. That is plain dumb.

Even till March 23rd of 2007, you still had this : http://web.archive.org/web/20070323132742/http://www.prithvisolutions.com/

I don’t see open source there, or perhaps it was tucked away deep inside? I don’t know and I will never know for sure but I will assume the current open source content went live AFTER March 23rd, 2007. I find the same few paragraphs on  QuintaGroup.com and that has been there since 2003. Do you own QuintaGroup? If you do, then I stand corrected. If you don’t own QuintaGroup, then make sure your website represents YOU and not somebody else.

Your open source page says and I quote :

“Open Source technology makes business sense. Besides being free and of very high quality, it is often more powerful than most commercially available products.”

Yet you tell me verbally that open source is NOT used by the top companies because they prefer a “STABLE” solution? That you use open source technology to _only_ make proof of concepts? You know what? Either I live in a dream world or you have been fast asleep for the last few years.  That is easily the most absurd thing I’ve heard since Steve Ballmer’s FUD about Linux. You are spreading FUD. That’s hard to believe but sure, if Microsoft can do it, why can’t Prithvi Solutions.

While I can only assume that some form of open source technology exists in the biggest of the biggest companies, it’s not something I am trying to pass as fact simply because I do not know. If they are using it and leveraging its benefits morally, good for them. If they are not, I don’t give a fish. I will not be surprised if there isn’t much leveraged in the Fortune N companies because the decisions are often taken by brain-washed ill-informed people from the top management who buy into the FUD that certain people pass. My problem is with the word “stability”. Open source technology is NOT cheap plastic. Implying that open source software is _free_ and HENCE it is not stable is being stupid (see comment#3 for a more honest choice of words). Mr. Sridhar, you deal with those Fortune N companies everyday, so you would definitely know better if they do not want to use open source technology but heck, implying it is cheap and of low quality is spreading FUD. THAT can turn Bruce Banner green a 100 times over.

Dear Mr. Sridhar, I am so very glad that you don’t run India. I hope one day you realise that we can also CREATE and not just serve. We are not MADE to serve. We just do NOT have the balls to dream. We care more about making money. And some people like you do not care about the how. You bow down with folded hands and speak with pride when you say “We are made to serve”; the kind of pride that should be there if you were serving for free. You arent’t. None of us are. I understand that you don’t know the joy of creation; maybe if you create your “own” content, you’ll start to appreciate it.

Dear Mr.Debashish,

When you said “We do not do charity work. Does that answer your question?”, I assume you were addressing me; is that correct? That’s strange, I never asked you anything about charity. Rather, I asked if you folks give back to the open source community. Do you see that as charity? Well, I have news for you then : you guys indeed do charity work! Congratulations! Surprised? Don’t be; your own website claims that. And I quote :

“Working with Open Source technology is not easy, though, and we leverage Open Source technology to a degree that is still very uncommon. But this dependency is our strength, because we’re backed by the thousands of people who engineered the software we use. We’re indebted to them, and do our part to contribute back to the Open Source communities.”

You should be proud. Oh wait, save yourself that effort, this content is from QuintaGroup.com anyway; meh.

It was nice to see you stand up and defend your company though. I’ll give you that.