Take on Gates, Kalam tells Indian techies

President A P J Abdul Kalam on Wednesday urged Indian IT professionals to develop and specialise in open source code software rather than use proprietary solutions based on systems such as Microsoft Windows.

Now that is an interesting thing to say!! Politicians are generally loath at saying something so drastic. But then... President APJ Abdul Kalam isn't a politician!! Thank god for that!!

He made this statement at IIIT (International Institute of Information Technology) at Hinjewadi in Pune. IIIT was dedicated to the nation on Wednesday.

President Kalam also made a reference to his conversation with Bill Gates...

He said that during a discussion with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at the Rashtrapati Bhavan a few months ago, he had discussed the issue of software security and the need to look for open source codes. "Our discussions became difficult since our views were different," Kalam said.

Wow!! this man can sure talk straight!! :-)

The entire text of his speech can be found here.
link via Slashdot