Information Society Watch

Introduction
The debate on Free and Open Source software versus proprietary software has often got bogged down in ‘its free’ versus ‘it is not free’ arguments. However there are other critical aspects that need to be considered. The argument for FOSS is looked at from different perspectives in this note.

I was reading on-line the latest Down to Earth magazine (June 25, 2007) which carries in its cover story, diseases that still are rampant in India, since they largely affect the poor and their is not much incentive for the pharmaceutical companies to invest in R&D to treat/cure them. For e.g. the Kala Azar disease largely affects the poor in Bihar and there is no medicine for it .... what is used is medicines that have been forumulated for diseases such as cancer etc...

the article suggests that public funding into R&D on health reasearch is critical for ensuring that medicines for the poor / treating ailments that affect the poor are indeed available...