[PLUG] [OT] Re: Government Sponsored Vendor lock

[Mayuresh]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 10:21:11AM +0530, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:
> Thats a long winded way..
> 
> I think some bad publicity and public pressure would help it better.  
> 
> Some thing like MKCL does not test their sites under alternate browser and 
> force IE out of assumption when the site actually works fine with user-agent 
> spoofing, so there really isn't anything IE specific(yet!)
> 
> 
> -- 
> Regards 
>  Shridhar

That's true. However the issue is not only with browsers but also with
products like Office.

It can be seen as a more general issue. I think, no policy makers or
vendors or public at large realize price implications of proprietary
platforms. Guess a significant proportion of the users may be using
pirated installations. (Think of it, how many would file IT returns by
buying MS Excel just for it?) Indirectly it is also promoting piracy.

While everything that helps should be tried, the real ownership of the
apps is not with the software vendor but with their customer - Govt.
Besides PIL (which I agree is long drawn), don't know whether other means
such as RTI, media coverage, making such questions reach political parties
that can pursue it in the parliament (Sounds too much? But that's
officially supposed to be the way in democracy!) are feasible or not.

Besides Govt processes, there are schools mandating students to do their
assignments in certain office software. May be that's even harder to
change till the awareness at large increases.

Mayuresh.