[PLUG] [ILUG-BOM] Indian UID, Aadhar Project Is A Proprietary, Non Open Source Project?

[Siddhesh Poyarekar]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Swapnil Bhartiya
<swapnil.bhartiya at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.muktware.com/bitsnbytes/2983
>
> I worked on the story and found oss is only a smoke screen. The entire UID
> project seems to be a pure Microsoft stack.
>
> This document provides step-by-step instructions to install the AADHAAR
> Enrolment Client and Biometric components needed for Biometrics capturing.
> The document is not intended to be a user manual for the AADHAAR Enrolment
> Client. The application has been built to work with the given
> pre-requisites.
>
> 1.1 Installation Pre-requisites
> • Operating System: Windows XP SP3 OR Windows 7 (only 32-bit editions)
> • Windows Installer 4.5
> • Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 SP1
> • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express
> • Aadhaar QSS SDK Setup
> • Vendor Device Manager
>
> You can see how the UID project has made Microsoft technologies mandatory.
> You can't use it without Microsoft. There is no mention of Linux in this
> important document.

The API is open:

http://uidai.gov.in/UID_PDF/Front_Page_Articles/Documents/Publications/Aadhaar_ABIS_API.pdf
http://uidai.gov.in/UID_PDF/Front_Page_Articles/Documents/Publications/Aadhaar_Biometric_Capture_Device_API.pdf
http://uidai.gov.in/images/FrontPageUpdates/aadhaar_authentication_api_1_5_rev1_1.pdf

And you also have:

https://developer.uidai.gov.in
https://developer.uidai.gov.in/site/documents
https://developer.uidai.gov.in/site/downloads

The middleware is implemented using AMQP, which is an open standard
(using RabbitMQ). AFAICT, the servers are going to be linux based.
Google for "linux site:uidai.gov.in" without the quotes. Given all of
the above, you ought to be able to write your own client too.


-- 
Siddhesh Poyarekar
http://siddhesh.in