[PLUG] My Point Is Very Clear In Petition (I did not expect technical discussion)

[Mayuresh]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:27:41PM +0200, pavithran s wrote:
> Yes the IT policy "recommends" open source

Right. I think Govt's job is to make policies rather than endorse
specific products or FOSS initiatives.

Leave the choice of s/w to people. If you want to file a petition, use it
for a more general goal. Push the Govt to use FOSS rather than BOSS (of
course, BOSS could be one of choices) in its own operations. Also push the
Govt to encourage FOSS in academia.

There are a no of Govt websites and functions that work only on Windows. A
number of their documents open only on Windows. Until last year ITR filing
necessary required MS Excel and even now they have a Java app that doesn't
work on BSDs (though works on Linux which is still a positive step). Push
the Govt on adopting open standards in their contents so that they are
accessible irrespective of the OSes people use.

Having said that, the picture is not necessarily only bad (although it
could have been much better by now), as some state Govts (Kerala for
instance) have been very active with the same.

Reminds me of a 5 yr old post I made in PLUG (and things could have
changed since then)

http://marc.info/?l=plug-mail&m=128034451312028 (See overall thread).

Mayuresh.