[Fsf-friends] Re: Paths of Freedom

[Ramanraj K]

>The solution should better be called e-Administration.
>It received an award from the Deputy Prime Minister of India.
>The basic version can be made free.
>We can discuss more, if you have any ideas on how to go about it.

>Thanks.

>Krishnan V D G


Congratulations!
Please do release your application as free software.
www.gnu.org explains how it could be done.
Briefly, by free we mean releasing the source code under the GPL.

Regards,
K. Ramanraj.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ramanraj K" <ramanraj@md4.vsnl.net.in>
To: <fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in>
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 10:14 AM
Subject: [Fsf-friends] Paths of Freedom



>>   To,
>> Mr. V D G Krishnan
>>
>> President & CEO
>> LL2B.COM Pvt Ltd
>>
>>
>> Dear Mr. V.D.G. Krishnan,
>>
>  
>
>>> > The message copy received by me is not clear to me.
>>    
>>
>>
>> First a pointer to where we are: Please visit
>> http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-October
>> Ofcourse, we are now in November, but I have given you last month's
>> archive address so that you will find your mail listed there at the
>> bottom, and you can relate to what is happening around.
>>
>  
>
>>> >On our part, we have developed a e-governance and e-transparency solution
>>> >which is now under trials at Electronics Corporation of Tamilnadu
>>    
>>
(ELCOT),

>>> >Govt. of Tamilnadu Undertaking. This tool is expected to bring in total
>>> >transparency and speed to the working of the Govt. We hope it will be
>>> >adopted as a tool by the Govt. of Tamilnadu.
>>> >
>>> >You can visit WWW.LL2B.COM for the preliminary details.
>>    
>>
>>
>> e-governance and e-transparency solutions are most welcome.  But then,
>> the solution itself should also be free, open and transparent.  The
>> philosophy section at http://www.gnu.org explains free software.  Law
>> itself is public, free and open in nature.  Our Supreme Court had the
>> occasion in Naresh v. State of Maharashtra [AIR 1967 SC 1] to consider
>> the merits of open and public trials for "healthy objective and fair
>> administration of justice," and quoted Bentham with approval as follows:
>>
>>     "In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest, and evil in every
>>     shape, have full swing. ... Publicity is the very soul of justice.
>>      It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards
>>     against improbity.  It keeps the Judge himself while trying under
>>     trial in the sense that the security of securities is publicity."
>>
>> The principles laid are equally true for governance.  Without free
>> software, it is hard to even imagine a e-governance software.
>>
>> But, I am personally wary of using the expression "e-governance software".
>>
>> The law is the common background for all human activity.  Besides
>> governance, law operates upon a large area.  Governance is specially
>> grouped under the heading Constitutional Law and Administrative Law.  We
>> have Law of Contracts, Torts, Law of Property, Family Law, Labour Law
>> etc. wherein "governance" is minimal or even totally absent.  If an
>> application can handle Constitutional Law and Administrative Law, then
>> there are no reasons why it should not handle the Law of Contracts or
>> the other laws.  We have people designing "banking software", "insurance
>> software", "billing software", as though the law has these water tight
>> compartments.  We have ERP, CRM, B2B, B2C, G2G, G2B, etc. etc, with
>> others promising to integrate ERP with CRM, CRM with the rest in all
>> possible permutations and combinations.  It makes business sense but no
>> legal sense.
>>
>> Can any e-governance software check constitutionality of code?  If they
>> can't, then they better not call themselves by such a name.
>>
>> Besides, consider the following:
>>
>> Suppose an e-governance application wants to assist litigants in filing
>> plaints.  While automating preparation of plaints, some issues arise.
>>  If more than one plaintiff sues, the script should use "plaintiffs"
>> otherwise, "plaintiff".  In appeals, for the same reason it chooses
>> between "appellants" and "appellant".  Soon, a function that would give
>> the plural for singular nouns like applicant, petitioner, claimant,
>> defendant, and respondent becomes necessary.  This exercise soon takes
>> one to examining the rules of English grammar.  If an application can
>> handle legal rules well, then it might handle rules of English grammar
>> as well. But the most singular difficulty would be in listing the rules
>> of English grammar.  Tamil has Agathiam (the  primary grammar text, but
>> no longer in vogue) > Tholkappiam (Secondary text, based on Agathiam),
>> and > finally the recent Nanool, where everything from how letters are
>> formed, classified, pronounced, to usage, root words, verbs,
>> concatanation, and every thing necessary to use the language are dealt
>> with thoroughly. Assuming that after consensus, acceptable rules of
>> English grammar for the present are available, we could write functions
>> such as:
>>
>>     function get_plural($singlular){
>>         // returns plural for a given singular
>>         ....
>>     }
>>
>> To write a perfect get_plural function, we need to know if the word
>> passed to the function is a noun or not. Now, we have to write
>>
>>     function is_noun($word){
>>         // returns if word is a noun
>>         ....
>>     }
>>
>>
>> As you see, one thing leads to another, and soon we will have a large
>> library of functions that deal with many aspects of English grammar.
>>  Then our scripts will write well, and may be read well too.
>>
>> Once we write such a library, there is no reason why this should be
>> confined to just an "e-governance" application.  We could use it even
>> better in the field of education or wherever English is used.
>>
>> Consider another scenario.
>>
>> Recently, an ONGC helicopter crashed into the sea near Mumbai, and an
>> Enquiry has been ordered into it.  The survivor & eye witnesses reported
>> that the helicopter went into a spin before crashing into the sea.  It
>> is well known that the tail propellor prevents a helicopter from
>> spinning.  Did the tail propellor fail?  We see that the enquiry soon
>> has to deal with the basic workings of an helicopter to arrive at the
>> truth for the cause of the accident.  Though at the top level, things
>> look like "e-governance", as we go deep, we find ourselves into the
>> thick of rules of English grammar, the laws of aerodynamics, history, or
>> other fields of human knowledge.
>>
>> Ancient sages dealt exhaustively on grammar, philosophy, ethics,
>> medicine, law, science and literature single handedly.  Agathiar wrote
>> Agathiam creating a script for Tamil, codifing the rules of grammar, and
>> then dealt with medicine [Paripooranam 400], and initiated Girivalam, as
>> the simplest form of yoga, that could be practiced by one and all.
>>  Agathiar is believed to have brought his first love, River Cauvery, to
>> Tamil Nadu.  Well, then he might have organised the flow of the River
>> with the aid of the local kings. Patanjali wrote upon Sanskrit Grammar,
>> Ayurveda and Yoga, and though the works stand distinctively,  a common
>> thread unites them.  A unity at some point is required for scientific
>> progress and human prosperity.
>>
>> Free software offers all the tools we can ask for.  The next big step
>> would be when human knowlege is ported across so that software
>> applications abound with life, intelligence and wisdom.
>>
>> Regards,
>> K. Ramanraj.
>