[Fsf-friends] Indian Linux users cant see constitution in Hindi

[Sandip Bhattacharya]

On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 23:01 +0530, Ramanraj K wrote:
>  >
> Basically, NIC < http://home.nic.in/ > has been involved with
> computerisation in our country, for a long time, since 1950's.  Please
> visit http://home.nic.in/aboutus/history.htm  The GOI sites, and many
> state gov sites are maintained by NIC. It is almost pointless to nitpick
> GOI sites when NIC has been using proprietary software for a long time
> when it was the only viable option available.  Please visit

> No doubt, there could be no discrimination against free software users.
> But, if we take into consideration the long history of using non-free
> software when that was the only workable option available, it is harsh
> to have a "Hall of Shame" and expect changes over night.  The better way
> 

Ramanraj ji, if you dont mind, I would like to disagree with you on
this.

Proprietary software have almost never been the only viable option at
any time in the history of web. Let me explain:

Most of the web sites of NIC that are declared to be optimized with IE
use plain HTML and/or Java Script both of which have almost always have
been standardized. Countless commercial websites since the inception of
web have been making websites which work on on multiple browsers. So
what was the reason for them to declare websites IE optimized? What does
optimized mean anyway? It means that they have only bothered to test it
against that browser, and didn't feel it worthwhile to test it with the
"other" browser - Netscape, which has been there for a much longer
time. 

Just name one feature of IE that they have *used* in these websites
which did not have an alternative at that time!!! Even multilingual
commercial websites the world over have ensured that both the dynamic
font technologies available at that time - Bitstream PFR and Microsoft
EOT, is available to visitors to cater to both major browsers at that
time. I would know. I have been working in this area since '99, and I
remember the lengths to which we used to go to see that both browsers
are supported. To tell you the truth, private web development companies
almost never could afford to make websites working only on IE - our
clients always asked for maximum interoperability.

Alternatives not being available is a really bad excuse for NIC to harp
about. It was either laziness or just fashion at that time to develop
websites for IE.


>  >After all what is the point of evangelising Linux/BSD or whatever as an
>  >alternative to newbies if they see that every other web site in India
>  >openly discriminate against them?
>  >
> It may not be fair to accuse NIC of wanton discrimination, at this
> stage, when evengelising itself is not yet on a scale and size that is
> really befitting the growth and maturity of free software.  Increasing

I didn't get this. Are you trying to say that Free software hasn't
matured enough to be used by NIC for their work? I would like to
seriously disagree here. Even five years back, Free software was good
enough to give commercial software a good run for their money,
especially in the kinds of web sites that NIC has worked in. 

> awareness about free software is necessary along with other changes
> simultaneously.  Though the advantages in using free software is fairly
> obvious, and it is difficult to come to terms with having to
> "evangelise" free software,  if is unfortunately needed, and we need to
> keep doing it until all software is free software.

Well, commercial software sales people have been evangelising their
software for years regardless of their quality. At least, we are in a
better position knowing that we are telling the truth when we
evangelise/advocate Free software, don't you think? :)

As I have mailed to this list before, there is no point is just
promoting Free software. Look from the point of view of users for a
change. If you even use Firefox on Windows, you will still feel a bit
panicky when you access a critical site which calls itself IE optimized!
You never know which page will break on the browser. 

For example, take the case of an Airlines web site. The site maybe
advertising itself as IE optimized, but *you* never know where they have
optimized it. What happens if they decide to "IE optimize" the payments
section, and you see your transaction hang in between just after
entering your credit card number, and you end up getting charged but
without a ticket? 

On one hand our people should set out encouraging people to use more and
more Free software .. like we already do now. But what is equally
important that some of us go after the major content producing
resources, to ensure that they work well with Free software. You cant do
these two activities serially! It will boomerang on the advocacy
process! You have to do both these activities at the *same* time -
advocate and ensure inter-operation at the same time.

NIC just happens to be the largest content provider in India which is
mostly proprietary. Ironically, large commercial websites have always
been interoperable, because even if the percentage of Netscape users is
in single digits, they are still customers! NIC never had that kind of
incentive! 

Seriously, I have had enough of people screaming at me that their
banking or stock trading or airlines reservation sites don't work on
Linux! Linux gets a bad name, and it isn't even responsible! The content
producers are.

NIC, I feel, knows enough about what to do. They don't need to be told
that they should be using standardized technologies in their work. They
are an old enough company with plenty of very knowledgeable and talented
people working for them who already know what to do. The direction has
to come from top. NIC needs to impose a *policy* on their complete web
development team to ensure that all their websites pass standards
validation tests. Standard validation websites have been around for a
long time!


- Sandip


P.S. To be honest, I am a bit prejudiced against premier government
organizations like NIC or CDAC. I feel really sad and frustrated that
far from being leaders in bringing Free software to the people, these
organizations have thrived on either using or creating proprietary
software all these years ... and now they are just playing catch up to
the free software activity in India.


--
Sandip Bhattacharya    *    Puroga Technologies   *     sandip@puroga.com
Work: http://www.puroga.com        *         Home: http://www.sandipb.net

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