[Fsf-friends] Knowledge commission and open source

[Amol Hatwar]

> I had attended the press briefing, and one of the slides in their
> presentation was on Open Source and open standards. Sam said that the KC 
> was
> keenly pushing for open source in e-governance projects and is trying to
> convince the govt. of  adopting open standards. Since the objective is to
> bring uniformity across nation w.r.t. e-governance projects, it is crucial
> to have open standards. and the KC didnt rule out re-looking at some
> existing projects and modifying them.
> 
> Well, lets see how far the KC goes to keep the banner of open source flying
> high.

That is good news. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Perhaps we should 
keep a directory of the applications that the government uses and on 
what platform... That will be a good way of measuring how Open the 
government is to open source.

I say this because a few months ago, I had a look at Delhi Police's FIR 
filing application. It was done in Java and left many frustrated 
users... As per my discussions with them, very little of their 
expectations have been met. Rather than being a tool to help them work 
effectively it frequently got in the way. Incidentally, NIC was 
responsible for making this application; and guess what, they had shown 
no intent of sharing the source with us or the Delhi Police.

Warm regards,

ah