Fwd: [ATPS] Re: Fwd: [Fsf-friends] BSNL should find a place in
"Hall of Shame"
Mahesh T. Pai
paivakil@[EMAIL-PROTECTED]
Fri Mar 9 21:27:54 IST 2007
(slightly off topic for the _thread_ but today, the Kerala budget has
allocated 50 lakh rupees for setting up a Free Software Resource
Center please see first few lines of page 32 (p. 42 of the pdf of
http://kerala.gov.in/budget2007_08/bud_sp_mal.pdf - looks like an
English version will be available shortly).
cvr3 at river-valley.org said on Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 10:09:24AM -0000,:
> softwares. The today's decision makers are all products of our own
> Universities, and had our Universities inculcated some semblance of
> social values in the minds of the people they have created, this
This is a chicken-and-egg situation, and can be solved only with
patience.
> are required. and we (the GNU enthusiasts) never take any pain to
> develop these and instead we wait for the American free sotware
> people to write something to automate their offices in GPL. And as
> soon as we come across these pieces our GNU people pounce on them
> to take other people to task, leading to them to the Hall of Shame.
(snip)
> released robust White House GPLed software for office
> automation. And if they defy we will tell them that we have no
> other alternative than to send you all to the Hall of Shame.
(snip)
> Government are M$ based, and we have no other alternative than to
> work overtime to develop customised secured software for use in
> Government as replacements to the former. Unless you motivate Free
> software people to
Will the government throw the kind of resources it is throwing at
proprietary software at the volunteers?
I remember the experience of the IndLinux people, who approached the
(central) govt. for assistance in the localisation efforts. They were
told that funds will be available, as long as the project `employs'
people specified by the babudom.
> develop GNU/Linux based softwares for use in Government, the
> Government will keep going as it is and you keep sending people to
> the Hall of Shame.
+1 to that.
> I am single handedly managing nearly sixty GNU/Linux systems in and
> around Trivandrum in various Government offices. The result is that
> I am virtually swamped by telephone calls for support. Lot of
> people are around me and when I ask them to spare their little bit
> of time for the cause of Free Software they are full of GPLed
> logics to find out excuses.
Once again, why cannot the government approach an organisation which
provides paid support for this kind of things?
If the government cannot find organisations capable of doing, the
government can certainly spend the money to build the necessary
capacity.
The government certainly can afford that - it is spending 473 crores
on IT enabled services and the Akshaya project
(http://www.akshaya.net). That is what the budget speech says.
> Please tell me if any free time is available with you so that you
> too can share with me the work (or pleasure) I am doing right now.
> The kind of support calls are to copy files to USB memory sticks,
> to play some videos, to install drivers for new printers in old
> Linux boxes which won't support the new ones because of low memory
> limitations etc. Some time the works takes lots of time and you
> may need to do all kinds of works starting source code compilation,
> searching the web for sources for new drivers or sometimes you may
> have to play with the drivers sources too. Come forward and share
> the pain and pleasure of development, installation and maintenance
> of Linux systems and spirit.
The government has (ought to have) a bunch of people in charge of
doing the sysadmin work. (my information comes from
http://linuxgazette.net/issue77/sunil.html
It should not be very difficult to form a team which does this.
Alternatively, IMHO, we should get the government to hire people who
know this kind fo stuff. Surely, this would be a way of helping the
Free Software community than forming a bunch of volunteers who do the
foot work while a group of paid workers sit idle ``eating'' the money?
With your influence in the government (the govt is not going to give
60 servers to somebody it does not know well), you can get it to
channelise the 473 crores it proposes to spend on creating the akshaya
bondage into free software?
> Do we have an Office Automation software customised for our office
> culture?
Will mydms help? (http://dms.markuswestphal.de)
> Do we have an Accounting Software for use in our Government
> offices?
Government accounts are single entry; no ledgers. Just cash books. All
transactions are only on ``receipts'' basis only. What is the
difficulty here? A simple spread shit (OO.o, gnumeric, etc. will do).
> Do we have an inventory package?
> Do we have a project management for use in Government?
egroupware has the necessary infrastructure for this. Should not be
too difficult to customise them.
> Do we have a home grown software to manage to Educational
> Institutions?
1. Please see http://www.schooltool.org/
2. Why should it have to be ``homegrown''?
3. Why discuss educational institutions while discussing government?
Surely, you have a reason?
--
Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.blogspot.com/
Netiquette Guidelines ==>> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
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