[Fsf-friends] Free software best suited for UI card project

[haynes davis]

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/26913/free-software-suited-ui-card.html

There are compelling arguments to support the use of a free software, but
advocates of free software doubt if the government would decide on one,
given the money involved and the weight the companies owning proprietary
software carry. But use of proprietary system, they feel, would be
tantamount to compromising national security.

“A software can be termed as secure only if the freedom to  examine or
modify the code lies with its user, in this case, the Government of India,”
proclaims the Free Software Movement of Karnataka (FSMK), a body that
supports use of free software and propagates its usage in various spheres of
activities.

Naturally, the movement finds Microsoft’s proposal to undertake the project
‘disturbing.’ While on one hand — a write up in the FSMK newsletter claims —
Microsoft’s involvement would sabotage a state’s, and by default its
citizen’s, right to control the software on which the most crucial data
would sit, it also paints an alarming picture of the IT giant’s associations
with the US government and slips in the suggestion that it would let the
Americans sabotage the whole network as a part of a cyber attack if things
come down to that.
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