[FSF India] Re:Draft Letter by Khuzaima A. Lakdawala

[Kanti Jadia]

We, the members of the Free Software community in India, are deeply
distressed to learn about your Government's plans to base your
complete e-governance infrastructure on a Proprietary Software
company's products. The company in question is Microsoft (India), a
wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation based in Redmond,
USA.

The history of Microsoft has shown that it has nothing but contempt
for its customers' rights. When you become a Microsoft customer, you
surrender certain rights which are otherwise guaranteed by the
constitutions of most democracies of the world. Since the Government
has the duty to protect its citizens' constitutional rights, it would
be unthinkable that your Government is about to surrender some of
these rights to this multinational corporation.


We urge you to consider our arguments presented in the rest of this
letter in favour of adopting Free Software rather than Proprietary
Software for all your e-governance and in fact all your Information
Technology needs.

In the rest of this letter, we will be referring to the term
"Proprietary Software company" and "Microsoft" interchangeably, in the
hope of conveying that all the ills and demerits which plague entering
into a relationship with Microsoft also apply to any other Proprietary
Software company.


1. Proprietary Software companies take away your freedom to access and
modify the source code of the software or to modify the software in
any other manner. This is akin to an automobile manufacturer selling
you a car and telling you that it is illegal for you to open the
bonnet and look at the engine's inner working. And that it is illegal
for you to hire a private mechanic to service the engine. And that it
is illegal for you to modify the car in any other manner. Would your
Government buy a car with such restrictions?

When applied to computer software, the above restriction has some very
grave repercussions. In case of a flaw in the software (all computer
software has flaws; and even more so with Proprietary Software) you are
at the complete and total mercy of the Proprietary Software
manufacturer. You do not have the option of hiring software engineers
who may be capable of fixing the flaw. You do not even have the
guarantee that the flaw will be fixed. All you can do is wait for the
Proprietary Software manufacturer to fix the flaw (if at all) and
release an updated version at a time of its own choosing. And then you
have to pay for the entire updated version rather than just having to
pay the cost of fixing the flaw.

The other repercussion of the above restriction is related to
customisation. Proprietary Software companies take away your right to
customise the software as per your needs. It is unthinkable that a
project as vast as state-wide e-governance can be accomplished without
continuous customisation as per the changing needs of the Government
and the people. Although a Proprietary Software company may initially
supply you with a customised version of the software, you are again at
the mercy of the company for any subsequent customisations that may be
required. The Proprietary Software license forbids you to hire capable
software engineers to do the customisation. Instead, you must request
the company to provide the required customisation, offer large amounts
of money unrelated to the task at hand and *hope* that the company will
undertake the customisation work.

Thus, the restriction on access to source code and modification of the
software in any form, *permanently* binds you to the Proprietary
Software company in a completely one-sided business relationship which
has you at the complete mercy of the company. Considering that an
e-Governance infrastructure is a public asset and that the company
in this case, Microsoft, is a multinational corporation with profit as
its sole motive and with no respect for its customers' rights, the
above restrictions by themselves should make your proposed relationship
with the said corporation unacceptable.

Free Software does not have the above restrictions. All Free Software
comes with full access to source code and with full permissions to
modify or customise the software as you deem fit.

--Shouldn't we specify that the changes have to be reverted back.

Rest all is fine

Kanti


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