As adviced by some prominent academicians and social scientists, here within Kerala, I would like the issue to be discussed within this forum on whether it would be more appropriate from our part, if we were to issue some press releases on a regular basis on "Social Fairness of Free Software" under the banner of FSF, India.
The timing is crucial for FSF India, as e-governance is on the agenda of most of the Indian States, where Kerala's State Planning Board had announced allocation of around 147 crore of rupees for the process. Coupled with the announcement of Ministry of Information Technology, Govt of India that it would be a partner in funding goes on only to show the resolve.
Even if we were to focus on the freedoms, I would seriously like to put forth the suggestion to include themes of 'dependency factor', 'economic impact on future generations of taxpayer' and the 'magnitude of economic capital that may fly out', as still money happens to be the prime attention catcher for the general public.
With no serious political developments happening around, other than the 'Veerappan factor' in South and 'Children's death' in East, should we openly come out in the front, at this point ?
I discussed the issue by highlighting on how the different vertical departments of the State Governments that were to have proprietary software platforms would become a spider's web (with each concentric circle denoting inter departmental connections with smaller units, say at district level, each straight line from the centre denoting the different departments) and even if we were to assume that by suitable software migration policy we could make records straigt, how the different connecting lines within the spiders web would prevent such a transformation from taking place.
I then imposed another spider's web on top of the origin, without the concentric lines, telling them that this one was the supporting arms from other sectors like information processing sub-units, training units and education establishments that would be there to help the overall process.
The picture appeared to go deep inside, when it was supplemented with economic figures.
Perhaps, journalists listening to this forum could contribute more, to this suggestion.
CK Raju
KILA, Thrissur
