--- cvr3@river-valley.org wrote:
--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: thomas joseph thomasatps@gmail.com Date: 08-Mar-2007 09:44 Subject: [ATPS] Re: Fwd: [Fsf-friends] BSNL should find a place
in "Hall
of Shame" To: ATPS@googlegroups.com
Dear all,
It is not BSNL as a whole to be blamed. It is the socio-economic-cultural attitude of our peope in general that is
to be
blamed. How about most of other Govt Departments, Undertakings
and
enterprises.
The major stumbling block with Free Software promotion in India in general and Kerala in particular is that people are more interested in talking than in taking pains to translate their dreams into actions. As soon as some of the M$ solutions are used in some parts of the world they are ready to spent any amount of time to call it a shame and what not, but paying scant attention to the realities. The present scenario at the Government organisations is such that most of both the decision makers as well as the users (our administrative staff at the offices) are least aware of the security related aspects of the of the existing 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 scenario would not have been there. It is already more than 5 years since the Free Software Foundation was launched in India and Kerala's role is paramount in its creation. I still remember, during the course of Stallman's keynote address, one person happened to ask whether there was any Free software available for use in offices so that we could keep and track our offices correspondences (in general our so called office automation software), but Stallman paused for few moments and said we have got a software called CVS to keep the versions of the software. I have always held Stallman's answer in highest esteem and it is a great suggestion too. But do you think we can ask our office assistants to use CVS to manage their correspondences. So office automation is an important area where all kind of security aspects are coming into pictures. Now you are all very active in the lists. Do you have ever thought that when it comes to Government lots of high security softwares 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.
Now I am forced to think that our Free Software people may be day dreaming for the time when the office automation being used in White House to be GPLed! so that we can grab this piece of cake, and loose no time to rush to Secretariat to ask the poor officers there to find out the kind of software being used currently, and if it happens to be M$ we will brook no time call cats on them for failing to use the just 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.
Please do not think that all the softwares in Government are secure except for Mail servers. In India most of softwares are running in 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 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.
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. 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.
There are lots less active people out there and please assign them the work of hunting and sending people to the Hall of Shame.
Please ponder over these
Do we have an Office Automation software customised for our office culture? Do we have an Accounting Software for use in our Government offices? Do we have an inventory package? Do we have a project management for use in Government? Do we have a home grown software to manage to Educational Institutions?
BUT we have secured WEB servers, MAIL servers etc.I wonder whether we are waiting for the Apache team and Mail server team managers to develop the software we need in our Government offices. And we indulge what we know best ie. witch hunting and sending people to the Hall of Shame.
It is high time that we should find enough Free software people to develop more secure softwares and make our society meaningful in a world where constant preoccupation of the developers is to shift jobs from one proprietary company to another to develop proprietary softwares, and at same time speaking volumes about GPL?
-- Rajagopal CV
Well said Rajagopal. A very apt assessment of situation on the ground in Government offices. As a person implementing FOSS in Govt office I feel the same as what you feel. Let there be more Free Software for Indian needs. Let there be better and easier support to FOSS. After that we will think about who will be in hall of fame or hall of shame.
Raman.P
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