The Stockholm Challenge award system appears to discriminate Free and Open Source Software. Earl Mardle maintains that a comparative study between proprietary systems and FLOSS systems is uncalled for, even if the evaluation is for the e-governance based public systems. That exposes the constitution of the Stockholm Challenge system to the core.
No wonder then that the award screening committee shortlisted Information Kerala Mission, perhaps, the most dubious ever non-free e-governance engineering system in the country for the award, even when the Comptroller and Auditor General report levelled serious charges of abusing public resources and countered the claims of the organisation. Unless for the tireless objections (from our fsf-friends) that finally forced them to deny the organisation any space in the final list, the committee might have even considered the organisation a global-working space (which is still working on Kerala Govt's public funds, meant for the poor and marginalised).
Fred should be alerting all our global FSF networks on this, and possibly even the democratic governments. Do we have any other experiences, Fred ? CK Raju Thrissur