The National Informatics Centre, has taken the first step towards freedom. and set up a PORTAL - yes, a portal. See http://osf.nic.in/
First, the nitpicks.
They are describing it as the `Open Source' forum, an initiative to address software tools based on `Open Standard' (note the singular)
The first thing which hits you on the face as you open the opening page it that it contains proprietary nonstandard tags (marquee). And images in a non standard format (gif).
The NIC cannot apparently get out of the thinking that the home page has to be a `click to continue' page. Well, `high security' on their servers has seen home pages of sites hosted on nic servers compromised more often than a desktop running ...... (umm snip that, we have better things to discuss).
So, I started clicking on each link, (luckily, in a new tab). The first page, http://osf.nic.in/openSourceSite/index_html seems to be the default plone theme. I scroll down, and first see the jarring copyright notice.
`OPEN SOURCE FORUM and its visual design is Copyright © 2003-2004 by NIC'
I'm not sure that authors of default plone CSS'es will like that.
So, I do a `ctrl u' and confirm that the CSS design is from the plone and not by NIC. (correct me is I am wrong).
The lines below the copyright notice claims to comply with the following standards:
* Section 508 * WAI-AAA * Valid XHTML * Valid CSS * Usable in any browser
Great!!!! Though I have no idea why the Government of _India_ should claim conformance to a law by a foreign sovereign, it certainly is a good idea that out government is getting around to the fact that disabled people are capable of using digital tools.
I did not want to log in (I am revealing my identity now, and the visitor number too, so they can find me out anyway).
After clicking on 25 or so links, nothing useful has turned up. But then, the site seems to have been created on 19 July, and I am visitor No. 132. Probably, the first or second in fact, and the rest might be the webadmin testing the site, FWIW.
One of those links were http://osf.nic.in/openSourceSite/state/view, In the list are Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharastra, and Tamil Nadu. Clicking on them requires another three links to get any useful information.
At the moment, I am at http://osf.nic.in/openSourceSite/openSourceDocument/openStandard/view and http://osf.nic.in/openSourceSite/openSourceDocument/openSource/view
Some useful URLs from the `portal':-
http://osf.nic.in/openSourceSite/openSourceDocument/publishedDocument/egov_s... (look out for warped url).
This one contains a few links to documents, most of which are already known to most of us.
For the rest, visit the site.
Ah, the positive side? They have made a beginning; and the failure to recognise the importance of _freedom_ IS bad. They need to switch over to the `freedom' angle.
If you do not understand why the term `free software' should be preferred over the term `Open Source', you should read www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html and www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html