Hi, this is to just share with you some news on open source in e-governance. Last week knowledge commision (KC) headed by Sam Pitroda was here in Banaglore to chalk out details of their proposal to government on e-governance. Now the electronic media largely concentrated on the commission's comments on Reservation issue... but there was more to it.
I had attended the press briefing, and one of the slides in their presentation was on Open Source and open standards. Sam said that the KC was keenly pushing for open source in e-governance projects and is trying to convince the govt. of adopting open standards. Since the objective is to bring uniformity across nation w.r.t. e-governance projects, it is crucial to have open standards. and the KC didnt rule out re-looking at some existing projects and modifying them.
Well, lets see how far the KC goes to keep the banner of open source flying high.
Malovika. Bangalore.
I had attended the press briefing, and one of the slides in their presentation was on Open Source and open standards. Sam said that the KC was keenly pushing for open source in e-governance projects and is trying to convince the govt. of adopting open standards. Since the objective is to bring uniformity across nation w.r.t. e-governance projects, it is crucial to have open standards. and the KC didnt rule out re-looking at some existing projects and modifying them.
Well, lets see how far the KC goes to keep the banner of open source flying high.
That is good news. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Perhaps we should keep a directory of the applications that the government uses and on what platform... That will be a good way of measuring how Open the government is to open source.
I say this because a few months ago, I had a look at Delhi Police's FIR filing application. It was done in Java and left many frustrated users... As per my discussions with them, very little of their expectations have been met. Rather than being a tool to help them work effectively it frequently got in the way. Incidentally, NIC was responsible for making this application; and guess what, they had shown no intent of sharing the source with us or the Delhi Police.
Warm regards,
ah
On 5/17/06, Amol Hatwar amol@hatwar.org wrote:
I had attended the press briefing, and one of the slides in their presentation was on Open Source and open standards. Sam said that the KC was keenly pushing for open source in e-governance projects and is trying to convince the govt. of adopting open standards. Since the objective is to bring uniformity across nation w.r.t. e-governance projects, it is crucial to have open standards. and the KC didnt rule out re-looking at some existing projects and modifying them.
The following link gives the press relase (in an MS file format) that explicitly talks about "Open Source":
http://www.knowledgecommission.org/downloads/e-GovPressRelease-08052006.ppt
Then again, the entire site is in ASPX. A case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is up to...?
satish
Amol Hatwar wrote:
I had attended the press briefing, and one of the slides in their presentation was on Open Source and open standards. Sam said that the KC was keenly pushing for open source in e-governance projects and is trying to convince the govt. of adopting open standards. Since the objective is to bring uniformity across nation w.r.t. e-governance projects, it is crucial to have open standards. and the KC didnt rule out re-looking at some existing projects and modifying them.
Well, lets see how far the KC goes to keep the banner of open source flying high.
That is good news. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Perhaps we should keep a directory of the applications that the government uses and on what platform... That will be a good way of measuring how Open the government is to open source.
I say this because a few months ago, I had a look at Delhi Police's FIR filing application. It was done in Java and left many frustrated users... As per my discussions with them, very little of their expectations have been met. Rather than being a tool to help them work effectively it frequently got in the way. Incidentally, NIC was responsible for making this application; and guess what, they had shown no intent of sharing the source with us or the Delhi Police.
Warm regards,
ah
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I think we will have to take multiple different approaches with respect to the govt adopting open source. The problem is not that conscientious officers in govt don't understand that open source is better but they are reluctant to act as they are frequently bypassed or interfered in day to day working thru vested interests lobbying the political people. Open source gives the organised civil society an opportunity and a challenge to start becoming an alternative to organised government. Once civil society makes alternative information systems and methods of collaboration for the general populace, the existing govt structure will be forced to start reducing the establishment costs by giving value for money to citizens for govt services (as citizens will start demanding them) thru adoption of cost control technologies such as open source. This is something which has started to happen in Mumbai now specially for the municipal govt. Organised civil society is now taking up the IT component of the municipality (praja.org etc). Their system is not open source fully but by bypassing the govt IT machinery (which is liable to political interference) things have changed. Creation of new bureaucracy has been stalled and existing bureaucracy is being forced to act.
Praja is also working in Bangalore. They are bypassing the formation of new govt structures such as NIC, CDAC etc which till now had a stranglehold on every aspect of egovernance.
Kush
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Amol Hatwar -
Kush -
malovika roy -
Satish Babu