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_…
(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
--
Mahesh T. Pai <<>>
http://paivakil.port5.com
~/\$ mv -vfi linux gnu/linux