Nice post. Am replying partly on top because i want to make a general observation before getting into specifics. That is, the distinction between 'using free software' or 'running on a free software platform' and 'writing and using foss code'. This is especially important when the government/public sector is involved. What is happening today is something like this:
govt of state A decides to use free software to computerise land records. Calls for bids. Company X bags the contract and writes the software using foss platform and foss tools. The government pays for it and gets the code and starts using it. Also issues press releases about what it has done with FOSS. The government becomes owner of the copyright, but the code is not released.
govt of state B decides to use free software to computerise land records. Calls for bids. Same company X bags the contract and writes the software using foss platform and foss tools. The government pays for it and gets the code and starts using it. Also issues press releases about what it has done with FOSS. The government becomes owner of the copyright, but the code is not released.
govt of state C decides to use proprietary software to computerise land records. Calls for bids. Same company X bags the contract and writes the software using proprietary platform and proprietary tools. The government pays for it and gets the code and starts using it. Also issues press releases about what it has done. The government becomes owner of the copyright, but the code is not released.
In all these cases, it is custom built software with one client. But suppose state A had released the code and made it available. Would'nt B and C save a large sum by re-using what A had released and modifying it to suit local conditions. Or suppose state C had released the code and made it available? Wouldnt that be FOSS inspite of the fact that it is written using proprietary tools and runs on a proprietary platform?
So when we talk of spreading FOSS, are we talking of spreading the usage of the foss tools and platform or are we talking of spreading the culture of sharing of code? In my opinion, the tools and platform are irrelevant - the criterion is: is the code shared or not. If so, it is foss, if not it is proprietary. Which means i would prefer a government that commissions code in VB and shares it to a government that does it in python and doesnt share it.
The companies that bid for these contracts oppose the sharing for the simple reason that they follow the proprietary profit model of write once, sell many times and feel sharing will eat into their profits. In this context a few comments
On 14-Mar-07, at 2:41 PM, Vimal Joseph wrote:
First, this book focus on the successful projects based on Free Software, implemented by the government/public sector organizations in Kerala. It is to show case the fact that FOSS is not just in theory, but successfully used by many organizations, especially in govt. sector. So It will help convince decision makers to go for Free Software. It also include an article by FSF India, to educate them why we should use Free Software.
so what is Free Software - is it the tools or the culture of sharing?
All software mentioned in the book are custom made software for specific purpose of the different govt./public sector organizations. There is not much need to make those software distributable or made available to public.
why ever not? isnt what keltron done needed by every state in the country?
<quote> Richard M. Stallman (http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html) Please note that the majority of software, nearly all software, is neither free nor proprietary, it is custom software developed for one particular user. If that one particular user has all these freedoms, say, if that user has the full rights to the software, then you might say in a trivial sense that it's Free Software. There's only one user and that user is free. No user has been subjugated; no one is being mistreated in this way. Of course there are always other ethical issues that might enter the situation. There are many ethical issues in life, but in this one particular ethical issue, at least in that case, nothing wrong is being done.
</quote>
this is not really relevant as we are talking not of individuals but of public bodies
Here all Govt./Aided
high schools use "Free Software",
could you elaborate on this? What free software do they use? Is the syllabus available for perusal?
However the free software guru with whom I was debating seemed to thing that this did not fall under the definition of proprietary software. Opinions anyone?
As I quoted before, from a speech of RMS, the software mentioned in this book are neither proprietary nor free software, they are all custom software made using Free Software tools.
talking of custom made software, look at the Koha project - that was originally custom made for a particular library in New Zealand. The library was convinced to release it as FOSS. And it did and Koha has made history. Most application packages in the foss world today started as custom made software - for example, django and RubyOnRails.