Great work Milind. If GoM is spending 2.5cr just in Mantralaya, then we can imagine how much it would be for all departments, corporations, PSUs owned by GoM. If we calculate all expenses for licenses to other replaceable tools like Oracle, it should easily be 100s of crores per year.
Please let us know how we can get more involved as a community. I am inspired by the net neutrality activists who are standing up to Facebook. We need more such multi-level activism like approach to stop the license companies from bleeding our governments and foreign exchange.
Thanks!
Sent from phone
On 26-Dec-2015, at 5:17 PM, Milind Oka oak445@gmail.com wrote:
I had filed an RTI in mantralaya with the following questions
- Total Expenditures on the purchase (including update or license fee) of Operating system Microsoft Windows all versions in the financial year 1013-14
- Total Expenditures on the purchase (including update or license fee) of Microsoft Office all versions in the financial year 1013-14.
- Total numbers of personal computers in working computers at present.
- Total number of personal computers running on free and open source operating system
The answer I obtained is as follows.
- OS pre-installed so no separate expenditure incurred
2 MS Office 2,45,69296/- Rs 3 There are 31 PC's running in DIT 4. Nil
I filed in DIT section hoping that DIT will approve all purchases in mantralaya hence I will get total expediture in mantralaya. But it seems they have given purchases only in DIT. But then how 31 PC's require 2,45,69296/- Rs Software ?
Our education policy clearly recommends FOSS right from 2012 and states that no proprietary product names are to be referred in curriculum.
This has been violated seriously for last three years.
I have filed a Public Interest Litigation in Bombay High court (Next Date is 4 Feb 15)
PIL/141/2015 on 6 Aug 2015.
The petitioner submits that he was required to complete MS-ACIT course in order to get selection grade. Accordingly the petitioner took admission to MS-ACIT course in July 2011. During the course the Petitioner was shocked to realize that the course seemed nothing but an advertisement of proprietary software and the course was using teachers as instruments to promote proprietary software. It was a serious violation of National Policy on ICT in School Education which clearly recommends FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) instead of Proprietary software. The Petitioner started making teachers aware of this violation as he realized that the implications of this violation of policy would cause a huge damage to our Education System, to the Society and in turn to our beloved Nation. But due to lack of sufficient knowledge of ICT, most of the teachers were ignorant and could not understand the importance of this issue. The petitioner kept on studying this issue for a long time and recently decided to raise it after procuring a Notification of MHRD School-5 section, dated 17.06.14 (Annexure A) which supported the views of the petitioner in toto. Further he learnt that our country has been taking tremendous efforts through C-DAC (Centre of Development of Advanced Computing, Ministry of Information and Technology) to promote FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) in all fields including Education by releasing India’s own Free and Open Source Operating System with pre-installed software: “Bharat Operating System Solutions” or BOSS an Indianized Version of Linux. (www.bosslinux.in ) The petitioner has been using BOSS 5.0 (Codenamed Anokha) for last six months and he is proud to state here that our country’s own operating system BOSS is a perfect replacement for other proprietary operating systems. To consolidate his claim he wrote to Honorable Chief Minister of Tamilnadu and sought a feedback regarding BOSS as the Tamilnadu Government has been using BOSS in all its offices since 12.03.2014. Copy of the same is annexed and marked as Annexure – B to this Petition. The petitioner is pleased to inform to this Honorable Court that in the feedback, Tamilnadu Government officially stated that BOSS is indeed a perfect replacement for any Proprietary Operating System. Copy of the same is annexed and marked as Annexure – C to this Petition. The petitioner submits that the Respondent No. 2 state has not included India’s Own competent EduBOSS (a special version of BOSS for Education) or BOSS in MS-ACIT syllabus for teachers and instead preferred to violate the National Policy in ICT Education by inviting proprietary software. The petitioner submits that the honorable Supreme Court of India is using a Free and Open Source Operating System Ubuntu Linux for all courts in the country including all courts in Maharashtra. To avoid further damage to Education System, to save Huge Public Funds and to avoid Permanent Dependency on proprietary software vendors, the petitioner has no alternative than to resort file the present Public Interest Litigation.
Relief (s) prayed for:- The Petitioner therefore prays that: i) That this Hon’ble Court be pleased to invoke it’s Writ Jurisdiction under article 226 of the Constitution of India and issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other Writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus and be pleased to : a) To direct Respondent No. 2 State of Maharashtra to follow Annexure – A by removing all proprietary software product names from the syllabi of MSA-CIT / MS-CIT (Maharashtra State Certificate in Information Technology), schools, colleges, universities and other Govt. recognized education institutions and other State Govt. offices and institutions. b) To stay the purchased order issued by Govt. of Maharashtra to Proprietary Software Vendors. c) To take action against the Govt. officers who have introduced Proprietary Software Vendors in spite of directions issued in Annexure – A on 17.06.2014 by Central Govt. to use FOSS. d) To discontinue contracts awarded to Proprietary Software companies who violated directions of Union of India given in Annexure – A. ii) For ad-interim, interim reliefs in terms of prayer clause I (b) (c), & (d) hereinabove. For such other and further reliefs as deemed fit and proper by this Hon’ble Court on the facts and circumstances of the case. Cost of this Petition be provided for.
On 12/24/15 11:04, Rushabh Mehta wrote: Just wanted to check if anyone has done a recent survey on how much Gov of Mah spends annually on licenses to MS/Oracle/SAP etc to build a case for Free Software.
Also if there are any old timers around, was the Kerala FOSS model tried to be replicated here with insistence of Free Software in Schools?
thanks, Rushabh