Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
an interesting discussion took place on IRC today regarding this: http://www.space-kerala.org/downloads/foss.pdf
sorry to head into this discussion a bit late.
The question was, with regard to #2 on the list - software developed by keltron, is it foss or not?
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.
My contention is that the tools used are irrelevant. The software was paid for by the government, and developed by the government, all using our tax rupees.
I also agree with you completely. The draft IT Policy of Kerala Govt. says exactly the same. (http://itforum.kerala.gov.in/)
<quote> 8.4 The Government is of the view that knowledge generated through public funding should be freely available to the public. Facilities will be developed to ensure the same. </quote>
So we hope that in future all govt./public enterprises in Kerala will follow it.
But there is no indication whether the source for the application is open or not, available to the users or not, modifiable, downloadable or redistributable or not. Therefore this is not f/oss as it goes against the fundamental notion that software should be freely available, downloadable, modifiable and redistributable with or without modifications.
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. As those software are not public utility software. But all software mentioned in the book are made with Free Software and will work on a Free Software platform. So the organizations using those software need not go for proprietary platform to run the software.
<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>
I was further of the opinion that the authors of the PDF in question have tried to give an impression that free software is flourishing in the state.
It is a universal truth that Free Software is flourishing in Kerala. No one can Deny the fact. In Kerala, most of the population have some idea what Free Software (swathantra software) is. Here all Govt./Aided high schools use "Free Software", Most of the teachers and students know the evil of proprietary softwares. Also Govt. of Kerala with its IT Policy (http://itforum.kerala.gov.in) gave full support to Free Software.
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.
The book is released before the Kerala Govt. published its draft of IT Policy. And in the policy it is clearly stated that all knowledge generated through public funding should be freely available to the public. So I hope in near future, all the software mentioned in the book may change its status from custom software to Free Software. And other states and countries will follow the model set by Kerala.
regards,
~vimal