2011/1/25 Koustubh Sinkar ksinkar@gmail.com:

Govt of Maharashtra has placed the draft eGovernance Policy on their website ( http://maharashtra.gov.in/ ) for citizens' comments.

Lovely:

6.5 State Government shall mandate Interoperability and use of open standards in all e-Governance projects in the state.

Though there is a loophole here for OOXML.

But:

6.24 The source code and IPR for all software custom developed for Government of Maharashtra shall, as far as possible, lie with the state government, and the reuse of these software components in all projects of Government of Maharashtra shall be readily encouraged

This doesn't talk of licensing such source code.

Also:

11.11 For purchase of proprietary items, a limited tender may be floated amongst the authorized resellers only and the state government may negotiate with the L1 bidder to arrive at the best price possible.

What is "proprietary items" here? Who are "authorized resellers"? This sounds like backdoor entry to M$ and Ora$.

We should make a joint representation to the govt. on behalf of bombay-lug?? That will be a better way of impacting the decision making process. We could have an open-source lobby, which would stress for open standards.

Yep, I think this draft is far better than the final ones in many other states.

Binand