On Tuesday 16 August 2005 22:01, Vickram Crishna wrote:

At 5:31 PM +0530 16/8/05, Anand M R wrote:

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That apart, by enclosing public data in closed formats the government

is PROMOTING somebody elses business and forcing the public to purchase software to access that data.

Since its our money (as taxpayers) can we do something about it??

Actually, I don't think that use of the formats is totally closed - otherwise how could they be readable in OpenOffice? For this reason

It is. And some of it is patented to boot. Staroffice (i dont remember the company name) paid top dollars to get the formats and use as they please. Sun purchased Staroffice and split it into staroffice (closed) and openoffice (gpld afaik). They did that as a strategy for their javadesktop and to hit M$. Staroffice has several "features" enabling it to read M$ files better than Oo - at least according to reviews. I have never used SO.

only (and please correct me if I'm wrong here) castigating the government for promoting someone's business is not on.

I repeat It is. Not only are they promoting someone elses company with taxpayers money, the govt. is doing business with a company castigated and convicted by it's own government and courts repeatedly for illegal business practices. There is a whole host of other reasons which will require a book rather than a mail to enumerate. Yesterdays edit page in Eco " Intellectual property rights and wrongs" by Joseph Stiglitz sheds light on some issues.

However, making full use of the data is only possible with specialised software, which in this case is proprietary.

Making any use of any electronic data is only possible with specialised software. Since the data is public the tools to use it should be public and the formats in which is stored should be unencumbered so that anyone can create tools to make better use of such data. Most of us cant even begin to imagine the possible uses of data 5 yrs later let alone 125 yrs later (think metereology records). Instead of reducing the barriers to data usage (which is the point of computerisation) the govt is raising the stakes.

That wouldn't be so bad, if it was a one time purchase

Why?. I can think of hundred better uses for my paisa than funding a crooked company, to access my own data.

(can think of lots of parallels from other industry sectors),

I am sure the assumptions will be flawed.

What can one do about it?

Can someone get hold of the mou under the right to information act? Fredrick Noronha / RH / Novell are you there?. Hope springs eternally u know.

rgds jtd