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

...

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

However, making full use of the data is only possible with specialised software, which in this case is proprietary. That wouldn't be so bad, if it was a one time purchase (can think of lots of parallels from other industry sectors), but it isn't - one has to go on and on buying expensive upgrades, often getting pointless or irrelevant feature creep without any added value.

What can one do about it? Make a noise, what else? Don't sit quiet waiting for some half knowledgeable journalist to educate others, especially those in a position to influence policy change. Maybe this list isn't the right place to take up this activity, but there ought to be others - on an all India basis, not just for Mumbaikars. Does anyone know of one?

If not, then how can we pool resources to start such a list? Would it be OT to discuss this here till it reaches a take-off (or aborted) stage?