fyi,
-Suraj
----- Forwarded message from Sridharan Anand <sanand@xxxxxxxxxx> -----
From: Sridharan Anand <sanand@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Invitation: FOSS brain-storming session with Min. of IT
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 17:09:46 +0530
To: sanand@xxxxxxxxxx
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Dear Free/Libre Open Source Software Enthusiast,
There is a committee of the Ministry of Information
Technology, Government of India, that is visiting the AU-KBC
Research Centre (http://www.au-kbc.org), MIT Campus of Anna
University, Chromepet, Chennai, on Thursday, January 13, 2005, in
connection with launching a programme on `HRD for FOSS Capable IT
Professionals.' The committee would like to have a
brain-storming session with all persons interested in FOSS from
10:30 AM -- 1:00 PM on the following issues:
- -- Status of current usage of FOSS in Industry, Government,
Education and Research, worldwide and in India.
- -- Human resources needs in the FOSS sector in India and abroad.
- -- Available FOSS human resources development programmes in the
formal and informal sectors (in the world and in India).
- -- Government's possible role in promoting FOSS in India.
- -- Any other steps needed to promote FOSS in India.
Kindly make it convenient to attend this meeting and give
your valuable inputs so that the Ministry of Information
Technology can formulate the necessary plans and schemes to
further the cause of FOSS which you have been serving
individually and collectively in a voluntary manner. Enclosed
please find a note on the theme of `HRD for FOSS Capable IT
Professionals' from the Free Software Foundation (India) for
your information and comments. In case you would also like to
circulate any note to the participants in this connection,
please send the same to us. The meeting will end at 1.00PM with
lunch. Please e-mail confirmation of your participlation to
me (Mob.: 98410 26505) or Anand Sridharan (Ph. 2223
4885/2711/1034). Additional information on how to reach here etc.
will be supplied to you on geting your confirmation of
participation. Look forward to seeing you here on the 13th.
Regards,
Prof. C. N. Krishnan.
Director.
AU-KBC Research Centre
MIT Campus of Anna University
Chromepet, Chennai-44.
(http://www.au-kbc.org)
- --------
Comments sent by Professor Nagarjuna, Chairman, FSF (Free Software Foundation),
India on
the subject `HRD for FOSS Capable IT Professionals.'
1. What are the focus areas that need to be addressed by Govt. at national &
international levels?
Localization:
Most urgent focus area should be to identify, encourage and support the
already ongoing
groups that are striving to localize (private IT solutions in Indian
languages) the
GNU/Linux operating system. How urgent this is becomes clear if we take into
account the
fact that currently only 4% people (based on the approximate english
literacy) are
capable of using computers, while our country has about 65% literacy. So far
IT is
enabling only the upper strata of the country. If we want our people to
participate in
this information age, making content available to Indian languages should be a
top
priority. In this regard, another serious matter: most of the already
localized and
digitized content in Indian languages is done in an unethical and
inappropriate way,
because the documents are encoded in proprietary standards (both at the level
of font and
data encoding). This is serious becomes clear if we know that this is not
allowed in
any other country except in India. Govt. must enforce all the industries who
are
presently in this market (including Govt's CDAC) to develop filters to covert
all such
documents in ISCII, TISCI and Unicode formats. (please see below our proposals
on
Encoding policy)
Conversion of schools to FOSS:
We should work towards the target of 100% FOSS use in schools 5 years from
now, and
before 2020. Starting now, we shouldn't install any new machines in
schools/colleges and
public institutions with non-free software. This will eventually solve not
only HRD
related issues for FOSS but also to nurture a good ethos within the learning
institutes
that shape future societies.
Content Development:
While this might seem not a related issue of FOSS, but FOSS practiced and
demonstrated a
unique model where people can generate and maintain content that they require
on their
own if they follow the wikipedia model (http://www.wikipedia.org) and other
such
community portals. We should not only create a mirror of sites like wikipedia
in our
country, but also should make efforts to create and translate the existing
public content
in Indian languages. This will also encourage a large number of Indians to
contribute in
such portals worldwide.
Mirrors of Free Software:
Indian mirrors (repositories that keep upto date versions of the software
developed) must
be created and located within the country for faster and sustained access.
Internet:
Internet is the nurturing media of swatantra software. It is difficult to
visualize the
success of free software without Internet. Providing faster and economical
access to
this facility particularly for public institutions will help support and
sustain the
movement further. Though not related to FOSS directly, we must have the
network work
within the country independent of the international backbone. Seriousness of
this becomes
clearer if we look at the fact that when our up front ISP's are disconnected
to the
international backbone, two people within a city in India may not be able to
communicate
with each other despite the fact that they are completely wired. This could
be due to
the non-availability of root DNS servers, and not a very clean routing of
packets within
the country.] Not having such an independent network may cause serious
problems in case
of international pressures. Having such a facility is crucial for a good
bargaining
power of a developing nation. China, I was told, has such a network which
works
independent of the international backbone.
At the international level we should protect our freedom in matters related to
imposing
software patents. The current stand by India on this very important issue
should be held
strongly and no modification is required. We should withstand and stand on
our feet and
defend our independence in this matter without yeilding to the pressures of
the so
called developed countries and bigger financial powers to enforce software
patents in our
country too.
2. What policies / guidelines should be evolved to create a strong HRD in FOSS
in India?
Digital Encoding:
A very important issue is to drive industry and all govt and other public
bodies to
encode all their documents in open standards (non-proprietary). E.g.,
exchanging and storing documents in MS Word should not be allowed, since these
documents
being binary not only propogate viruses with them making them vulnerable, but
since the
encoding method is not a standard and the companies change them in every next
version
merely (without any technical reason) to keep their users locked and continue
to use
their upgraded software. If we encourage such usage, then govt. is actually
supporting a
monopoly practice to flourish within the country. Alternatively, the document
encodings
be done in text, html, xml, pdf, rtf, in that order of preference. A similar
policy for
encoding spreadsheets, databases, audio, video etc. All digital encodings of
public
documents as a policy cannot be done in propreitary standards. FSF India
wishes that we
work towards enforcing this by bringing in other stakeholders and
confederations like
NASSCOM, FICCI, CII, MAIT etc should be alerted to take up this issue in the
national
interest. This will encourage good business ethos within the industry. We
wish that
Govt. take this initiative and lead. FSF India will provide any help to
Govt. in this
regard in arriving at a policy document.
Curriculum:
Second major issue for human resource development within the country is to
plan in a major
way to restructure the technical curriculum of schools and colleges within the
country.
What is happening now is no less than a crime: e.g., existence of brand names
within the
curriculum/syllabi at all levels (schools, colleges and universities). This
is a
direct endorsement of a particular company and a specific application. This
is a serious
issue and should be considered very urgent. We need to alert and bring
together the
policy makers of technical education immediately and ask them to remove all
mentions of
brand names in the syllabi. For example, eliminate Oracle and replace it by
RDBMS,
eliminate Exell and replace it by spreadsheet etc. This kind of secular
syllabi will
provide enough freedom also to the instructors to use what is available. When
we went to
schools and organizations to promote free software we were astonished to find
such glaring
omissions. We request that Govt. must look in to this matter. Keeping in
mind that
schools and colleges are the places where the trained technical persons are
getting
generated, it is here that we need to concentrate to create a secular
technical
curriculum. Please keep in mind that a large number or private IT training
colleges are
directly funded by major software companies to provide education only in a
specific
technology. If technical training is entirely left to private interests
bigger companies
will dictate what is good for the country and not the Govt. We should also
monitor this
area also, since many people opt for getting trained in such institutes.
Swatantra Software Consortium:
By inviting all the stake holders and confederations a consortium (similar to
the W3C)
should be formed to make informed decisions on technical and policy issues
related to
software and technical matters.
Standards to be followed by Websites:
Access to content available on the Internet depends on the delivery method
followed by
the content publishers. Most content publishers unknowingly support some
specific
encodings again proprietary, which will enforce the users to use a particular
technology, again promoting certain business interests.
A much bigger and broader issue is to drive towards a policy where no
technology is
allowed to be distributed (marketed) in a proprietary mode of delivery. Just
as we seek
our automobiles come with nuts and bolts we should demand that every software
that is
marketed must carry the source code along with the right to modify and
distribute the
software. This is going to encourage a lot of innovation, as is already
evident within
the FOSS world, within the country. This is the best way to achieve the
self-reliance
enshrined in our Constitution, and is the main focus of the 2020 vision of our
Honarable
President Kalam. Let people participate in shaping the technology of our
society.
Law mandating use of Free and Open Software and Standards in public affairs is
necessary
to enable wider and stronger use and adoption of FOSS. Just as the GNU
Manifesto, and
the GPL together laid a firm foundation for growth of free software, a clear
statement of
objects and reasons for using FOSS for Computerisation, with enunciation of
it as
legislation alone will enable use, adoption and evolution of workable
solutions. A
'Computerisation [FOSS] Act' may help establishing public networks to
handle
routine transactions, using FOSS, with transparency at every level, for
productivity and
growth. Without this, there would be wastage of resources resulting in poor
implementations not usable or workable.
It is also necessary to have laws that compel hardware and software
manufacturers to
disclose technical specifications and details about their products to
buyers, to
enable interoperability and portability. For example, new AGP cards like
NVIDIA are
getting far more complex than the CPU, and it may become increasingly
difficult to
reverse engineer such complex hardware to make such devices accessible
to free
software. Selective disclosures to non-free software entities alone
promote
monopolies, and therefore harmful. Manufacturers should disclose full
information about
their products, which will also enable independent checking, testing
and
verification of product integrity and security.
All research projects funded by the state should be made free and open to
the public.
FSF India has already elaborated the necessity for this in its recent
memorandum
addressed to CSIR.
Software Patents Policy to be arrived at as mentioned in response to the first
point.
Keep reverse engineering legal. This is required till all the technology is
not free.
India should reject US pressure to prohibit free software to play a DVD, etc.
Any attempt by other bodies that try to create policies that would limit what
can the FOSS
community can do should be resisted. One way is to play an active role in
WIPO to block
any proposed treaties that would limit what people are allowed to do with
FOSS. For
instance, the proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty would do this.
3. Any other suggestions on the subject `HRD for FOSS capable IT
Professionals'.
If the above mentioned basic issues are addressed most of the ground work for
creating FOSS
professionals get created.
Contests, Events, Festivals and awareness camps may be organized to enthuse the
community
to develop Swatantra software solutions. FSF India will help organizations
that come
forward to organize such events. Special projects for developing Swatantra
software may
be given to qualified professionals to develop the required software.
Nagarjuna G.
Chairman
Free Software Foundation of India.
http://www.gnu.org.in
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| Papanasam Sivan is also known as the "Tamil Thyagaiah"
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