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The Intra-Governmental FOSS Conflict

Gagan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:08:36 +0000

Today Economic Times reported about the benefits of FOSS as analyzed by a study according to the Professor Rahul De of IIM Bangaloare. That’s good, superb we already knew about the benefits of FOSS, but yes now we have a study backed up by one of the geniuses of the country. However isn’t it that it has already been there? The LIC using it, or the Govt. of Kerala leveraging the benefits FOSS Technologies. Same goes with corporates, they have always preferred Sendmail over Microsoft Exchange, and Linux over Windows and more and more FOSS when it comes to Server technologies. Organizations have been using OpenOffice.ORG from past so many years to save upon their costs.

But this study is sure to create an impact in the minds of more and more people, and ultimately drive Microsoft to their worst nightmare of Open Source taking over the corporate word (at least). But let’s talk about Government Initiative in the Open Source… Now there’s a catch!

WARNING: In the following section, I might sound Frankenstein running after NIC’s to rip it’s neck of it’s body.

IBPS Site may damage your PC

Does government actually support FOSS Initiatives ? I don’t know if you are looking at th small line at the bottom of most of the Government websites, where it says – “Please use Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or “Best viewed on Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or something analogous. Does it

SBI site is on ASP (Microsoft Active Server Pages) meaning NOT FOSS, they are using Microsoft Technologies and are actually not leveraging the benefits of FOSS where they can be best achieved – WEB and SERVER Technologies. If you anytime in your life have applied for any of the Country’s bank exams be it PO, Managerial or Clerk, you have to visit the site of Institute of Banking Peronnel Selection (IBPS). You would notice that it won’t open on Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or Google Chrome – it’s is simply loyal to Microsoft Technology – Internet Explorer.

Let’s visualize a simple example, where a person who loves linux or cannot afford Microsoft Window Operating System and want’s to make every move chaste, without the pains of proprietary software involved – Is demoralize, demotivated, his faith shattered to dust with a website popping up saying I need INTERNET EXPLORER! That wasn’t the idea of Tim Berner’s lee when he proposed Internet.

Does Government really support FOSS?

If the government really want’s to take initiatives, it should have made all the websites on NON-Microsoft Technologies, it would have saved them Millions actually Billions. Today NIC has 90% of their websites being maintained on proprietary – age old technologies, that are in no way match for today’s glossy looking, superbly interactive, and Intelligent websites. Are they ? They don’t even look like Corporate/Identity websites for Company information. Even if NOW!, after going through the Prof. Rahul De reports they think of moving from proprietary to FOSS Tech’s – who the hell be accountable for the earlier un-informed baseless decisions ?

The only one of the few website I’ve seen is the NIC’s Indigov. Its’ one of the best website, and based around php. Now what new I see is a Quality certificate being attached to the website by SQTC. Does that make a difference? What is then W3C for? CDAC, NOIDA has been one of the biggest contributor and promoter of W3C in Indian Government sector. However, now NIC & SQTC comes out with their Certificate attached to the website, ignoring all the work done so far in the field by W3C and unnecessarily putting their precious efforts into standards that have been pre-established. No doubt the website is accessible, but that accounts to just 0.1% of the websites NIC is hosting/developing/maintaining (I would rather say lingering on with). Most of the disabled people are ignored in the country (I know low floor buses just landed in Delhi, but that’s just Delhi -not India right!) and Information Technology is the last seen area where you could consider disabled people to be preferred – in INDIA.

The author is not Anti-Microsoft, he just want the web to be independent, free from the boundaries just like a free bird. As Internet / Web was essentially created to be platform-independent so that we could; and today as we are able to browse websites over Mobile Phone, Browser’s across operating systems like – Windows, Mac and Linux. And they look same everywhere.

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India Today Group’s Online Network powered by Open Source

Gagan — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:24:19 +0000

Here’s a quick post, on India Today’s website.

All Open Source people would be glad to know that India Today’s Online network of websites are powered by Joomla! Its good to see so many corporates using Open Source technology, but simultaneously its very hard to see the choice of platform is not reciprocated, anyways what are we for? So, Go! Joomla! Open Source Go!

India Today’s websites including a Hindi version of aajtak is also being hosted on Joomla!, MoneyToday and Business Today are successfully integrated using the platform. We’d be updating you on the Open Source, anywhere we see it.

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Now! Politicians on Sale by Google

Gagan — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:06:35 +0000

Well guess what hit the net this time? Politicians, to be specific – L.K.Advani, well yes after polluting the society with their hypocritical and manipulative word plays, politicians are targeting Internet to reach the wider and a bit literate audience. The thing that actually shook me off was the Google Advertisement for Mr. Advani. It presented Mr. Advani more of a product, I was seriously thinking what amount could have been paid on per day basis for Mr. Advani on Google Adwords – 10p, 50p or.. 1 Rs …anyways at least he’s following the Rules of marketing – Sell Yourself.

L.K. Advani on Google Ads

The whole solution (except the blog) powered by Tetrain Information Services, I still remember this co., in 2006 I saw the website came to know about the first ever technical support for Open Source products in India (esp. Linux). The co. has expanded to more Open Source, see their website and you’ll know instantly. Convincing politicians to have their presence felt on the Internet is quite a deal. At least, if not monetary they would be getting some personal corporate benefits for sure.

Well here’s a quick view on the solution by Tetrain, easy to decode .

Joomla! Admin Panel - LKAdvani.in

Joomla! CMS (The main website)

Chronoforms for feedback

A Custom theme

Custom Slide rotators

Blog Powered by WordPress

Forum powered by phpBB

Forum Statistics at the time of writing this post: Total posts 2562 • Total topics 1080 • Total members 1655

The wholes website is powered by Open Source softwares. At least at one point, I think people take good decision, I’m talking about the Tetrain and NOT Mr. Advani. Well, Mr. Advani is online, the site has a lot of feedback points. I’m just worried that ..

are these feedbacks even read ?

I’m (100*100)% sure that these contents are part of SEO tricks by the undertaking organization.

Flood site with all Goodie, Goodie contents : Some of them even without consent of Mr. Advani.

I would hardly dream of Mr. Advani going through his websites or the comments of his blogs,

Assuming he does, he is sure to go for hard-paged prints, coupled with the invaluable excuse of the falling short of time to view his own website/blog/forum. They all are the same Environmental Suckers.

FACT: There is no post on the forum that has a user named ‘advani‘ or even a part of it. As for now, its all other users who are posting and consoling each other, and if my gut feeling is intact, its the same old trick, creating fake user accounts and starting of the with the posts – impersonating.

Anyways, I would be signing off!

Jai Hind!

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