On Friday 11 Jul 2008, Raj Mathur wrote:
> Would you be interested in a discussion at the next ILUGD meet on the
> various types of FOSS licences, what precisely they imply for the
> developer, distributor and user and how to use them?  I could try to
> give an exposition from my own
> non-legal-but-spent-enough-years-wading-through-the-quagmire
> perspective, and whatever answers come out of the discussion can be,
> say, posted on the Wiki as a FAQ or other global resource.
>
> Topics that may be interesting to discuss include:
>
> - Distribution policies
> - Development policies
> - Money exchange policies
> - Attributions
> - Bundling
> - RPC/SOAP/equivalents
> - Patent provisions
> - Web service licensing

Good ideas.

This may not fall under the realm of "Licences" as in above.  Please 
include if you think it appropriate.
> - [Add your own]
  - Public Portals (developed using open standards)

Govt. and PSU portals are being developed by companies like TCS and 
such.  Some of these sites are begining to enforce authentication with 
Digital Signatures (usb dongle).  They are using some MS proprietary 
technology that works only with WinXP and IE.  This is tantamount to 
the Govt. and PSUs endorsing a proprietary product and forcing it's 
citizens to either buy a legit. Windows lic. or resort to piracy and 
break the law.
  
Orgs. who work with Govt./PSU portals have raised this issue "but with a 
Linux desktop we cannot download/upload tenders (or whatever)."

I am not conversant with the underlying technology.  However, I am 
confident that the above can be done using open standards, thereby not 
forcing the citizens and organizations to purchase a Windows XP lic.  

For starters, there should be a DIT (or an approp. Govt. body) policy 
that requires every vendor, developing a portal that interarcts with 
public at large, to use open standards and ensures that it works across 
all the desktops, not just MS Windows.

-- 
Arun Khan

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