Dear All,
Many of us have been advocating for several years the adoption of FOSS
applications and platforms and FOSS related advocacy has been gathering
momentum. Last year, we had an advocacy processes relating to software
patents and the OOXML debate, we had RMS and Eben Moglen visiting
various places in India sharing their views on FOSS.
Yet, we do have a long way to go before FOSS is widely used in India.
Bringing different groups of actors (who believe in the principles of
Free Software), including academic institutions, NGOs and CBOs, research
and advocacy groups, professional associations, FOSS enterprises
providing services in different areas as development, training, support
and maintenance, we believe will help in supporting and cohering a
positive discourse in favour of FOSS.
Some of us have been thinking that a loose national coalition of such
individuals/ organizations and associations should be formed that will
work towards the widespread adoption and promotion of FOSS. Such a
network of organizations working along a broad consensus on promoting
FOSS will provide stronger and more effective responses to events
relating to FOSS as well as initiate proactive actions than perhaps
individuals or institutions acting in isolation. We are writing to you
all, to suggest a meeting to discuss this idea of the coalition and
thereafter also items for immediate action. We would request you to join
for a half-day meeting, on Sunday, the 22nd of February to discuss the
same.
Time : 3pm - 6pm
Venue : CIS office, Cunningham road, Bangalore, landmark – same building
as Wockhardt hospital
Map : http://tinyurl.com/apltcb
Present below is the proposed agenda for the meeting -
a. Formation of a national coalition of organisations advocating for
FOSS. The goals, scope, priorities, approaches, structures, issues /
risks, alternatives, resources for such a coalition etc, name of the
coalition will be discussed.
Some proposed activities which can be discussed -
b. Working with government departments and public sector units
advocating them to adopt and promote FOSS
When we individually speak to any of our contacts/departments in the
government the impact may not be significant. However, if we send
collective representations to departments such as the e-Governance, IT,
Education, RDPR departments, and seek meetings to explain the issue and
the advantages of FOSS, it would gradually help them to look at the
issue in depth.
c. FOSS initiatives in the country, including the Gujarat ICT in schools
program
Many state governments across India are in different stages of adoptiong
FOSS (many on the extreme of not using FOSS!) and we can share our
understanding and views on the current situation. The Gujarat government
for instance is implementing a 500 crore ICT in school education
program. They are inclined to go towards FOSS, however the final
decision has not been taken yet. We need to look at ways so that they
consider FOSS seriously. There are also plans for a FOSS workshop in
Delhi, where different groups, including political parties and
government officials could be invited and disuss the advantages of
adopting and promoting FOSS.
d. FOSS initiatives in Karnataka
There are some initiatives in Karnataka for which we can work together
to help in the adoption of FOSS.
We have an informal request for a proposal for a pilot project to train
government staff and vendor staff in Bangalore on GNU/Linux platform
that has been chosen for the ICT in schools program. We also need to
work on the issue of using Nudi on FOSS. A big impediment currently to
getting the government to use FOSS is be that 'Nudi' works only on MS
Windows and does not work on FOSS distributions. Lastly we should
explore what could be done to help VTU adopt FOSS and prefer it over
proprietary technologies. Engineering colleges adopting FOSS will make a
huge impact on the creation of the FOSS ecosystem in the state.
We can also discuss other means and methods which we can collectively
work on to promote FOSS.
Please do let us know if you can make it (so that we know how many
chairs, tea/coffee we need) Please mail [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> to let us know. Please also mail in with
suggestions and ideas for the agenda for the meeting.
In case you are interested in participating in the coalition, but are
unable to join the meeting, please do email and let us know.
Thanks,
Vinay (On behalf of the organizers - Anivar Aravind, ,Gurumurthy K,
Renuka Prasad, Sunil Abraham, Vinay Sreenivasa)
--
Vinay Sreenivasa
IT for Change
91-98805-95032
[email protected]
http://itforchange.net
http://india.is-watch.net/
http://is-watch.net
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