On 26 April 2013 07:21, Ashwin Dixit <[email protected]> wrote: > I have the rare privilege of getting the attention of someone who > frames technology policy for India. I have been asked to prepare a > document in 1000 ASCII characters or less, that makes the case for > Linux. My contact is highly educated, yet not very technical.
So typical of India, that someone who "frames technology policy" is considered "not very technical". :-) Apart from that, your document has a bunch of issues, like: - Usage of weasel words - "generally considered", "goes a long way towards". - Blames the reader (the policy maker) - the whole "foreign mechanics" reference. - Easily beaten by counterarguments - "We have the shared source programme - your students can also study, improve and share our software freely". - Structurally too, I find it haphazardly organized. I would suggest you put it up on a public Wiki somewhere and let us all edit it. Here is how it could be structured (a framework suggested by a professor of mine, and one which I find is very effective): Feature being recommended: "Open source in government and education" Evidence that the feature is good: "The world uses it and contributes to it, no vendor lock-in/dependency on American corporates" Benefits of adopting the feature: "Reduces cost, less chance of defacing/PR disasters (not strictly true!), helps us compete with the world". I don't have the time to do a full rewrite now, maybe over the weekend. When do you have to submit this? Binand -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
