Appended below is a transcript of what I sent across to the Economic Crime Wing in CBI as well as to CAG. We need to come out with more ideas and try to prevent a proprietary business dealer to take over the information assets with spywares. I didn't seek any formal sanction for mentioning the names of the professors below, but I guess I am within my right to quote their names. Perhaps Prof Nagarjuna could inform us how to take off from here.. CK Raju
================== Sir, For real-time monitoring of NREGS activities the present software designed and maintained by NIC is a proprietary one. After commissioning proprietary server components in 3,00,000 rural local self government institutions, the total cost to the public exchequer will come to at least Rs 15 billion. All this money can be saved if transition is made to software released under General Public License (Free and Open Source Software), where source code is also available for inspection, or modification. For e-Governance system this would mean that the state would be able to extend guarantee to citizens that their public information is not susceptible to manipulation by any kind of spy-code. Also since Free Software adheres to non-proprietary, royalty-free open standards which are published in public domains, guaranteed accessibility of information is not left to the goodwill of any supplier of software. Moreover, permanent availability of all data and formats are guaranteed because of strict adherence to published royalty-free standards and protocols. Since proprietary software are free to invent their own formats and do not publish their source code for inspection by the public at large, there is always a limit placed on their claims of secure-ness and guaranteed availability or accessibility of public information encoded in their systems. No amount of algorithms however public they are and however strictly these are implemented can reasonably guarantee secure-ness of information if the over-encompassing software components of the Operating systems (inside which it operates) are proprietary and un-published in public domains for verification or inspection. For rural bodies, this would mean that the amount likely to be displaced can be pooled in for rural welfare activities of our citizens, instead of allowing it to be channelised to monopoly software establishments who do not need the assistance of government's share from rural activities like NREGS for its own growth. The amount so saved also could be used for training our local human resources for using and promoting Free Software, especially through public education systems, as is being strictly followed in all the public high schools in Kerala. NREGS is just one instance wherein this anomaly has come out in the open. There are other domains too wherein this mechanism is in operation. Public sector banking establishments that make use of proprietary software also put the commercial and financial information at huge risk. Punjab National Bank, for instance, insists that transactions must be made through proprietary browser software (like Internet Explorer, which operates only in Microsoft Windows) for successfully completing the online-reservation of train tickets through http://irctc.co.in. ISRO insists that one should have a proprietary Microsoft Operating System to access the bhuvan features. All these are pointers to a system which fails to adapt itself in a timely and effective manner, to the modern risks that new software technology poses before ordinary people. Though these could only be settled through legislations like bringing in amendments to the IT Act, these public institutions can nevertheless be directed to cease forthwith their further plans on proprietary software systems, and come out with a time bound transition plan, for migrating these applications to Free Software. Other proprietary establishments can also partake in this exercise, as long as, they use only software which are released under general public licenses, where software and data encoding details are published and available for anyone to study, distribute, share, modify or even publish with modifications. Any amount of intellectual and technical support can be made available for bringing about a permanent solution to the problems mentioned herein. A few known experts from premier educational institutions like IIT, IIM, TIFR etc who actively participate in such issues of document and software freedom include (a) Prof Deepak B Phatak [email protected], (b) Prof Prabhu Ramachandran [email protected], (c) Prof G Nagarjuna [email protected] (d) Prof Rahul De [email protected] These professors could be contacted to verify and ascertain the issues highlighted herein, and solicit suggestions to overcome the shortcomings. My deepest regards, CK Raju, IIT Kharagpur 721302 _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
