It seems the proverb "Elephant's Chewing Teeth are different from Exhibiting Teeth" rightly matches as the situation of NIC (and may be even MHRD)
It seems NIC is actually .Net Implementation Center. All the NIC sites (except our national site i.e. india.gov.in and few of its sub sites which I am really proud of as they have followed Web Standards) are made in .net I just came across .net based Ministry of Rural Development Portal http://ruraldiksha.nic.in/main.aspx that is supposed to provide DIKSHA to rural areas (through PAID RESTRICTED SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT) So one thing for sure that either there are no hard and fast standard defined for what platform to use (or may be not followed even when defined) What can be the reason: 1. There is unawareness about FOSS 2. The Tender System where the tender document os not specific and strict on selection of FOSS 3. FOSS communities do not care about such tenders and let it go to proprietary supporters Now the point is why is popularity of such proprietary tools increased when FOSS alternatives exist: 1. Proprietary Companies see to it that they reach every organization for demonstration and also provide evaluation packages to them. Some also provide those software for free. 2. On other hand FOSS supporters, crib that they are doing some sort of Non Profit work and they cant go at that extent to conduct such FREE Demos for FREE Software 3. When the proprietary companies get the project and some (small civilian) Foss supporter report it to FOSS community, he/she is humiliated and told that it is a way of business and we cannot do anything about it due to lack of alternatives (even when there are many) 4. This means that FOSS Community is just for playing Mail-Mail game 5. Due to this attitude, people crib saying that FOSS community doesn't provide morale support, and propreitary companies even when they charge provide support Now if FOSS communities treat small people like us who have dedicated our business to FOSS with a hope, and then we get treatment of ignorance, where do we go? Back to proprietary world? But why am I posting this here.... I know this will mail will grab frowns and humiliation again..... -- Pravin Balaji Dhayfule Director - Dhayfule Enterprises www.dhayfule.com
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