From: Muhammad Inam Ul Haq [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 11:20 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Ubuntu-Pakistan A point of concern for the FOSS Community
Respected Bajwa Assalamo Alikum I appreciat your keenness about these matters. I want to bring a point in your notice that in 2002 ,the Govt of NWFP declared that Linux will be the Official Operating system,(according to Dr.Lutfullah kaka Khel, the adviser of IT to Governer), but at the same time the Govt of Pakistan entered into agreement with microsoft for protecting the Intellectual property of Microsoft,in response of Microsoft provision of PCs and providing training to the educational Institutions of Pakistan.It was decided to Launch this programm first in NWFP. This was then applied and only One lab in a school consisting 20 PCs and Softwares like MS Office and windows Xp costs in hundreds of Thousands. So one can Imagin the application in 24 districts with average 20 high schools each district that how much will it cost. Now there are many point of concern Like posts advertised in Govt sector for sys Admuin needs MCSE, Software development MCSD like things. This inclination of our countary towards Microsoft and other explioting companies in the software market shows our willingness to be exploited. we should either let the exploiters to exploite us by adhereing to the same policy or pursue an independent one. Thanks Muhammad Inam Ul Haq Fouad Riaz Bajwa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Government of Punjab Pakistan and Microsoft Promoting IT Skills in Pakistan Reference: UNITAR E skills 360 degrees for 21st Century Employability Skills a Dream for the Province of Punjab Lahore, January 27th 2006 http://www.unitar.org/icwfd/info/lahore.htm Microsoft to invest $10m in Punjab The News, March 17th, 2005 http://www.pitb.gov.pk/PressReleases/Microsoft_1April_2005.asp ICWFD E skills 360 degrees for 21st Century Employability Skills a Dream for the Province of Punjab http://icwfd.org/n15.html Can Pakistan afford this reckless spending amidst of massive earthquake destruction, its commitment towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals and poverty alleviation through ICTs? At the same time the Government has created an Open Source Resource Centre spending millions on the promotion of Free and Open Source Software (for e.g. 60 Million on just one project) Through This aristocratic project costing millions of dollars/billions of rupees by Government of the Punjab is working to promote proprietary software organizations like Microsoft in collaboration with UNITAR-United Nations Institute for Training and Research that is surprisingly against the agenda of United Nations promoting FOSS in developing countries for reducing digital divide and alleviating poverty and achieving the MDGs. In partnership with the Government of the Punjab are the International Commission on Workforce Development. Food for Thought: -From where will all this money come and who will pay the loans back, our future generations? -Through the promotion of Proprietary Software, aren't we putting the people of Punjab in the Software Piracy Trap? The amount sums up to 1 Million People! -Would all these people be able to purchase proprietary software licenses to implement their skills developed through this programme? -Should we believe this is the right way to overcome the digital divide? A question mark for the FOSS Community Activists, IOSN, FSF, OSI, Open Source Resource Centre, others advocating the use of FOSS and those who attend conferences and consultations from Pakistan presenting large figures of trainings and various programmes at Asia OSS, FOSSAP, WSIS etc! Regards ----------------------- Fouad Riaz Bajwa General Secretary - FOSS Advocate FOSSFP: Free & Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan R Secretariat FOSS Resource Centre - FOSSRC 5-A, 1st Floor, 32-M, Manzoor Plaza Civic Centre, Model Town Extension Lahore-54700, Pakistan Cell: 92-333-4661290 Tel: 92-42-8496645 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: www.fossfp.org ; www.ubuntu-pk.org Disclaimer: This e-mail message is intended for its recipient only. If you have received this e-mail in error, please discard it. The author of this e- mail or FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan (R) takes no responsibility for the material, implicit or explicit. -- Ubuntu-pk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-pk Muhammad Inam Ul Haq MS-IT(IM|Sciences HayatAbad Peshawar) Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. ________________________________________ Yahoo! Autos. Looking for a sweet ride? Get pricing, reviews, & more on new and used cars. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
