An Open Letter To Kerala CM

Introduction

We, the Free software community, would like to bring the issue of procuring proprietary softwares by government departments of Kerala into your attention. Kerala state has an IT policy to use Free software in e-governance. But recently it has been noticed that the policy implementation was ineffective.

Issues of concern

• Government agencies are purchasing proprietary software widely.
  1. We understand that KSEB is planning to move to Oracle from PostgreSQL
• Departments are mandating public to use proprietary software.
• Government web sites specifically ask for proprietary web browsers
  1. www.keralataxes.in - advertises IE 6.0
  2. news.kerala.nic.in - advertises IE
• Websites hosted/developed using proprietary technologies
  1. http://www.infokerala.org
  2. http://www.lsg.kerala.gov.in
  3. http://news.kerala.nic.in/ (Site optimised for IE)
  4. http://ikm.gov.in
  5. http://keralataxes.in/ (Site optimised for IE)
  6. http://www.keralaculture.org
  7. http://www.civilsupplieskerala.gov.in/
  8. http://keralamvd.gov.in/ (The services offered in this site are developed using proprietary technology)
• No efforts or plans for migration
• Recent purchase of laptops for secretariat full of M$.
• Tenders talking of MS support
• Departments are mandating public to use proprietary software.
  1. www.keralataxes.in - needs Microsoft Office Excel

Suggestions

• Guidelines have to be issued, migration plans to be developed.