An Open Letter To Kerala CM

Revision as of 11:32, 6 January 2009 by Pravs (talk | contribs)

Draft

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.

  • 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
  • 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

Suggestion:

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