The government of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, has begun deploying Linux and other open source software solutions throughout their government IT systems.
"Initially, 99 per cent of government systems have been running on Microsoft systems but then 2007 will be a watershed year for the state IT sector. We are fast migrating to Linux operating systems which are so much cheaper and can be operated at low cost, besides offering continuous updates and freedom from viruses," says Mr C. Umashankar, managing director of state-owned ELCOT, vested with the responsibility of overseeing such ambitious government projects as e-governance, enumerating the beneficiaries of the free TV scheme, family ration cards and the free sari-dhoti distribution.
January 3rd, 2007
I am assuming that no members of the Council of the European Union are regular visitors to OSG, which I must admit is a little bit disappointing.
It certainly appears that Council of the European Union did not read Bruce Perens’ paper, recently covered here, on "Principles for e-Government and Government-Funded Research Software Development".
In a move that can be only described as
counter-intuitive, the Council of the EC has decided to provide their streaming video services
exclusively in the proprietary and exclusionary Windows Media format rather than embracing an
open standard format that can be consumed by all constituents.
In the current situation, citizens must play ball with a specific vendor to access the public records. In contrast, Open codecs for the video streaming make these records available to the entire computer-using population, not just a subset. At the same time open standards keep the council independent from any specific vendor, giving them freedom of choice in both access and maintenance. Likewise, for the web pages the issue is not a question of web browsers but again a matter of supporting open standards.
Please, sign the petition and ensure your voice is heard.
January 2nd, 2007