Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dr Vimal Rarh,
Academic Secretary,
Institute of Life Long LearningICT,
University of Delhi
Sub : Letter for Opposition for the ICTWorkshop by ILLLMicrosoft Collaboration.
Dear Madam,
Delhi University is a publicly funded institution. Such institutions must not promote any
"vendor specific education" which give undue advantage and monopolies plus spend excess
PUBLIC monies where cheaper and better alternatives are available. This is transparently set out
by the Government of India in its Policy on Open Standards for EGovernance available at:
http://egovstandards.gov.in/publicreview/egscontent.20080822.3525430649/at_download/file.
Therefore we, on behalf of the FOSS community of India and in line with the stated
policy of the Government of India, urge the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) tools
to make education/elearning *Vendor Neutral* as is happening in France, Germany, parts of
Europe, the UK, Croatia, and even the US.
Your website (http://www.illl.ac.in/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=178&Itemid=216) talks about the holding of ICT
Workshops. The workshops are oriented to make teachers "ICT savvy" using proprietary
Microsoft tools. We oppose such an initiative for the following reasons:
Use of proprietary software is against the stated policy of the Government of India. The
latter is in favor of Free and Open Source Software.
Microsoft tools are not free in the long run and the country has to pay a heavy price for
its dependence on a single company for its software. FOSS tools are available free of cost and
most importantly they give full freedom to modify and use/reuse/remix/develop the software and
hold immense possibilities to unleash the collective genius of India in making original and
important contributions to future development of India.
It is wellknown that Microsoft Corporation spends a large amount of its resources to
engage with educational institutions such as yours to market its products and present a picture
before teachers and students that Microsoft and other proprietary tools are the only way to access
computing. The aim of such programmes are to programme the new learner to adapt to the
Windows work environment and thereafter be resistant to other platforms.
The partnership between ILLL and Microsoft is of deep concern given the progressive
steps being undertaken by the Delhi University to move towards computer based learning,
evaluation and administration. Entering into such a partnership at this stage suits Microsoft's
business interests as it is likely to consolidate a "vendor lockin" and ensure future rent income
for Microsoft. Therefore, the understanding between publiclyfunded ILLL and Microsoft is
unethical to say the least.
Delhi University's elearning portal www.cpdhe.ac.in is Joomla based. Joomla is also
Free and open source software. Joomla is also used at the www.illl.ac.in website. Free and Open
Source softwares are available for servers as well as for Desktops. Fedora, Redhat and Ubuntu are
the more popular FOSS operating systems as opposed to Windows and Apple.
These FOSS Operating system(s) are called the GNULinux Operating system(s). GNU
Linux OS has following advantages:
• free of cost
• freedom to share software
• freedom to use/reuse/remix/modify software
• secure because it is open source
• rapid innovation
GNULinux OS is a full featured operating system including the Firefox web browser. It
comes with free Office tools called "OpenOffice". Open Office is a great alternative to Microsoft
Office. Open Office is based on "Open Standards". Use of Open Standards is also guided in Open
Standard Draft Policy of Govt of India. You can read about Open Standards Policy at
http://fosscomm.in/OpenStandards . If your organization does not use Open Standards then it will
have a problem called "Vendor Lock in" due to which service/upgrading etc would be under the
monopoly of the Vendor and the customer will be forced to pay according to the dictates of the
vendor and can't switch to any other vendor or product in the long run.
Many cutting edge applications are being developed in the realm of of free and open
source software including open source maps, GPS readers, ERP and CRM solutions for
organisations, Moodle for academic organisations, library management softwares, Linux for
movies etc etc.
Institutional support in the management of the GNULinux operating system(s) is
available from a variety of organisations for FOSS now in India such as
• NRCFOSS, South India.
• NIC
• itforchange.net
• cometmediafoundation.org
• lugiitd.org
• giss.org
More information on the best FOSS alternatives for conventional proprietary applications
is available at some of these websites.
We would be happy to answer any of your and your colleagues'
doubts/reservations/queries on the subject and look forward to a serious engagement on this
important issue.
Thanking you,
Yours Sincerely,
PS: Attachments in support
Support
Reference :
Regards
Individuals
• Narendra Sisodiya (Community Manager, Society for Knowledge Commons)
narendra.sisodiya@gmail.com 9312166995
• Arjun Ghosh (Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and Assistant
Professor, Shivaji College, University of Delhi)
• C. Saratchand (Assistant Professor, Satyawati College, University of Delhi)
• Soumya Datta (Assistant Professor, Shyam Lal College (Evening), University of Delhi)
• Gurumurthy Kasinathan (Director, IT for Change, www.itforchange.net )
• Akarsh Simha (Student, IIT Madras)
• Parin Sharma (Student, KIIT Gurgaon)
Organisations
• Society for Knowledge Commons – knowledgecommons.in
• LUG@IITD community www.lugiitd.org