[Debian-in-workers] Red Hat signs MoU with Kerala govt

[Mahesh T. Pai]

Anivar Aravind said on Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 12:22:10PM +0530,:
 > http://www.edugrid.ac.in/webfolder/download/schoolGnu/README.html

The first version of the IT at SCHOOL CD was based on Ubuntu.

And I stand corrected about the later versions. Is a version history
available anywhere about the CDs distributed by the IT at SCHOOL project?


 > Teachers Community in spreading Free Software in kerala.  The Efforts of
 > SPACE in Conducting hardware vendors Trainings all over Kerala created
 > also created a big impact

I never intend to reduce the importance of space-kerala's contributions.

 > See a statistics in May 2006
 > http://gnowledge.org/pipermail/fsf-kerala/2006-May/000105.html
 > 
 > Statistics from IT at School shows that 48.35% of schools conducted
 > exams in GNU/Linux. Which is a pretty good number considering minimal
 > training and support given. Note that number of GNU/Linux installation
 > will be more than 48% as many schools used Windows just for
 > exams(software used to conduct exam failed in some school). In terms
 > of numbers GNU/Linux reached 1335 schools out of 2761. Ernakulam is
 > leading with 98.36% migration followed by Trivandrum (83.33%
 > migration). Worst situation is in Kollam (9%)
 > 
 > One Year is passed after That. The status of Syllabus is changed from
 > the coexistence of Free & Proprietary to Only Free Software.
 > The Change is happened because 85% of The teachers Opted IT at School
 > GNU/Linux for Schools.

Apart from Arun's ``I say so'', what are these statistics based on?

And there  is nothing -  absolutely nothing -- on  space-kerala.org or
it at school  website  or KSITM  (kerala  state  IT  Mission) website  to
provide continued support for the kind of roll out required now.

 > I agree with using Rehat services in govt. But Why schools?. Because a
 > well established system is running there?  Or they want to start
 > everything from scrach? It seems as a Bonus of this deal

I understand your feelings. I know that you have put in a log of
efforts into the IT at SCHOOL project. YOur efforts are certainly
commendable, but please, please, do not criticise the MoU without
disclosing your interest in it.

 > a lot of Volunteers are now working in Debian Malayalam as a part of
 > swathanthra malayalam computing,
 > Just see this bug report and how their feelings are addressed by a Govt
 > that have an ICT policy pointing towards "Knowledge Societies"
 > 
 > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=404727
 > 
 > "We know that the pango code for etch has been frozen but since the
 > fixes are only specific to malayalam and it is a major fix we request
 > you to include it, as it is critical for correct rendering support for
 > Malayalam in graphical installer and other pango based applications.
 > This will be a crucial for malayalam support for IT at School project,
 > the largest debian installtion (total 2666 schools and more than 25000
 > computers) in the world"

I know (and everybody else on this list too) that you people are
working on localisation, but what is relevance of that to the subject?

What is so shocking about the GoK - RH MoU, apart from the fact that
the fact that MoU  may affect the source of funding your project?
 
(PS:- I do not want to ask that on KSSP list)

-- 
 Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.blogspot.com/
``Those willing to give up a little liberty for a
little security deserve neither security nor liberty''