[Debian-in-workers] Re Re: Kerala Govt

[doxa at sancharnet.in]

>Raju,  you  are experienced  and  well  versed  enough with  the  free
No. I am still learning and most importantly, not refusing to understand.

My worry is the end-user should be given the opportunity to prefer the Free Software platform - which has been restricted in this case. The Government is not the end-user. I am questioning the rationale of the government decision. Why should a Govt force a decision that will result in many of members of public to forcibly participate in an exercise that will largely benefit a single corporate entity - and such contributions having a chance of not even reaching the official public domain - as in this case of GRUB. The dilemma is on how to resolve the concept of "Free Software" when more than one player is involved - where acceptance or forced acceptance of services from one player inadvertently or otherwise may affect the services of others.

Another issue with some similarity is the one involving Vista. I am not for the publicity campaign involving Bad Vista - why should we - the general public - involve ourselves in identifying the false claims and weaknesses in Vista. That is a huge reward that Microsoft is getting by getting to know through such campaigns, its weaknesses and shortcomings - all neatly prioritised and coming without spending a penny. This is also applicable when a huge country having a billion odd people have its public servers on Microsoft platforms. We are doing the beta testing for them.