There was a half-day national seminar on open document
format at IIT today
http://www.iceg.net/odf/
I had gone to educate myself, being generally a-fret
about how planning is being reduced exercises in
proprietary GIS capable only of facilitating realty
interests and additionally a-fret about a less than
fully informed complaint we made to CIC about
violation of RTI Act in the less than full disclosure
of its MIS data on government accommodations.
Expecting a technical affair (gobblydeeduck) I
unobtrusively parked myself right at the back on a
ledge. There was lamp-lighting and bouquet-n-memento
presenting after each presentation, which I tried not
to see. A young man in business suit, representing Sun
Microsystems, was mostly conducting the affair with
wisecracks that I tried not to hear. He also made a
presentation to pitch, crusader-style, for standards
setting by global consortia and de-facto rather than
de-jure processes. That sort of thing makes me
suspicious and I tried not to notice. Then a professor
from IIM Ahmedabad made a presentation of
good-practice case of, believe you me, Delhi Govt!
The good practice case consisted of a circular dated
30.11.05 with accompanying open-source CD issued by
Delhi IT Secy Prakash Kumar to all departments urging
them to switch from MS. It was justified as
good-practice because of its consonance with Bhagidari
and because, hold your breath, super-speciality
institute of liver and biliary sciences (the monster
being built in green belt with illegal boring near my
house in pendency of court matter in which Del Govt
has not replied) has achieved huge cost savings by
opting for open-source!!
I stuck up my hand to say oye, but the conductor from
Sun wanted to wind up for tea and took the rest of the
time for more wisecracks and for telling how such
good-practices could help awareness building
(including, if you please, through Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan) and mentioning other examples of good-guys
using open-source (including, if you please, SEWA)!!
Since there were lots of media chaps, during tea-break
I went and told the other person who had been
conducting, a representative of Redhat, that I
sincerely hoped not to read in the papers tomorrow how
the national seminar had certified IT Secy Prakash
Kumar and illegal under-construction livery and
bhagidari program of Del Govt. Since the ILFS-NeGP
representative had referred to RTI Act, I also
mentioned that the HT had today a piece by Prakash
Kumar on RTI claiming great shakes in Delhi Govt even
as the Act is barely being implemented in it and its
website is stuffed with inaccurate and incomplete
information. And since an ELCOT representative was to
speak, I also mentioned that the Hindu had today a
report of central approval for SEZ by ELCOT and the
whole business of SEZ for IT was one of the most
closed areas of information in whatever technology not
being used to disseminate. I also gave earful to some
other Sun persons who were being host-like.
The speakers after tea were NASSCOM, ELCOT, BIS and
NIC. The NASSCOM speaker reacted to the anti-Microsoft
preoccupation in the previous session to put the
problem in perspective and to remind that there is a
difference between open document format and open
source, which was a relief. The presentation by ELCOT
MD included a tender for procurement that made the
Delhi circular look very foolish, which was very
cheering. That was the first speaker who seemed to
know the subject technically. The BIS presentation
seemed to me very significant: despite its technical
capabilities and experience BIS is not part of ISO
groups even as its process for setting standards has
always been consortia-like and inclusive of what is
nowadays called stakeholder-participation. The NIC
presentation was very informed and put the discussion
in perspective starting with the District Information
Systems program of mid-80s.
ELCOT, BIS & NIC speakers were not in business suits
and were telling without selling. They made Govt look
dignified and competent.
No one spoke of GIS and no one spoke of RTI disclosure
imperatives.
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