Indian Institute of Science asks alumni to fill up their details in a document in MS Word format. This is a mail I sent them more than two weeks back. No response as yet.
-----Forwarded Message----- From: V. Sasi Kumar vsasi@hotpop.com To: alumni@admin.iisc.ernet.in Subject: Proforma for membership records Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 09:52:39 +0530
Sir,
I find that the Proforma for membership records is given in a proprietary format (MS Word) which forces me to use a proprietary application. Indirectly you are promoting a particular company's software that uses a closed format for its files, which is not a very good practice for an internationally reputed institute like IISc.
Instead, I suggest that the proforma be made available in open formats like Postscript, PDF, XML, etc. This would enable anyone using any word processor or any free application (like xpdf, Open Office, etc.) to read the file without loss of formatting. May I also point out that even our President, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, has prompted scientists and technologists to move from proprietary software to free software for several reasons, including national security and economics.
Incidentally, I am an Alumni of IISc (1976-78).
Best regards
V. Sasi Kumar wrote:
Indian Institute of Science asks alumni to fill up their details in a document in MS Word format. This is a mail I sent them more than two weeks back. No response as yet.
For that matter, I'd like to point out the infrastructure that is available at C-DAC Mumbai (formely NCST). They have something like 75 computers with Windows 2000 installed. Now the irony is that, for writing programs and compiling them, students are supposed to connect to a GNU/Linux server using a proprietary SSH client and write/compile programs there... This is called higher education!
-Anurag
Anurag anurag@hbcse.tifr.res.in writes:
For that matter, I'd like to point out the infrastructure that is available at C-DAC Mumbai (formely NCST). They have something like 75 computers with Windows 2000 installed. Now the irony is that, for writing programs and compiling them, students are supposed to connect to a GNU/Linux server using a proprietary SSH client and write/compile programs there... This is called higher education!
Been there (at NCST, Bangalore)! Felt the same frustration! Never was able to figure out who decides what OS to use in the lab. Many of the projects they work on doesn't need Windows at all.
But that cannot be an excuse for using Windows (or promoting a proprietary document format) at IISc!
Rgds, anna
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Annamalai Gurusami -
Anurag -
V. Sasi Kumar