Morning Anand,
Most decisions taken by beaureaucrats at the higher position in the govnmt are without a perspective on FLOSS. Just like if we asked you to deal with the same issue you would pretty much biased towards making choices on the FLOSS front.
What drives such MOU's anand dear is not what is more economical for the coffers of the motherland but rather what the government gets in return for working along with MS. The carrots usually MS dangles are for the Government to route the large deals for its office/applns needs to it. Besides anand dear, amoung the FLOSS companies in India everyone wants to make a profit too just like MS. And the Software from Novell-SuSE or RedHat isnt any more cheaper. Try purchasing a box of RHEL WS and lemme know the best deal you will get from RedHat India.
So just cause MS software is inferrior and we choose to use alternatives we have no right to enforce our decision on others. I am not trying to make a case for MS or for not purchasing RH. My point is that companies like MS have far more $$$ to throw about and bait the ministers/beaureaucrats than most of the other teeny-meeny FLOSS companies. And this is what it takes to buy a deal of this size.
Why talk about the governments faulty decisions to spend its rupaiya on Crappy commercial S/W. What about the total lack of infrastructure around the country and the basic denial of essential commodities to every human being within our borders. Lets first address the more important issues at hand. Arguing about the governments adoption of FLOSS is not going to take us anywhere. There are far more important issues to tackle. And if we want to sway such deal the FLOSS way we have to have a much more long term strategy at working along with the Government through NGO's in setting its long term-short term goals and helping deliver them.
All of the above is easier said than done. That brings to mind...a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Trevor
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