On 26 April 2013 07:21, Ashwin Dixit ganeshacomputes@gmail.com wrote:
I have the rare privilege of getting the attention of someone who frames technology policy for India. I have been asked to prepare a document in 1000 ASCII characters or less, that makes the case for Linux. My contact is highly educated, yet not very technical.
So typical of India, that someone who "frames technology policy" is considered "not very technical". :-)
Apart from that, your document has a bunch of issues, like:
- Usage of weasel words - "generally considered", "goes a long way towards".
- Blames the reader (the policy maker) - the whole "foreign mechanics" reference.
- Easily beaten by counterarguments - "We have the shared source programme - your students can also study, improve and share our software freely".
- Structurally too, I find it haphazardly organized. I would suggest you put it up on a public Wiki somewhere and let us all edit it.
Here is how it could be structured (a framework suggested by a professor of mine, and one which I find is very effective):
Feature being recommended: "Open source in government and education" Evidence that the feature is good: "The world uses it and contributes to it, no vendor lock-in/dependency on American corporates" Benefits of adopting the feature: "Reduces cost, less chance of defacing/PR disasters (not strictly true!), helps us compete with the world".
I don't have the time to do a full rewrite now, maybe over the weekend. When do you have to submit this?
Binand