Hello All,
Greetings from IT for Change.
I had earlier shared information about a new FLOSS project that we had started working on - FLOSSInclude (http://www.flossinclude.org/)
I am writing to you again to give you details about the planned activities in this project and to seek your support for the same.The FLOSSInclude project is an international research project in FLOSS and open standards which aims to study the requirements of increasing the deployment, development and societal impact of FLOSS in Africa, Asia and Latin America. ITforChange (http://www.itforchange.net/) and Sarai, India (http://www.sarai.net/) are the two organizations in India, which will be a part of this project.
As part of this project IT for Change seeks to focus on ?FLOSS and the public sector?, and will study the role of public sector agencies in procuring, organizing and stimulating production of FOSS, including using FLOSS for public administration, and sharing of FLOSS applications among public sector bodies.
We specifically aim to understand; (1) the context of, and requirements for, a wide scale deployment and use of FLOSS within the public sector agencies in India, (2) the issues and challenges involved in building an ecology for the development of such FLOSS and applications that have the most development and governmental uses, and, (3)the issues and challenges in fostering sharing software in the public sector.
Understanding such techno-social as well as social factors would be useful to understand,conceptualize and design programs that would further the use of FLOSS in these sectors.
Our activities in the initial phase of this project will include - 1. Collection and analysis of data on government policies on FOSS and open standards, and on FOSS implementation in Indian public sector 2. A study on the issues of perceptions regarding software choices within the public sector 3. Undertaking a techno-social analysis of success and/or failure of FOSS implementations in the public sector
As we launch the first phase, we request your support for gathering information in the above mentioned area. Please do let us know of any organizations/individuals/resources which might prove useful in gathering such information.
Looking forward to your support through the project.
Please email back if any further clarification is needed on this. Thanks, Vinay.
Vinay Sreenivasa IT for Change 91-(0)821-2343527 91-98805-95032 vinay@itforchange.net www.ITforChange.net