On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 04:25:28PM +0530, Arun K. Khan wrote:
Further, I strongly disagree that similar justification can be applied to Govt. portals, that have been developed and funded with the Tax Payer's money and have a wide impact on the public. The Govt. _cannot_ _dictate_ to the public which specific browser (MSIE) or OS platform (Windows by inference) the user must have in order to engage in e-Governance transactions. It is tantamount to endorsement of a specific vendor and application.
Very true. I believe Prez. A P J Kalaam is in favour of open source, maybe he could be given a proper briefing to enable him to put pressure on other Govt. depts.
The vendors (most of them BIG IT houses of India) who develop such portals for the Govt. are equally responsible for such travesties. If the Govt. tender fails to identify standards and inter operable issues then they must "educate" the Govt. officials who manage these projects.
If the vendor does not know abc of programming in Linux, how will he promote anything other than what he knows and can support (M$). The govt. officlals too are ignorant of anything other than windows and internet explorer. In another mail, I will post some 'pearls of wisdom' of triband's tech support.
The vendors cannot feign ignorance about standards and inter operable issues. Take the MCA web site http://www.mca.gov.in/. Besides, other issues w.r.t Digital Certs. brought up in this list, simple activity like the feedback and the company name search forms fail to work at this site using FF 1.5.0.2 (Linux).
"This portal has been developed by Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) for Ministry of Company Affairs(MCA). The contents on this portal are compiled, maintained and hosted by TCS. Though all efforts have been made to keep the content on this portal accurate and up-to-date. The same should not be construed as a statement of law or used for any legal purposes. All queries regarding the content of this portal may be directed to appl.helpdesk *at* mca.gov.in"
Regards,
Rony.
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