The FOSS Manifesto for India. I firmly believe that open source has special applications in countries like India.
I have seen educational institutions use decade old software, either because of budget restrictions or because their vendors do not have updated information. Open source can help these institutions and students to stay abreast with the latest developments. In a democratic country like India, it is important that the Government is not dependent on vendors to publish and broadcast information. The only way to avoid this is to use open standards, and today there is no better vehicle than open source towards an open and inter-operable communication platform. We also know that FOSS can be quite effective in speeding up certain key initiatives.
In fact, I think open source software should be adopted in all non-profit and educational organizations. It allows full access to the software and stop businesses from exploiting you. Some states have started adopting open source, however what India needs is a central initiative to propagate it uniformly.
Michael Tiemann puts it nicely
And so Public Software for Public Sector now calls upon the people of India to pick a winner. Not just the champion du jour, but a best practice which, by design, by democratic participation, by transparent and independent examination, and by continuous, competitive improvement, leads to an always-superior result. Public Software for Public Sector calls upon the people of India to reject a choice that is not subject to democratic improvement, to reject a choice which, once made has proved devilishly difficult to unmake.
The FOSS Manifesto is a great initiative, I look forward to see it grow and gain acceptance.
