Oru Mani Vartha @ Manorama News 'shouts' against free software

[Hiran Venugopalan]

Just some minutes before Manorama News aired a report on Central government funds for IT enabling Electricity boards. It stated Kerala is going to loss the fund support from central government, since KSEB is strict on using FOSS tools. The news reported free software is inefficient, functions like online bill payment cannot be done using FOSS tools. The news was reported by Rajeev Devraj for Manorama News from TVM.

--
Hiran Venugopalan
Usability / IxD Geek, Ubiqurio
IRC : HFactor | Phone : 09496346709 | W : http://hiran.in

[Hiran Venugopalan]

On 15 June 2010 13:14, Hiran Venugopalan <hir...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just some minutes before Manorama News aired a report on Central government funds for IT enabling Electricity boards. It stated Kerala is going to loss the fund support from central government, since KSEB is strict on using FOSS tools. The news reported free software is inefficient, functions like online bill payment cannot be done using FOSS tools. The news was reported by Rajeev Devraj for Manorama News from TVM.

http://www.manoramanews.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/mmtvContentView.do?BV_ID=@@@&tabId=14&programId=1186580&contentId=7390855

is the news

 

--
Hiran Venugopalan
Usability / IxD Geek, Ubiqurio
IRC : HFactor | Phone : 09496346709 | W : http://hiran.in

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

Lack of technical knowledge from press/news media is not the first case. Funny sometimes.

But this issue they have raised is a serious one. I think our government is a failure implementing things/recruiting proper man power.

--
Anoop Jacob Thomas

http://anoop.caremedia.org

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

It is too anti-foss. And is the media taking bribe for such a thing? (Just a thought, not for a war or anything.)

[Rajiv Nair]

Time to bring out another open letter?
--
Rajiv R Nair

"Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human
disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you
will not find another. - Carl Sagan"

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

What Manorama said in their news is utterly wrong.

+1 to Rajiv.

Free Software as such is not a technology, but the movement insist that the technology behind a software needs to be free(free as in free speech). So that it is useful for everyone.

We must tell them this simple fact.

[Sajjad Anwar]

Time to bring out another open letter?

+1

 

 

-- 

Sajjad Anwar | http://geohackers.in | Blog: http://sajjad.in | Twitter: geohacker

[ashik salahudeen]

Open Letter to Manorama ? Feasible yes, but will it be effective ?

[Hiran Venugopalan]

Or is it the time for an open war. Lets give a session to journalist on "what exactly the free software is" ? 

[ashik salahudeen]

+1 to Hiran's idea. But a response is necessary IMHO

Here is a wiki page for writing that letter :
http://www.fosscommunity.in/wiki/Open_Letter_To_Manorama

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

Or is it the time for an open war. Lets give a session to journalist on "what exactly the free software is" ? 

They(media) are totally ignorant about technology. And we cannot educate someone in a an open war.

We will lose our energy :D. But an intensive campaign to educate public will be better.

[Sajjad Anwar]

There is room for doubt on the effect of an open letter. Rather an open forum interaction with the journalists would be a better idea like what Hiran suggested. 

Not all journalists are unaware of free softwares. What if we can ask them to fill the gaps?

Regards.

[Rajiv Nair]

Would be an interesting challenge though. Considering manorama plays a
vital part in any open letter effectively reaching the general public,
due its HUGE reader base. Any open letter campaign to point out a
mistake by a media powerhouse of this size would need careful
strategic planning and loads of optimism.

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

Open Letter to Manorama  ? Feasible yes, but will it be effective ?

Yeah to all media quoting Manorama news. I support the open letter idea. It will be more effective if they respond.

 

[ashik salahudeen]

If the letter is going to be written , it should reach Manorama by
tomorrow at the latest. Not that they will take any notice. We can
kick up someting on the net, but thats all.

[V. Sasi Kumar]

On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 13:26 +0530, Anoop Jacob Thomas wrote:
> It is too anti-foss. And is the media taking bribe for such a thing?

There could be several things behind this story. There could be some
proprietary software guy behind it, and the newspaper must have found
this another stick to beat the government with. There may also be some
disgruntled company that did not get the order. Not only the media, but
also our bureaucracy is largely unaware of the technology or its philosophy.
So there is nothing surprising about such a story.

The question is, what can we do about the story. The problem is that we
are unaware of the details. But we could write a letter to the editor saying
that the technology should not be such a big issue in this case, and, in any
case, it should be possible to do using Free Software tools. We should also
tell them that Free Software not only saves money now, but also later when
we need to modify the software. In fact, if it had been done with Free
Software for one state, and the source code was available, it could have
been modified for other states at a very low cost.

Best
Sasi

--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

[.Keralafarmer]

http://vaarththakal.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/it-in-electric-sector/
മനോരമ ഫോണ്ട് സെര്‍ച്ചില്‍ വരില്ല അത് യൂണിക്കോഡ് ആയി പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്.

2010/6/15 Hiran Venugopalan <hir...@gmail.com>

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[Hiran Venugopalan]

പണം നഷ്ടപ്പെടുന്നതോ, മറ്റ് സംസ്ഥാനങ്ങള്‍ വിജയകരമായി പദ്ധതി
നടപ്പാക്കുന്നതോ ഒന്നും സംസ്ഥാന സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ കണ്ണില്‍പ്പെടുന്നില്ല.
സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്വെയറിന് വേണ്ടിയുള്ള പിടിവാശിയാണ് സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ നയം.
ഈ പിടിവാശി 213 കോടി നഷ്ടപ്പെടുത്തിക്കൊണ്ട് വേണമോ എന്ന് മാത്രമേ
സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ആലോചിക്കേണ്ടതുള്ളൂ.

Is there any other states who has implemented a 'working' online billing system?

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

I think Maharastra State has something like that... Though I have not paid online yet.

[Hiran Venugopalan]

So,

we ARE making an open letter, right?

1. To make them understand what free software really is
2. To correct this statement made. [We should force them to]

[sunil s]

Here we have to play some trick (As there is hidden agendas like this)

They have pointed out that things such as online payment is not possible with FOSS.  We have to specify some Organisations where online payment is done through FOSS. And this information has to be projected to other news papers (which are competitiors of this- or any one).  The rest of the things will do the news papers.

--

[Hiran Venugopalan]

The news is VERY wage. I can't find any notes or news related to
Central govt fund.

What makes me irritated is the usage "FOSS is unproductive". Either
they are confused. Or they dont know anything.

[Rajiv Nair]

Welcome to the concept of FUD :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

[Manilal K M]

On 15 June 2010 15:32, Hiran Venugopalan <hir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The news is VERY wage. I can't find any notes or news related to
> Central govt fund.
>
> What makes me irritated is the usage "FOSS is unproductive". Either
> they are confused. Or they dont know anything.

Both. It is true that our esteemed journalists in mainstream media
doesn't know anything when it comes to technology. Remember, sometimes
ago one of them have reported that Kerala Government website is
running only on MySQL. We cannot demand that everyone should be
knowledgeable about IT. But at least they should have asked their
friends before posting such stupid "facts". Their only objective is to
sensationalise the news, but in this case I think it's about defacing
the government and they need some reason. There may be other vested
interests too, especially when the central government wants to
separate power production/supply from direct government control.

In any case, we should publish an open letter and try to bring media's
attention to this issue, so that they won't repeat the same stupidity.

regards
--
Manilal K M : മണിലാല്‍ കെ എം.
http://libregeek.blogspot.com

[Anivar Aravind]

Yes. The target of this news seems to be bringing this issue in front
of tomorrows cabinet meeting and pressurise government to take a stand
against Free Software implementation in KSEB. We need to Voice
strongly against it . We dont have much time left . We need to issue a
Open letter ASAP

Anivar

[onesimpleman]

Manorama has commercial interests . I seriously think a company who
has billing software ready has paid Manorama to plant the news.
The funds given are out of our tax money and we need transparency and
the only way to get transparency is to have a software where you can
see the source.
There are a lot of billing companies around which are open source with
commercial support. jbilling is one of them and they will really
complete the whole project for 25% of the budget allocated by central
government and they also have long term support.
I feel the same way about EVM software. That should be made public
too.
When all the super computers owned by India runs on FOSS why cant a
simple billing solution run on FOSS?

[bipin kumar]

i found the whole article amusing. it doesn't say exactly how and why
foss applications are unproductive/incompatibie with union government
guidelines however it still fools a casual reader into believing foss
is a waste of money. therefore it is ideal that we do something to
educate the public about this fud. the open letter is a good idea,
however i would like to add that sending this to manorama alone wont
do any good. they may or may not publish it. its better to send the
same to other media outlets as well. maybe someone will realiize the
truth.

Bipin

[Anoop A]

Manorama has commercial interests . I seriously think a company who
has billing software ready has paid Manorama to plant the news.

You may be right, But its not proper from our side to say it without any proof and based on hearsays.

[vineeth kartha]

Ok then lets start the open letter how we do it

On Jun 15, 3:36 pm, Anivar Aravind <ani...@movingrepublic.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Manilal K M <libreg...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Anoop A]

I suggest that our open letter should not only contain the advantages of foss. We should include enough quotes from the news to prove that it is wrong.

[vineeth kartha]

Ok then lets start doing it

On Jun 15, 3:36 pm, Anivar Aravind <ani...@movingrepublic.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Manilal K M <libreg...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Anoop A]

Whom to address to?

[Sebin Jacob]

I am preparing a refutation to the news. Will provide the link soon.

[Aveek Sen]

@Sebin:

Try this as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEhsf2UaDOM & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9St0ZeMSHb0

Venky Hariharan of Red Hat on Open standards, e-governance, etc.

Aveek

[onesimpleman]

@ anoop

You may be right, But its not proper from our side to say it without
any proof and based on hearsays.

You are right , we need proof and facts and that statement was just a
knee jerk reaction . Please Ignore it


My current provider uses http://www.google.com/powermeter ( Not
FOSS) but they have an API which can be used for billing etc.
Currently they use something called a smart meter and it reports all
reading to google. Provider picks the reading up from google and bill.
Reliance energy has already started integration for the same.

[V. Sasi Kumar]

On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 17:25 +0530, Sebin Jacob wrote:
> I am preparing a refutation to the news. Will provide the link soon.
>

In addition to a letter from FSUG, what about several of us sending
separate letters? Let us get support from other FSUGs and send a large
number of mails and/or letters to Manorama.

[ashik salahudeen]

Thanks Sebin.

all, please use

http://www.fosscommunity.in/wiki/Open_Letter_To_Manorama

to prepare the letter. Its a wiki and is editable by everyone. Try to
finish it by tomorrow morning itself.

The letter should be emailed as well as sent via registered post to
the manorama offices in tvm

[ashik salahudeen]

+1. I suggest that we inform other FSUGs/LUGs and ask them to respond
separately. We shouldn't forget to respond ASAP though.

> In addition to a letter from FSUG, what about several of us sending
> separate letters? Let us get support from other FSUGs and send a large
> number of mails and/or letters to Manorama.
>

--
aashik

[Anoop A]

Can someone come up with an english translation of the news so that it will be possible to involve some active fsug outside kerala as well?

[Anoop A]

I have made a rough transalation of the news to english.

How far has the letter work moved?

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

Without knowing that somebody else also is doing a translation I too worked on the same. Please find attached the text document.

[Anoop A]

A transalation alternative of social coding.  :)

@Anoop Jacob Thomas: Yours seems better than mine. I mean the words.

--

[Sebin Jacob]

സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനെതിരെ മനോരമ

http://malayal.am/node/6087

(The first and the last part of the news has a notion of partisan politics in it. Omit it, and you could include the rest part in the wiki article, if necessary.)

Sebin

[Ichayan.]

Its unbelievable thing manorama news did

On Jun 15, 12:50 pm, Hiran Venugopalan <hira...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15 June 2010 13:14, Hiran Venugopalan <hira...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Just some minutes before Manorama News aired a report on
> > Central government funds for IT enabling Electricity boards. It stated
> > Kerala is going to loss the fund support from central government, since KSEB
> > is strict on using FOSS tools. The news reported free software
> > is inefficient, functions like online bill payment cannot be done using FOSS
> > tools. The news was reported by Rajeev Devraj for Manorama News from TVM.
>
> http://www.manoramanews.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/mmtvConten...
> is the news

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനെതിരെ മനോരമ

http://malayal.am/node/6087

The article is well written. And I understand that there is a lot of politics involved in it. (left and right - something which is heard in parade grounds)

So what about the letter?

[Anoop]

There is Google buzz post by Abhishek Jacob  regarding the copyright violation done by Malayala Manorama recently. 

See the buzz here.

Thanks
Anoop

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[ashik salahudeen]

So what happened to the letter ? I cannot see anything in the wiki :-?
Or has anyone done something already ?

[Sreenath Unnikrishnan]

I suppose it may be because LDF has been promoting free software and anything which has a left touch (be it good or bad), malayala manorama loves to hate it

[Anoop A]

I think it is aimed mainly at the government and the company that has quoted tender. The reporter might have thought free software is anything that uses linux. But we know that

Linux is FOSS

but

FOSS != linux

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 6:30 PM, Sreenath Unnikrishnan <sreena...@gmail.com> wrote:

I suppose it may be because LDF has been promoting free software and anything which has a left touch (be it good or bad), malayala manorama loves to hate it