Articles tagged ‘digital-divide’

National Linux distributions have special responsibilities. They should encourage a nation's open source activities as broadly as possible rather than present an isolated solution based on inevitably limited resources.

Weak industry momentum is prompting China to re-think its open source software business strategy. This is a good time for China and others to look beyond product models based on traditional proprietary thinking, and see the wider doors of opportunity that open source software services can open.

To really flatten the world, the people responsible for much of today’s progress must not just drink from the golden goblets of benefits but must also commit resources and effort in action to those who cannot cross the digital divide on their own.

In a high profile ceremony, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairman of the National Advisory Council of India, and Thiru Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology released a free CD of software containing Hindi language tools and fonts based on open source software in New Delhi this week. To the rousing applause of the audience, Thiru Maran asserted that this freely available office suite is in every way the equal of Microsoft Office.

Cheap PCs for the billions of digital have-nots are still expensive and, worse, are not designed for the people who need them most.

In Chennai, on April 15th, marking the Tamil New Year, India’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) showed off its latest efforts to help close India’s digital divide. A complete bundle of open source computer software including the localized Tamil version of OpenOffice.org was released. Hundreds of computer fonts and tools in Tamil were given away amid great fanfare and political and media excitement.

“Price-slashing” by monopolistic proprietary software companies masks the high costs customers still unwittingly pay. And when this rip-off is endorsed by governments and industry leaders, the digital divide can only widen.

The UN’s grand summit to articulate a common vision for the global Information Society disappoints and, at the end of the day, only serves to marginalize the people who need the benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) the most.

Aruna Sundarajan is a senior IAS bureaucrat and State Secretary for Information Technology for Kerala. She has over two decades of professional experience in government. She has held key administrative positions both in the Center and the State and has been Director (Industries) and Secretary (Industries) prior to taking over as the Secretary in the Department of IT in the Government of Kerala, which she has held for the last three years. Kerala. In an interview with Alolita Sharma, she talked about open source software and the role of the government in promoting it.

The democratization of technology has lowered the barrier for mere mortals to communicate.