AICTE rescinds Microsoft Office 365 mandate

thehindu.com

38 points·bugsbunny4341··6 comments

On May 1, "IT for change" had drafted a letter and requested AICTE to cancel agreement with Microsoft and replace it with FOSS alternatives [0].

The primary concern of a regulatory body should be commitment to welfare without prejudices. Such decisions should be proactively taken without need for repeated requests/jibes by the entities of the regulatory body.

In this case, AICTE has failed to live up to it's responsibilities. AICTE failed to see the points written in the letter by FSF/IT for change and even if it did it overlooked it. It behaved in the typical babudom mode where they tried to "push" till they could not and based the decision on reasons apart from merit

[0] http://www.gnu.org.in/news/it-for-change-requests-aicte-the-...

I am happy that the voice of the public was heard. AICTE needs to be reorganized into a more transparent and accountable organization.

> I am happy that the voice of the public was heard

It was inconsistent with the open standards norm as specified in the National Information Technology Policy, 2012. Not a strong case of public voice being hard.

The article mentions National Information Technology Policy, 2012. I found the PDF [1]. Here's the text:

Objective III. 15: To adopt Open standards and promote open source and open technologies.

Bullet 6.6: To promote open standards and open technologies.

Clearly, the Microsoft deal doesn't comply with these.

[1]: (PDF) http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/National_20...

Let me guess, they discovered another leap year bug?

I'm glad they understood.

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