Summary: The Free Software Foundation of India fights back against anti-competitive tactics from Microsoft

IN our recent posts about Microsoft's EDGI in Tamil Nadu we called for regulatory action. Reports tell us that the "Free Software Foundation of India, an organisation involved in the promotion of the free use of software, sent an open letter to chief minister J Jayalalithaa seeking cancellation of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Microsoft Inc.

"The MoU was signed on Tuesday to implement an IT programme for government school teachers with the help of software giant Microsoft. The open letter raised objection to the software developed by Microsoft. "Students and teachers involved in the project will not be able to see how the software works. If it develops a problem, they will not have the right to make corrections or modifications. They will have to depend on the company entirely. They will be denied the right to share the software with others," the letter said."

Here is a PDF version of the letter [PDF]. Folks involved with this complaint got in touch with Techrights and attached the Open letter by the Free Software Foundation of India to Selvi Jayalaita -- a letter about proposal to adopt Microsoft’s proprietary software in schools.

Some external background links were also included, namely:

1. ttp://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws101011MICROSOFT.asp 2. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2419753.ece 3. http://news.efytimes.com/e1/79976/Tamil-Nadu-Govt-Goes-AntiOpen-Source 4. http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/article2423376.ece" 5. http://www.tn.gov.in/seithi_veliyeedu/pr06Mar12/pr060312_184.pdf

Older posts of ours about Tamil Nadu include [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. This is not over. People in India should fight back, there's not much that can be done from here (the UK). ⬆