The Rational IT Policy, according to Atanu Dey
The "Rational IT Policy", according to Atanu Dey
2009-03-24T17:44:59
While most of us in the Free Software community have been discussing the encouraging attitude towards Free Software taken by some political parties in their respective "IT policies", Atanu says that the best policy is no policy at all. The best IT policy is a non-existent IT policy because the less any IT policy prescribes the better it is. However, a non-existent IT policy means that there will be no need for a Ministry of IT. Without a ministry, there will be no need for huge multi-billion dollar budgets. Without multi-billion dollar budgets, there will be no profit in being part of the government. That’s unfortunately our destiny. A world with huge government and fat policies. Atanu is a serious thinker, and I will not make the mistake of equating him with sundry libertarians who proclaim that: The best XYZ policy is non-existent XYZ policy. Leave everything to the "free" market and things will sort out on their own magically! But I don't understand why he makes claims like this: The major point here is that people who are in the business of education are much better placed to know which tools to use than some government bureaucrat who has little knowledge of what tools are most effective in education The people who are in the business of education are literally in the "business" of education - they simply know how to make money out of it - and they can use all the wrong "tools" and still merrily make money (eg: use proprietary software instead of vastly better FOSS alternatives). At least, Atanu should have acknowledged the necessity of strong government policy in the context of Free/proprietary software and software patents.
Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Blog Archive » On Education, IT and the Government
Thu Mar 26 09:27:11 2009
[...] bureaucrat who has little knowledge of what tools are most effective in education.” To which the GnuVision Blog responded with: The people who are in the business of education are literally in the [...]
Sandeep
Wed Mar 25 06:12:38 2009
Isn't it the same old Laissez-faire? (which looks of course great to me) :)
Pramode C.E
Wed Mar 25 08:17:58 2009
Yes, the same old "lasissez-faire"! As a *personal* philosophy, it is very cool - "let things take their own course" and stuff like that. But it runs into plenty of problems once you start applying it as a political/economic philosophy. Here is something to read: http://www.zompist.com/gummint.html
Random Walk of Life » Blog Archive » Open Source Vs Open mindset
Fri Mar 27 03:04:18 2009
[...] be the role of the Government in it. One of his posts received the following reaction from the GNUvisions blog: The people who are in the business of education are literally in the “business” of [...]