Free Software Activits Demand a National Policy Mandating Open Document Standards

Benagaluru, Karnataka, India: Free Software Users Group – Bangalore and FOSS Community in India has organized a Candle Light Vigil in front of Townhall demanding a National policy mandating the use of Free Document Formats such as the Open Document Format for data storage and requesting the Government of India to appeal ISO approval of OOXML based on its no vote and comments. The programme was the launch of various events & awareness campaigns on Document freedom.

The event also highlighted the organizations who voted for the broken standard OOXML in Bureau of Indian standards(BIS) voting against national interest. Various Software professionals, free software activists, students from RV College, BMS , and various people supporting the cause are participated in the event.

“Very big voices like NASSCOM and Infosys that have not participated in even one meeting have voted irresponsibly. We fear that if such lobbying continues, academics and individuals like us will be put on the defensive, unless there is a policy in place,” said Nagarjuna G., professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, who was part of the technical committee of BIS. This committee alone identified 200-odd technical flaws in OOXML’s specifications and more than 1,000 others were identified internationally.

The protesters, called Microsofts OOXML as a “banana standard” and carried various placards with sologans like were “Infosys, NASSCOM, Wipro, TCS get well soon”, “ISO - No More Standards through the Backdoor!” The candle light vigil urged following steps to users for achieving document freedom and urge all users to embrace it.

1. do not send attachments in proprietary formats like .doc, .xls, .ppt & use Open Document format
2. do not to pollute their friends computers and the internet with unethically encoded documents.
3. inform the users that they do not have right to decode the documents they themselves have written, if they use proprietary formats
4. distribute open office cds, containing applications with source code for windows.
5. distribute GNU/Linux live cds.

For More Details, Please visit http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Campaign_for_Document_Freedom

Event Photos

A Photo pool of the event is available at Flickr ( under creative commons License) : http://flickr.com/photos/kushaldas/sets/72157604562832040/

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Few other photos taken by Renuka Prasad at the event.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.