Re: Open Source Software Policy in Mauritius

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 03:03:28 -0800

Hi Ish,

I am copying Avinash as he expressed an interest in Open Source.

At 01:32 18-11-2015, Ish Sookun wrote:
>You mentioned it well, *on paper*, while in practice it is
>different. On 1 July 2015 you wrote [1] to the Ministry of
>Technology, Communication & Innovation requesting the names of all
>ten members of the ICT Advisory Council. Did you receive a reply?

I did not receive any reply from the Ministry of Technology,
Communication and Innovation. The Chairperson of the ICT Advisory
Council did try to reply to the question about the names of the ten
members. However, the names of six members were omitted:

   a representative of the Prime Minister's Office
   a representative of the Ministry of ICT and Innovation
   a representative of the Ministry of Finance;
   a representative of the Ministry of Economic Development;
   a representative of the Joint Economic Council;
   a representative of the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry;

>If members of LUGM understood policies and could navigate through
>rough waters of political administration, then the official name
>would be Linux User Group of Mauritius and not Linux User Group Meta.

Ok.

>Olivier Alais was one of the consultants hired by the Ministry of
>Technology, Communication & Innovation to draft an Open Source
>Software Policy for Mauritius. I wrote to the National Computer
>Board on 27 May 2015 asking a status about the Open Source Software
>Policy. I quote part of the reply:
>
> "Further to your email dated the 27th May 2015, we would
> like to inform you that the Open Source Strategy Plan has
> already mentioned the Linux User Group of Mauritius as one of the
> members of the implementation working groups. Currently an
> implementation plan for OSS is being finalised at the level of the
> parent ministry and we shall contact you in due course."
>
>I was not contacted again.
>
>The topic of Open Source Software Policy resurfaced at the ICT
>Advisory Council in June 2015. I expressed an interest to
>participate further in discussions related to policy work on OSS in
>Mauritius. I never received an invitation.

I recall that Mr Alais had much difficulty answering the questions
which I asked during the workshop about an Open Source Policy. I
read about the contract last year. The consultants may have been
hired by CCM Consulting. I don't know whether the Ministry of
Technology, Communications and Innovation participated in the hiring process.

Does it take five months to write an implementation plan? From what
I have seen, you have been organizing most of the Open Source events
over the last two years. And yet, you are not invited to participate
in the discussions. I contributed to the draft of the Open Source
Software Policy and yet I was not invited to participate in any
discussions after that.

There isn't an Open Source culture in Mauritius. The problem is that
nobody wants to do anything which would help other people. It gets
worse when people see only some companies making money out of Open
Source Software. It is not better in other countries. However, some
of those countries have people who are managing successful Open
Source projects. Do you know anyone in Mauritius who has done that?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Wed Nov 18 2015 - 11:05:20 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Wed Nov 18 2015 - 11:09:03 PST