Hi Folks,
In the last wikimedia meetup, I heard stories of how govt. libraries'
digitization efforts were failing because of a lack of technology direction
and infrastructure (Someone said, one of the library was simply scanning up
all its books into TIFF).
Good news is that problems such as these may become a thing of past when the
government adopts FOSS technology as the way to go for all its needs. This
could also stir the FOSS movement in India.
Longer story here:
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266988
Excerpt:
The policy has been cleared by the Department of Information Technology and
the National Informatics Centre and is likely to be made official soon. This
effectively means the technology used in all government departments and
offices would have to shift to an open standard. With rough estimates
putting the e-governance market at around $10 billion, the new system—at the
interface and data-archival levels—will shake up big companies hitherto
operating in these segments through their proprietary (read paid-for)
standards.
Thanks,
Varun.