Centre for Internet and Society

(Lack of) Representation of Non-Western World in Process of Creation of Web Standards

gupta — 2016-10-20T01:44:41Z

World Wide Consortium (W3C) as a standard setting organization for the World Wide Web plays a very important role in shaping the web. We focus on the ongoing controversy related to Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and found that there was a serious lack of participation from people from non-western countries. We also found serious lack of gender diversity in the EME debate.

W3C is the organization which sets the standard for HTML 5. Recently it got surrounded by controversy due to the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) draft specification (David Dorwin et al. 2016). EME aims to prevent piracy of digital video by making it hard to download the unencrypted video stream. But it also raises lots of issues regarding implementation in Free and Open Source Software, Interoperability, Privacy, Security, Accessibility and fair use. (Cory Doctorow 2016)

In this study we looked at aspects of the debate which both of the sides ignored, the third world! We found that out of 48 people who participated in the debate around EME on W3C's public-html mailing list, none of them were from the continents of Asia, Africa or South America. These regions make up almost 80 % of the world's population and more than 60 percent of world's internet users (Stats 2016). When a group of people doesn't get represented a in the standard making process it is expected that their concerns don't get represented either. The representation of people is specially important in the EME debate because laws around Digital Rights Management around the world are different. For example Indian laws does not disallow manufacture and distribution of circumvention tools whereas the law in USA does (Prakash 2016b). The cultural norms around the world are quite different and also the conditions under which people use the internet are different. India has the lowest average internet speed across the world (Akamai 2016). A large of fraction of Indian population (37% in 2010) accesses internet through Cyber Cafés (TRAI 2016). These factors makes the ability to download digital content much more important for an Indian internet user than a North American or European internet user.

Methodology

We used BigBang[1] python package to download the achieves of the public-html mailing list at W3C.[2] Our dump contains all the messages between 31st August 2010 to 15th May 2016. Then we filtered out all the emails with EME, encrypted media or DRM in the subject line. There were 472 such emails. We then de-duplicated the list of senders as some senders used multiple emails in the course of discussion. There were 48 unique senders afters de duplication. Then we looked up their social media profiles (LinkedIn, Twitter, Github), personal website or page at employers site to determine the region they belong to and their gender. All the source code used for the analysis is available on our github repository.[3]

Result

Regional Diversity

Region	Participant (%)	Email (%)
Africa	0 (0)	0 (0)
Asia	0 (0)	0 (0)
Australia and New Zealand	5 (10.4)	16 (3.4)
Europe	13 (27.1)	146 (30.9)
North America	30 (62.5)	310 (65.7)
South America	0 (0)	0 (0)
Total	48 (100)	472 (100)

As mentioned in the Introduction above there was absolutely no participation from the whole continents of Africa, Asia, or South America with most of the emails being sent by North Americans.

Gender Diversity

Gender	Participant(%)	Email(%)
Male	47 (97.9)	466 (98.7)
Female	1 (2.1)	6 (1.3)
Total	48 (100)	472 (100)

There was only one women participating in the discussing contributing 1.3 % of the emails sent. The numbers reflects widely discussed lack of gender diversity in Tech and Open communities.

The debate inside W3C around EME also seriously lacked in gender diversity, which is typical of open communities.

Stakeholder Community

Stakeholder Community	Participants per work category	Emails sent per stakeholder category
FOSS browser developer	5	56
Digital Content Provider	9	186
DRM Platform Provider	15	100
Accessibility	4	47
Security Researcher	0	0
Privacy	2	2
Other W3C Employee	3	10
None of the Above	10	71
Total	48	472

We observe that there was no participation from the Security Researcher community and negligible participation from privacy community. Voice of Digital Content Provider was overrepresented with almost 40% of emails sent by them.

Methodological remarks:

Participants are categorized on the basis stakes of their employer and not specifically on the work they do. For example someone who works on privacy in Google will be placed in "DRM platform provider" instead of "Privacy".
W3C and Universities are considered to neutral and their employees are categorized by the work they do.
Google's position is very interesting, it is a DRM provider as a browser manufacturer but also a content provider in Youtube and fair number of Google Employers are against EME due to other concerns. Therefore Christian Kaiser has been paced as Content provider because he works on Youtube, and everyone else has been placed as DRM provider.

Discussion and Future Work

The lack of diversity in W3C is not unique. (Graham, Straumann, and Hogan 2015) showed a significant western bias in Wikipedia, gender bias in Wikipedia has also a well known and is being actively worked upon. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has also been criticized for under representing interests of non North American and West European world (Prakash 2016a).

We hope that W3C and other organizations will increase the diversity in their standard making process so that global voices actually shape the global internet.

Acknowledgement

This work was done during my internship at The Center for Internet & Society, India. I thank Sunil Abraham for useful and timely feedback and Pranesh Prakash, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari for informed discussions.

References

Akamai. 2016. “Akamai State of the Internet Q1 2016.” Accessed August 20. https://www.akamai.com/uk/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-state-of-the-internet-report-q1-2016.pdf.
Cory Doctorow. 2016. “Interoperability and the W3C: Defending the Future from the Present.” Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present.
David Dorwin, Jerry Smith, Mark Watson, and Adrian Bateman. 2016. “Encrypted Media Extensions, W3C Editor’s Draft.” Accessed May 13. https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/
Feminism, Geek. 2016. “Geek Feminism Wiki FLOSS.” Geek Feminism Wiki. Accessed October 5. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/FLOSS.
Graham, Mark, Ralph K. Straumann, and Bernie Hogan. 2015. “Digital Divisions of Labor and Informational Magnetism: Mapping Participation in Wikipedia.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105 (6): 1158–78. doi:10.1080/00045608.2015.1072791.
Prakash, Pranesh. 2016a. “CIS Statement at ICANN 49’s Public Forum.” The Centre for Internet and Society. Accessed August 20. http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann49-public-forum-statement.
Prakash, Pranesh. 2016b. “Technological Protection Measures in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010.” The Centre for Internet and Society. Accessed August 20. http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tpm-copyright-amendment.
Stats, Internet Live. 2016. “Number of Internet Users (2016) - Internet Live Stats.” Accessed August 20. http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/.
TRAI.. “Recommendations on National Broadband Plan.” Accessed August 20. http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Recommendation/Documents/Rcommendation81210.pdf.

^{^[1]} https://github.com/datactive/bigbang

^{^[2]} https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/

^{^[3]} https://github.com/hargup/eme_diversity_analysis

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/lack-of-representation-of-non-western-world-in-creation-of-web-standards

OpenData Week in Madrid - OD4D Summit, Open Data Charter Meetings, and IODC16

praskrishna — 2016-10-16T03:11:54Z

Sumandro Chattopadhyay took part in three open data events in Madrid in the first week of October 2016.

OD4D Summit

Sumandro Chattopadhyay has been a member of the Open Data Research Network (funded by IDRC), which is now part of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) Network. The Network completed 2 years and held its first summit on October 3, 2016. The event was organized by IDRC. Participants discussed the way forward for the Network. Among other things the need for regional cooperation in open data policies and practices in the South, South East, and East Asia was noted.

Open Data Charter Meeting

Sumandro represented CIS in the Open Data Charter Lead Stewards' meeting held on October 5, 2016. The meeting was focused on finalising the business plan of the Charter for 2017-2020, including setting up a secretariat for coordinating and leading the work. The document was thoroughly discussed and will be revised further by the Lead Stewards during the next month, before sharing the draft version with the General Stewards in mid-November.

A meeting was held with the General Stewards and other participants on the evening of the same day. For more info, click here.

IODC 16

The 4th International Open Data Conference (IODC 16) organized by red.es, IDRC, the World Bank and Open Data in Madrid on October 6 and 7, 2016 brought out a lot of real concerns, sometimes even slightly bitter and worried, about the actual state of open data across the world and the relevance/implications of open data for various stakeholders. More info on IODC here.

Sumandro spoke at the Regional Talk session focusing on Asia. He spoke on Opening Data for innovation: from supply-driven to demand-driven Open Data strategies and moderated the session on demand-driven open data strategies.

Collected tweets from IODC can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/opendata-week-in-madrid-od4d-summit-open-data-charter-meetings-and-iodc16

Why Open Access Has To Look Up For Academic Publishing To Look Up

sinha — 2016-10-12T16:22:10Z

In an important development, the US Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against the India-based OMICS group for harassing authors to publish in its journals.

The article was published in the Wire on October 12, 2016.

“…if you are a member of the knowledge elite, then there is free access, but for the rest of the world, not so much … Publisher restrictions do not achieve the objective of enlightenment, but rather the reality of ‘elite-nment.” Lawrence Lessig

In 2011, speaking impassionately to an audience at CERN – one of the world’s largest institutions for nuclear physics research, headquartered in Geneva – Lessig, a professor of law at Harvard Law School and a political activist, highlighted the crisis of access to scientific scholarship. Indeed, over the last six decades, public access to scholarly works has diminished. Works that can be freely searched and read represent only a sliver of the entire wealth of human knowledge.

With the emergence of academic journals in the seventeenth century, the practice of exchanging manuscripts for review and comments became popular, leading to the establishment of the peer-review system. In fact, until the eighteenth century, there existed a strong belief in the intellectual commons and traditions of sharing knowledge between scholars. These traditions dated back to scholarship flourishing in ancient Greece. Open access was the default, and not the exception to the norm.

However, by the nineteenth century, there occurred a game-changing shift in the approach to knowledge production. It was theorised that the commons approach was inefficient and that knowledge needed to be exclusively owned to spur further production. This was in line with the incentive theory of copyright law, which was an added justification to the commoditisation of knowledge. In such circumstances, all scholarly works increasingly came to be fortified within the expensive walls of academic journals. Journals left no stone unturned to capitalise on scholars vying to get published in prestigious titles (Nature, Lancet, Cell, etc.).

The business model rarely rewarded authors or peer reviewers. On the contrary, some journals required authors to pay a considerable fee to publish their work. Subscription charges to such research, a large part of which was funded by the government (i.e. taxpayers), hit the roof and could be afforded only by elite institutions. And with the advent of the digital age, the fortresses moved online.

However, before the internet arrived, there had been efforts to counter the entrenchment of scholarly works. They were mostly in the nature of social movements, located broadly within the philosophical umbrella of openness. The nineties marked a significant increase in the modes of access, through devices connected to the internet. Previously a fringe movement, openness was now entering the realms of publishing, software, standards development, education and data. It manifested in Linux, Wikipedia, open web standards, open educational resources, open government data, Creative Commons and, particularly, open access publishing. Just last month, a UN report called for open access to research to improve public health.

Open access publishing was a breakaway from the traditional scholarly publishing model. It offered a different model of online research publication informed by the principles of transparency, free access and unrestricted access. Three key definitions exist, and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) provides a good overview of it:

There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. By ‘open access’ to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

Further, open access is compatible with copyright, peer review, revenue (even profit), print, preservation, prestige, quality, career-advancement, indexing, and other features and supportive services associated with conventional scholarly literature (as Peter Suber wrote in 2004). The model broadly offers two routes: gold and green. Gold open access involves publication in an open access journal. The journal provides for peer-review, retention of copyright by the author and in most cases requires author-side fees. Green open access involves publishing a work in an online repository, with/without peer-review. The models have several variations, and adoption often depends on their suitability for a particular discipline. Many institutions now have an Open Access Mandate policy.

Latest challenges to open access publishing

For a 15-year-old movement (formally), open access publishing is making a serious dent in the market for scholarly publications. It has emerged as a formidable competitor to the traditional model. How else do you explain the unfortunate acquisition of SSRN – one of the largest online open access repositories – by the largest publisher of academic journals, Elsevier, earlier this year? Where, within a few days of Elsevier gaining control, users began to notice problematic takedowns of articles on SSRN.

The acquisition was a severe blow to open access publishing. To be fair, there remain certain issues intrinsic to open access publishing models that need urgent resolution. For instance, while some open access journals provide high quality services at levels comparable to that of paywalled journals, a large majority has been unable to reach reasonable standards of publication.

Further, as it has emerged lately, many are yet to crack the business model while a few are driven by malicious attempts to con authors. Most commercial open access publishers have resorted to a system of levying from the authors an article-processing charge (APC). These publishers include large players such as the Public Library of Science journals and BioMed Central. APCs are justified as necessary costs for publication. Thus, sometimes they are reasonably applied only to peer-reviewed submissions. However, sometimes they are blatantly misused by publishers who quote exorbitant APCs. As a result, APCs have become a serious concern for the academic community, with the reentry of an undesirable price barrier which has shifted the burden from the reader to the author.

In one noteworthy development, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a complaint against the OMICS group for deceiving authors and misrepresenting its editorial quality. The OMICS group has its roots in Hyderabad and runs a multitude of open access journals. It carried a notorious reputation for soliciting articles profusely, and then holding the articles hostage unless the authors paid hefty fees for their publication. It apparently charged the fees for conducting peer-review, which as this harrowing account of an author reveals, was an utter sham. It also seems that the group targeted unsuspecting scholars from developing countries, where there was a higher concentration of early-career researchers eager to get their works published.

Holding articles hostage and releasing unchecked versions must have already caused irreparable damage to several researchers’ reputations. In this day of web-caching and -indexing facilities, one wonders if the researchers will ever be able to obliterate linkages to their unchecked manuscripts. Further, in the long run, this phenomenon will ruin or suppress promising careers – especially from developing countries. As a result, the present lack of diversity in top-rung academia may not be eliminated for a long time.

Such harmful, predatory practices have not escaped the FTC’s notice, and it has stated that it will pursue cases of similar nature to protect authors and consumers. This is the first time in the world when a governmental authority has taken cognisance of predatory practices in OA publishing. This will hopefully lead to an appropriate cleansing effect of the players in this field, and enhance the credibility of open access journals.

Thus, self-regulation and standard-setting remains an area for improvisation in the open access publishing community. At the cusp of the movement, proposed structures were mired in legal and economic arguments. It is yet to overcome the challenge of economic sustainability and mature into a stable as well as replicable business model. The movement will be celebrating the Open Access Week for the ninth year later this month. It has gifted scholars immeasurably and lent itself to the progress of science and arts. Here’s hoping the community will iron out the remaining challenges to further strengthen the movement soon.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/the-wire-anubha-sinha-october-12-2016-why-open-access-has-to-look-up-for-academic-publishing-to-look-up

How we celebrated Software Freedom Day

subha — 2016-10-07T02:02:18Z

A small group of 6 FOSS contributors from communities such as Mozilla, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, Open Street Map and users of FOSS solutions gathered in Bengaluru to celebrate Software Freedom Day. Subhashish Panigrahi who was a part of the event, reports the developments.

What are FOSS, Free Software, Open Source, and FLOSS?

Adopted by noted software freedom advocate Richard Stallman in 1983, free software has many names — free and open source software (FOSS or F/OSS), and Free/Libre and Open-Source Software (FLOSS) are umbrella terms that are used to include both free software and open source software. As defined by the Free Software Foundation — one of the early advocates of software freedom — free software allows users to not only use the software with complete freedom, but also study, modify, and distribute the software and any adapted versions, in both commercial and noncommercial form. The distribution of the software for commercial and noncommercial form however depends on the particular license the software is released under. The Creative Commons licenses have recommendations for a wide array of free licenses that one can choose for the software-related documentations and any creative work they create. Similarly, there are several different open licenses for software and many other works that are related to software development. “Open Source” was coined as an alternative to free software in 1998 by an educational-advocacy organization Open Source Initiative. Open source software is generally created collaboratively, made available with its source code, and it provides the user rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

Supported by several global organizations like Google, Canonical, Free Software Foundation, Joomla, Creative Commons and Linux Journal, Software Freedom Day draws its inspiration from the philosophy that was grown by people like Richard Stallman who argues that free software is all about the freedom and not necessarily free of cost but provides the liberty to users from [proprietary software developers’] unjust power. SFD encouraged everyone to gather in their own cities (map of places where SFD was organized this year) to: educate people around them about free software, promote it on social media (with the hashtag #SFD2016 this year), hacking with free software, organizing hackathons, running free software installation camps, and even going creative with flying a drone running free software!

In South Asia, there were 13 celebratory events in India, 8 in Nepal, 1 in Bangladesh and 4 in Sri Lanka.

South Asian countries have seen adoption of both free software and open source software, in both individual and organizational level and by the government. The Free Software Movement of India was founded in Bengaluru, India in 2010 to act as a national coalition of several regional chapters working for promoting and growing the free software movement in India. The Indian government has launched the open data portal at data.gov.in, initiated a new policy to adopt open source software, and asked vendors to include open source software applications while making requests for proposals. Similarly, there are many free and open source communities and organizations that are operating from the subcontinent also promote free and open source software like Mozilla India, Wikimedia India, Centre for Internet and Society, Open Knowledge India in India, Mozilla Bangladesh, Wikimedia Bangladesh, Bangladesh Open Source Network, Open Knowledge Bangladesh in Bangladesh, Mozilla Nepal, Wikimedians of Nepal and Open Knowledge Nepal in Nepal, Wikimedia Community User Group Pakistan in Pakistan, Lanka Software Foundation in Sri Lanka.

We promote open source and open web technologies in the country. We are open to associate/work with existing open source or other community-run, public benefit organizations.

“Internet By The People, Internet For The People” (from Mozilla India wiki)

Mohammad Jahangir Alam, a lecturer from Southern University Bangladesh argues in a research paper that the use of open source software can help the government save enormous amount of money that are spent in purchasing proprietary software,

A Large amount of money of government can be saved if the government uses open source software in different IT sectors of government offices and others sectors, Because government is providing computer to all educational institute from school to university level and they are using proprietary software. For this reason government is to expend a large amount of many* for buying proprietary software to run the computers. Another one is government paying significant amount of money to the different vendors for buying different types of software to implement e-Governance project. So, the Government can use open source software for implanting projects to minimize cost of the projects.

This year, a small group of six of us gathered to celebrate SFD in Bengaluru. The group consisted of FOSS contributors from communities such as Mozilla, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, Open Street Map (OSM), and users of FOSS solutions. Each participant shared their own stories of how they got connected with FOSS and what component it plays in their day-to-day life — from how a father tries to introduce his son to open source software while migrating from proprietary to open source back and forth as his job demands so, to an OSM contributor who truly believes that large scale contributions to open source can make the software as robust as proprietary ones and even better because of the freedom that lie in it. The participants bounced both technical and philosophical questions to each other to gauge the actual usage of FOSS in real life, and how as a society we are moving towards adopting openness. There is a great disconnect in communicating widely about the work that many Indian FOSS and other free knowledge communities are doing, agreed all the participants. So they planned to meet more regularly and try to connect more people using social media and chat groups so that these interactions shape into an annual event to bring all open communities under one roof.

The blog post which was originally published by Mozilla Open Mic on October 6 can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/subhashish-panigrahi-mozilla-open-mic-october-6-2016-how-we-celebrated-software-freedom-day

Indian language localization community meets in New Delhi

praskrishna — 2016-10-03T13:26:31Z

Localization is one of the less glamorous aspects of computing. Despite the fact that less than 6% of the world speaks English, a majority of projects don't feel inclined to accommodate the rest of the population. One of the primary reasons for sticking to English is the steep learning curve and the lack of standardization in various aspects of the localization process.

The post by Mayank Sharma was published by Opensource.com on October 3, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.

The FUEL Project organized the GILT conference in New Delhi, India September 24-25 to highlight and address these issues. The annual event showcases the efforts of language technology organizations and volunteer communities, but this year's also gave a platform for non-technical users to voice their concerns. The Indic computing developers were joined by academics, reporters, language researchers, publishers, and entrepreneurs who rely on localization tools to connect and interact with audiences in the various regional languages in India. The brainstorming between the two groups, both on and off the stage, was one of the highlights of the conference.

Focus on standardization

Another recurring theme discussed in detail at the conference was the need for standardization. The FUEL Project spearheads standardization efforts with its terminology management system to preserve consistency across translations. The project also created translation style guides for various languages, including Spanish, German, French, Scottish Gaelic, and several Indian languages. In addition to these guides, the project is also working on a couple of tools to help maintain the accuracy of the translations. One that caught the attention of the translators at the conference is the Unicode Text Rendering Reference System (UTRRS). It's a web app that lets you enter a character, word, or phrase and then compares it to a reference image generated by a text rendering engine.

The current state of localization

The conference began with an inaugural address by the keynote speakers. Rajesh Ranjan, who heads the FUEL Project and is currently the open source community manager at the Indian Government's National eGovernance Division (NeGD), kicked things off by talking about the evolution of the 8-year-old project. There was also an enlightening address by Jeff Beatty, who heads localization efforts at Mozilla. He talked about the role of his alma mater, the University of Limerick, in the initiation and growth of multilingual computing. Later, Vinay Thakur, director of project development at NeGD, discussed the Indian Government's increased interest in localization and listed the various initiatives currently underway.

This was also reiterated by Mahesh Kulkarni, assistant director at CDAC's GIST research labs. He talked about the scale of the government's plan for making all its official websites available in all the officially recognized 22 Indian languages.

Addressing problems

Kulkarni also chaired a panel discussion later in the day. The panel members talked about the issues plaguing the localization community and what it would take to solve them. Sudhanwa Jogalekar, a well-respected contributor to Indic computing, suggested that translators should get ISO certified as a first step toward standardization. Jogalekar pointed to the ISO 7001:2015 standard, which certifies conformity in translation services. Another panel member, Prabhat Ranjan, executive director of the technology think tank TIFAC, talked about the stress on translation in the Vision 2035 document recently released by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Ranjan's team found English to Hindi translation easier when documents are first translated into another Indian language. Based on this experience, Ranjan bounced the idea of agreeing on a meta language to ease the translation process.

A chat with the Document Foundation

The conference also had a video conference session by the Document Foundation's Italo Vignoli about LibreOffice. While the talk was fairly overview-ish the Q&A generated some valuable suggestions that Vignoli promised to take up with the LibreOffice developers. One of the concerns raised by Pavanaja U.B. was that localizing the office suite was a cumbersome process, as it involved recompiling the entire application. Pavanaja, who is well-known in the localization community for creating the Kannada version of the Logo programming language, requested Vignoli ask LibreOffice developers to brainstorm a less tedious process for the localizers. Later in the day, Pavanaja also talked about his experience localizing Wikipedia in Kannada and Tulu languages.

Unicode

^{Karunakar G demos an in-development spell checker for the Hindi language. Photo by Mayank Sharma. CC-BY 3.0.}

The second day began with a session on the evolution and current status of the Unicode standard. It was delivered by Karunakar G, one of the stalwarts of the Indic localization community. A longtime localization developer, Karunakar also demoed the support for Indian languages in LibreOffice. He highlighted a few missing features, such as the lack of an Indic thesaurus and autocorrect functionality.

Sailfish OS

Karunakar was followed by Raju Vindane, who introduced the audience to the Sailfish OS. He also demoed the only Sailfish OS phone available in the Indian market, the Intex Aqua, which retails for about $90. Vindane mentioned that while the community is encouraged to contribute and improve the Indic translations to the Sailfish OS project, these wouldn't be included in the Indian phone, as Intex does its translations in-house.

Other highlights

^{Ryan Northey asks the community to explore the use of XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format). Photo by Mayank Sharma. CC-BY 3.0.}

The day also had introductory presentations by Ryan Northey, lead developer at Translate House, and Satdeep Gill from the WikiTongues project. Northey mentioned that there's been a disconnect between software development and localization, and that going forward localization should become a part of the software development cycle.

In addition to the scheduled sessions, there were several fruitful discussions during lunch and tea breaks. The presentation-free exchange of gray matter between the stalwarts and the young padawans were a delight to witness. The 2016 edition of the GILT conference helped bring together longtime developers and experts from the government with niche communities and individuals working on different aspects of localization in various parts of the country. The conference ended with the participants hoping that the Government's increased focus on localization would translate into a considerable leap in the quality and quantity of localized content and localization tools.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-source-mayank-sharma-october-3-2016-indian-language-localization-community-meets-in-new-delhi

Fuel Gilt Conference 2016

praskrishna — 2016-09-25T03:27:38Z

Fuel Gilt Conference 2016 was organized by the Fuel Project is being held in New Delhi on September 24 and 25, 2016. This is the fourth conference in series. Subhashish Panigrahi made a presentation at this event.

Technical and other interface strings that fall under the ambit of FUEL are actually a subset of several other localization projects. They can also be used for bettering the corpus of machine translation. And there is a need for collaboration between communities and institutions -- both free and open source, and the proprietary ones -- to help grow their corpus. More and more collaborations in place will help the volunteer localizers even more as the localization suggestions will increase drastically with partnerships are more. Two existing such partnerships could be Pontoon by Mozilla and Content Translation by the Wikimedia Foundation. When the former shows localized strings from memory as suggestion and even include translations by proprietary organizations like Microsoft, the latter helps Wikipedians create Wikipedia articles faster by translation suggestions sourced from the corpus of Apertium and Yandex. Bettering collaboration needs strengthening two major aspects; a) growing professional and mutual bonding with other communities/organizations that are there in the same domain, and b) creating technical infrastructure to address the aforementioned pluralism. In my talk, I will detail about my own experience and best practices from working with several communities beyond borders and lessons learned from from my own work and the work of many others. A larger discussion with other colleagues at the Conference will hopefully shape into creating a manual or a few Open Educational Resources of some kind to help the future localization leaders. For more info, click here.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/fuel-gilt-conference-2016

Software Freedom Day: The Importance of Free and Open Source Software

subha — 2016-09-18T03:46:29Z

Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 17 celebrates the liberty that free and open software and the philosophy of freedom brings into people’s lives. When SFD was started in 2004, only 12 teams from different places joined. It grew to a whooping 1000 by 2010 across the world. Explaining the aim of the celebration, SFD’s official website says,

The article was published by DNA on September 17, 2016.

Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere! The non-profit organisation Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organise the local SFD events to impact their own communities.

What are FOSS, Free Software, Open Source, and FLOSS?

Free and open source software (FOSS or F/OSS), and Free/Libre and Open-Source Software (FLOSS) are umbrella terms that are used to include both Free software and open source software. Adopted by noted software freedom advocate Richard Stallman in 1983, the free software has many names — libre software, freedom-respecting software and software libre are some of them. As defined by the Free Software Foundation, one of the early advocates of software freedom, free software allows users not just to use the software with complete freedom, but to study, modify, and distribute the software and any adapted versions, in both commercial and noncommercial form. The distribution of the software for commercial and noncommercial form however depends on the particular license the software is released under. The Creative Commons licenses have recommendations for a wide array of free licenses that one can choose for software-related documentations and any creative work they create. Similarly, there are several different open licenses for software and many other works that are related to software development. “Open Source” was coined as an alternative to free software in 1998 by educational-advocacy organisation Open Source Initiative. Open source software is generally created collaboratively, made available with its source code, and it provides the user rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

Supported by several global organisations like Google, Canonical, Free Software Foundation, Joomla, Creative Commons and Linux Journal, Software Freedom Day draws its inspiration from the philosophy that was grown by people like Richard Stallman who argues that free software is all about the freedom and not necessarily free of cost, but it provides the liberty to users from [proprietary software developers’] unjust power. SFD encourages everyone to gather in their own cities, educate people around them about free software, promote on social media (with the hashtag #SFD2016 this year), even hacking with free software, organising hackathons, running free software installation camps, and even going creative with flying a drone running free software!

From South Asia, there are 13 celebratory events in India, 8 in Nepal, 1 in Bangladesh and 4 in Sri Lanka.

South Asian countries have seen adoption of both free software and open source software, in both individual and organisational level and by the government. The Free Software Movement of India was founded in Bengaluru, India in 2010 to act as a national coalition of several regional chapters working for promoting and growing the free software movement in India. The Indian government has launched an open data portal at data.gov.in portal, initiated a new policy to adopt open source software, and asked vendors to include open source software applications while making requests for proposals. Similarly, several free and open source communities and organisations like Mozilla India, Wikimedia India, Centre for Internet and Society, Open Knowledge India in India, Mozilla Bangladesh, Wikimedia Bangladesh, Bangladesh Open Source Network, Open Knowledge Bangladesh in Bangladesh, Mozilla Nepal, Wikimedians of Nepal and Open Knowledge Nepal in Nepal, Wikimedia Community User Group Pakistan in Pakistan, Lanka Software Foundation in Sri Lanka, that are operating from the subcontinent also promote free and open source software.

We promote open source and open Web technologies in the country. We are open to associate/work with existing open source or other community-run, public benefit organisations.

“Internet By The People, Internet For The People” (from Mozilla India wiki)

A large amount of money of the government can be saved if it uses open source software in different IT sectors of government offices and others sectors, because government is providing computers to all educational institutes from school to university level and they are using proprietary software. For this reason government is to expend a large amount of many for buying proprietary software to run the computers. Another one is government paying significant amount of money to the different vendors for buying different types of software to implement e-Governance project. So, the government can use open source software for implanting projects to minimize cost of the projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/dna-september-17-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-software-freedom-day-importance-of-free-and-open-source-software

ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସ: ଆମ ହାତେ ଆମ କୋଡ଼ ଲେଖିବା

subha — 2016-09-18T03:33:00Z

Software Freedom Day (SFD), which celebrates the use of free and open software, was celebrated in many cities today. The piece sheds light on the philosophy of software freedom, and how free and open source software is making a significant social change. I have also shared how anyone can contribute to the FOSS movement in different ways and celebrate SFD.

The blog post was mirrored in Your Story, Odisha Story and Aajira Odisha on September 17, 2016. The originally published piece can be accessed here.

ଫ୍ରି ଓ ଓପନ ସୋର୍ସ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ପଛରେ ଥିବା ସାମାଜିକ ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ଓ ପ୍ରତିଟି ବ୍ୟବହାରୀଙ୍କୁ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ବ୍ୟବହାର, ବଦଳ ଓ ବାଣ୍ଟିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେବା ଉଦ୍ଦେଶ୍ୟରେ ପାଳିତ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସ ।

ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଶବ୍ଦଟି ବୋଧେ ଆଉ କାହାରି ପାଇଁ ଅଜଣା ଅଶୁଣା ନୁହେଁ । ଆପଣଙ୍କ ମୋବାଇଲ ଫୋନରୁ କମ୍ପୁଟରଯାଏ ଓ ଏବେ ଏକ ସ୍ଥାନରେ ନ ଥାଇ ସେଠାରେ ଥିବା ଭଳି ଅନୁଭବିବା ପାଇଁ ବ୍ୟବହୃତ ଭର୍ଚୁଆଲ ରିଆଲିଟି ଓ ଅଗମେଣ୍ଟେଡ଼ ରିଆଲିଟି ହେଡ଼ସେଟରେ ହାର୍ଡ଼ଓଏର ବା ଯାନ୍ତ୍ରିକ ଉପକରଣକୁ ସଠିକ ଭାବେ ପରିଚଳାନା କରିବା ହେଉଛି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରର କାମ । ଆଉ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରରେ ଟିକେ ଗୋଳମାଳ ହେଲେ କେବେ କମ୍ପୁଟରର ସ୍କ୍ରିନ ନେଳି ପଡ଼ିଯାଏ ତ ପୁଣି କେବେ କେବେ ମୋବାଇଲରେ ଠିକଣା ଜାଗାରେ ଯେତେ ଦବେଇଲେ ବି କାମକରେନା । ତେବେ ଉଣାଅଧିକ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରରେ ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଆଉ ତାଙ୍କ ଜୀବନ ପାଇଁ ତା’ର ଭୂମିକା ବାବଦରେ କେବେ ଶୁଣିନଥିବେ । ଆଉ ଏଇଟି ସତରେ ଏକ ଅନାଲୋଚିତ ବିଷୟ । ତେବେ ଏ ବିଷୟକୁ ବୁଝିବା ଆଗରୁ ଆମ ଚଳନ୍ତି ସମାଜର କିଛି ଉଦାହରଣ ଆଡ଼େ ଆସନ୍ତୁ ଆଖିପକେଇବା । ଦିନ ଥିଲା ଆପଣ ରେଡ଼ିଓରୁ ଆକାଶବାଣୀ ଲଗେଇ ଗୀତ, ଖବର, ନାଟକ ଆଦି ଶୁଣୁଥିଲେ । ହେଲେ କେବେ ଆକାଶବାଣୀ ଆପଣଙ୍କ ପାହୁଲାଟିଏ ମାଗିଥିଲା କି ନାଁ ଆପଣ ଭଲ ଭଲ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଆସୁଛି ବୋଲି ଖୁସିରେ କେବେ କିଛି ଦେଇଥିଲେ? କିନ୍ତୁ ଆପଣଙ୍କ ଅଜାଣତରେ ଆପଣ ସତରେ କିଛି ଦେଇଛନ୍ତି । ତା’ ହେଉଛି ଟିକସ । ଆପଣ ଛୋଟରୁ ବଡ଼ ଯାଏ ଯାହା କିଣୁଛନ୍ତି ପ୍ରାୟ ସବୁ ଜିନିଷରେ ଟିକସ ଦିଅନ୍ତି ଆଉ ଚାକିରି କି ଅନ୍ୟ ଉପାୟରେ ପଇସା ଅରଜୁଥିଲେ ବର୍ଷ ଶେଷକୁ ଇନକମ ଟିକସ ବି ଦିଅନ୍ତି । ଏସବୁ ସରକାରଙ୍କ କାମରେ ଲାଗେ । ତେଣୁ ଆକାଶବାଣୀର ରେଡ଼ିଓ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ହେଉ କି ମୋଦିଙ୍କ ବିଦେଶ ବୁଲା ହେଉ ସବୁ ଆପଣଙ୍କ ପଇସାରେ ହିଁ ହେଉଛି । ସରକାରୀ ଓ ବେସରକାରୀ ଉଭୟ ସ୍ଥାନରେ ଏଇ ଏକା ଜିନିଷ । ତେବେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର କ୍ଷେତ୍ରରେ ବି ଏଇ ଏକା ଅବସ୍ଥା । ସାଧାରଣରେ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ମାଇକ୍ରୋସଫ୍ଟର ଉଇଣ୍ଡୋଜ ଅପରେଟିଂ ସିଷ୍ଟମ ପାଇଁ କେତେ ପଇସା ନିଜ ଅଜାଣତରେ ଦେଉଛନ୍ତି ତାହା ନୂଆ ଲାପଟପ କିଣିଲାବେଳକୁ କେବେ ଗଣିନଥିବେ । କିନ୍ତୁ ସେଇଟି ଜମାରୁ ମାଗଣା ଆସିନଥାଏ । ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରଟିଏ ଏକ ବା ଅନେକ ଉଚ୍ଚସ୍ତରର ନିର୍ଦ୍ଦିଷ୍ଟ କାମ କରୁଥିବା ବେଳେ ଏକ କମ୍ପୁଟର କି ମୋବାଇଲର ସାମଗ୍ରୀକ ହାର୍ଡ଼ଓଏର ବା ଯନ୍ତ୍ରପାତି ଓ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସବୁକୁ ପରିଚାଳନା ପାଇଁ ଅପରେଟିଂ ସିଷ୍ଟମ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରାଯାଏ । ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଅପରେଟିଂ ସିଷ୍ଟମ ଓ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଭିନ୍ନଭିନ୍ନ ଉପାୟରେ ତିଆରି ହୁଏ । କେବେ ଏସବୁ ମାଇକ୍ରୋସଫ୍ଟ କି ଆପଲ ଭଳି ବଡ଼ ବଡ଼ କମ୍ପାନି ତିଆରି କରି ବିକନ୍ତି ତ କେବେ କେବେ ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିବିଶେଷ ବା ଛୋଟ ବଡ଼ ସଂଗଠନ ମଧ୍ୟ ବିକନ୍ତି । କିନ୍ତୁ ଏସବୁ ବାଦେ ଆଉ ଏକ ଧରଣର ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଗଢ଼ାଳି ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିବିଶେଷ-ସଂଗଠନ-କମ୍ପାନି ମଧ୍ୟ ଅଛନ୍ତି । ସେମାନେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ତିଆରି କରି ଖାଲି ବଜାରରେ ଛାଡ଼ନ୍ତି ନାହିଁ ବରଂ ସେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରର ସୋର୍ସ କୋଡ଼ ମଧ୍ୟ ଛାଡ଼ନ୍ତି । ଅର୍ଥାତ ଗଣିତ କଷି ଫଳାଫଳ ସଙ୍ଗେ କିପରି କଷିଲେ ସୋପାନ ତଳକୁ ସୋପାନ ଲେଖି ବୁଝାଇଦିଅନ୍ତି । ଫଳରେ ଆଉ କେହି ସେହି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରରେ କିଛି ବଦଳ କରିବାକୁ ଚାହିଁଲେ କିମ୍ବା ପୁରୁଣା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରରେ କିଛି ନୂଆ ଯୋଡ଼ି ଉନ୍ନତ କରିବାକୁ ଚାହିଁଲେ ତାଙ୍କୁ ସେଥିରେ କେହି ବାଧା ଦେବେନାହିଁ । କିନ୍ତୁ ନୂଆ ଫଳାଫଳ ବା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରଟି ବଜାରରେ ଛାଡ଼ିଲା ବେଳେ ତାଙ୍କୁ ମୂଳ ଗଢ଼ାଳିଙ୍କୁ ଉପଯୁକ୍ତ ଶ୍ରେୟ ଦେବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ । ଧରନ୍ତୁ ଆପଣ ଚନ୍ଦକାରୁ କଲରାପତରିଆ ବାଘର ଖୋଳ ଆଣି ତାକୁ ଧଳା ରଙ୍ଗ ମାରି ଧଳା ବାଘ କଲେ । ଆପଣଙ୍କୁ ସେ ଧଳା ବାଘକୁ ଶିମିଳିପାଳରେ ଛାଡ଼ିଲା ବେଳେ ଚନ୍ଦକାରୁ ମୂଳ କଲରାପତରିଆ ବାଘ ଆଣିଥିଲେ ବୋଲି ଉଲ୍ଲେଖ କରିବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ । ମଜା କଥା ହେଉଛି ଏଭଳି ନିଆରା ଧାରା ଆମ ସମାଜରେ ଜମାରୁ ନୂଆ ନୁହେଁ । ଅକ୍ଷୟ ମହାନ୍ତି ସାଲବେଗଙ୍କ ଲିଖିତ ପୁରୁଣା ଗୀତକୁ ଆଉଥରେ ବୋଲିବା ପରେ ସେ ହଜିଲା ଗୀତସବୁ ଲୋକତୁଣ୍ଡରେ ଆହୁରି ଜଣାଶୁଣା ହେଲା । ହେଲେ ଅକ୍ଷୟ ମହାନ୍ତି ଗୀତର ଗାୟକ ଓ ସଙ୍ଗୀତ ନିର୍ଦ୍ଦେଶକ ଭାବେ ନାଁ ନେଲା ବେଳେ ସାଲବେଗଙ୍କ ରଚନାରୁ ବୋଲି ଲେଖିବାରେ ଉଣା କରିନାହାନ୍ତି ।

ଏହି ଧାରା ଆମ ସମାଜରେ ସବୁକାଳେ ସବୁସ୍ଥଳେ ରହିଛି । ହେଲେ ଆଧୁନିକ ସମାଜରେ ଅନେକ ଲାଭଖୋର କମ୍ପାନି ନିଜ ଲାଭ ଲାଗି ଏ ସାମାଜିକ ଚଳଣିଟିକୁ ପାଶୋରି ପକାଇଛନ୍ତି । ମାଇକ୍ରୋସଫ୍ଟରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଆକୃତି, ଅପ୍ରାନ୍ତ ଯାଏ ପ୍ରାୟ ଅଧିକାଂଶ ସାଧାରଣରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ହେଉଥିବା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ହେଉଛି ପ୍ରୋପ୍ରାଇଟରି ବା ପୂରା ନିବୁଜ । ମାନେ ଆପଣ କେବଳ କିଣି ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିପାରିବେ କିନ୍ତୁ ବାଣ୍ଟିପାରିବେ ନାହିଁ କି କୌଣସି ବଦଳ କରିପାରିବେ ନାହିଁ । କଲେ ଆପଣଙ୍କ ବିରୋଧରେ କୋର୍ଟରେ ଉକ୍ତ କମ୍ପାନିମାନେ କେସ କରି ତଳିତଳାନ୍ତ ମଧ୍ୟ କରିପାରିବେ । ଏ କପିରାଇଟର ଫାନ୍ଦ ଏଡ଼େ କୁଟିଳ ଯେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ତିଆରି କରିଥିବା କମ୍ପାନିମାନେ ସବୁକାଳେ ତାଙ୍କର ମନୋମୁଖୀ ପତିଆରା ରଖିପାରିବେ । ଏଣୁ ଥୋକେ ଭାବିଲେ ବଡ଼ ବଡ଼ ଧନୀ କମ୍ପାନିମାନଙ୍କର ଏ ଗୁମାନ ସେମିତି ଥାଉ । ଆମେ ଚାଲ ବିକଳ୍ପ ଓ ଉଚ୍ଚମାନର କିଛି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ତିଆରିବା । ଲୋକ ସ୍ୱାଧୀନ । ଯାହାକୁ ଯାହା ରସିବ ତାକୁ ସେ କିଆଫୁଲ ପରି ବାସୁ । ଆଉ ଏ ଥିଲା ଏକ ସାମାଜିକ ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା । ବିକଳ୍ପ ବାଟଟି ହେଲା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା । ଏଥିରେ କୌଣସି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଗଢ଼ିଥିବା ମୂଳ ଗଢ଼ାଳି ଓ ତା’ ପରେ ସେଥିରେ ଯୋଗଦାନ କରିଥିବା ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ସମାନ ଭାବେ ସମ୍ମାନ ଦେଇ ଯୋଗଦାନକାରୀ ଭାବେ ସେମାନଙ୍କ ନାମ ଉଲ୍ଲେଖ କରାଯାଇଥାଏ । ଖାଲି ନାଁ ନୁହେଁ ଅନେକ ସମୟରେ ଖୋଲା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସଙ୍ଗେ ଜଡ଼ିତ ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିବିଶେଷ ଓ ସଂଗଠନସବୁ ଏମିତି ଆଖିଖୋସିଲା ଭଳି କାମ କରନ୍ତି ଯେ କିଣା ଆଉ ବୁଜା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର କିଣିବାରୁ କି ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବାରୁ ମନ ମରିଯିବ । ତିନି ବର୍ଷ ତଳେ Firefox ବ୍ରାଉଜର ତିଆରିରେ ଭାଗନେଇଥିବା Mozillaର ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ଯୋଗଦାନକାରୀମାନଙ୍କୁ ସମ୍ମାନ ଜଣାଇ ଆମେରିକାର ସାନ ଫ୍ରାନସିସ୍କୋ ସହରରେ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ସ୍ମାରକୀ ଗଢ଼ି ସେଥିରେ ସମସ୍ତଙ୍କ ନାମ ଲେଖାଯାଇଥିଲା । ଭାବନ୍ତୁ ଏ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପରେ ସାମାନ୍ୟତମ ଯୋଗଦାନ କରିଥିବା ଲୋକଟିର ନାଁ ବି ଇତିହାସରେ ଲେଖାହୋଇ ରହିଗଲା । ୨୦୦୧ ମସିହାରେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ତା’ ପରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସମେତ ବାକି ବିଶ୍ୱଭାଷାରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ତିଆରି ଖୋଲା ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ଇତିହାସ ବି ଏମିତି । ଏହି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ୱେବସାଇଟଗୁଡ଼ିକ ମିଡ଼ିଆଉଇକି ନାମକ ଖୋଲା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରରେ ତିଆରି । ଆଉ ସେଇ ଏକା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରକୁ ନିଜ ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ଅନୁସାରେ ବଦଳାଇ ଉଇକିଲିକ୍ସ ଓ ଉଇକିଟ୍ରାଭେଲ ଭଳି ଅଲଗା ଅଲଗା ୱେବସାଇଟ ଆଜି ଚାଳିତ ।

ତେବେ ଅନେକେ ଭାବୁଥିବେ ଯେ ଏ ଫ୍ରି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର କଣ ସବୁବେଳେ ମାଗଣା? ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା କ୍ଷେତ୍ରରେ ଗତ କେଇ ଦଶନ୍ଧି ଧରି କାମ କରି ଏ ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନକୁ ବହୁ ଆଗକୁ ନେଇଥିବା ରିଚାର୍ଡ଼ ଷ୍ଟଲମ୍ୟାନ ଖୁବ ସହଜ ଓ ସରଳ ଢଙ୍ଗରେ ଏ ବିଷୟଟି ବୁଝାଇଦିଅନ୍ତି ।

ଫ୍ରି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ମାଗଣାରେ ବଣ୍ଟାଯାଇପାରେ ବା କିଛି ଦରରେ ବିକାଯାଇପାରେ । କିନ୍ତୁ ଏଥିରେ ଥିବା “ଫ୍ରି” ମାଗଣା ନୁହେଁ ବରଂ ଖୋଲା ଜ୍ଞାନ ଭଳି “ଫ୍ରିଡ଼ମ” ବା ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତାକୁ ସୂଚାଏ ।

ତେଣୁ କୌଣସି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ଆଗରୁ ତା’ର କପିରାଇଟ ବାବଦରେ ସେଥିରେ ଥିବା ନିୟମାବଳୀ ପଢ଼ିଲେ ବୁଝାପଡ଼ିବ ଯେ ତାହା ଏକ ପ୍ରୋପ୍ରାଇଟରି କି ଫ୍ରି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର । ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ମଣିଷର ଜନ୍ମଗତ ଅଧିକାର । ଆଉ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବାଣ୍ଟିବା ଲାଗି । ବାନ୍ଧି ରଖିବା ଲାଗି ନୁହେଁ । କାରଣ କେହି ଜ୍ଞାନ ତିଆରି ନାହିଁ ବରଂ ସଭିଏଁ ଜ୍ଞାନର ନାନାଦି ଭଣ୍ଡାରକୁ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ପାଇଁ ବାଟ ତିଆରି କରିଥାନ୍ତି । ତେଣୁ ସେ ବାଟରେ ବାଡ଼ କିଆଁ? ନିକଟରେ ସମାଜର ଏହି ପୁରାତନ ଧାରାକୁ ବାହୁଡ଼ି ଯିବା ପାଇଁ ଅନେକ ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିବିଶେଷ, ସଂଗଠନ ଓ ବଡ଼ ବଡ଼ କମ୍ପାନି ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ସେମାନେ ତିଆରୁଥିବା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରର ସୋର୍ସ କୋଡ଼ ଖୋଲାରେ ଦେଲେଣି । ଫଳରେ ସାଧାରଣ ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ ଓ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଗଢ଼ାଳିଙ୍କ ହାତରେ ସ୍ୱାଧୀନ ଭାବେ ସେମାନେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଥିବା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରକୁ ନିଜ ଆବଶ୍ୟକ ଅନୁସାରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିପାରିବେ । ଆଉ ସମାଜର ମୌଳିକ ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ବିଭିନ୍ନତାର ବହୁରଙ୍ଗ ଏଥିରେ ସମୁଜ୍ଜଳେ ଫୁଟିଉଠିବ ।

ଆମ ସମାଜର ଏହି ବାଣ୍ଟିବାର ଧାରାକୁ ନୂଆ ଟେକନୋଲୋଜି ଯୁଗରେ ଉଜ୍ଜୀବିତ କରିବା ଲକ୍ଷରେ ଜଗତ ସାରା ୨୦୦୪ ମସିହାରୁ ସେପ୍ଟେମ୍ବର ମାସର ତୃତୀୟ ସପ୍ତାହରେ “ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଫ୍ରିଡ଼ମ ଡେ” ବା “ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସ” ପାଳିତ ହୋଇଆସୁଛି । ଏଥିରେ କୌଣସି ନିର୍ଦ୍ଦିଷ୍ଟ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ନୁହେଁ ବରଂ ଖୋଲା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ପଛରେ ଥିବା ଦାର୍ଶନିକ ଓ ସାମାଜିକ ଦୃଷ୍ଟିକୋଣଟି ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ବୁଝାଇବା ହେଉଛି ମୂଳ ଲକ୍ଷ । ଆଉ ଯେଯାଏ ବଡ଼ କମ୍ପାନି ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ତଥ୍ୟ ନ ଜଣାଇ କପିରାଇଟ ବଳରେ ବାନ୍ଧି ରଖିଥିବେ ସେଯାଏ ବ୍ୟବହାରୀ ବାପୁଡ଼ା ବା ଜାଣିବ କେମିତି ଏ ଭିତର ଗୁମର? ନିଜ ହାତରେ ନିଜ ଶାସନର ଡୋର ଧରିବା ଯେମିତି ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ନିଜ ବ୍ୟବହାରରେ ଲାଗୁଥିବା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ବି ଏକାଭଳି ପ୍ରତିଟି ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀର ଅଧିକାର । ତେଣୁ ଏ ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସକୁ ସଭିଏଁ ନିଆରା ଢଙ୍ଗରେ ପାଳନ୍ତି । ଆଫ୍ରିକାରେ କିଛି ବର୍ଷ ଆଗରୁ ଫ୍ରି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଚାଳିତ ଏକ ଡ୍ରୋନ ବା ଚାଳକବିହୀନ ପବନଯାନଟିଏ ଛାଡ଼ିଥିଲେ । ଅନେକ ସ୍ଥାନରେ ଲୋକେ ଏକାଠି ହୋଇ ଏ ବାବଦରେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ବାବଦରେ ଆଲୋଚନା କରନ୍ତି । ଆଉ ପୁଣି କେଉଁଠି ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ତାଙ୍କ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଫ୍ରି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଇନଷ୍ଟଲ କରିବା ପାଇଁ କ୍ୟାମ୍ପ କରନ୍ତି । ଫଳରେ ଲୋକେ ନିଜ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ମାଇକ୍ରୋସଫ୍ଟର ବିକଳ୍ପ ଓ ଉବଣ୍ଟୁ ଭଳି ଖୋଲା ଲିନକ୍ସ ଅପରେଟିଂ ସିଷ୍ଟମ କିମ୍ବା Mozilla Firefox ଭଳି ବ୍ରାଉଜର ଇନଷ୍ଟଲ କରିପାରିବେ । ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସର ଚିହ୍ନ ସ୍ୱରୂପର ଲେଖକର ଏ ଲେଖାଟି ମଧ୍ୟ ଏକ ଖୋଲା ଲାଇସେନ୍ସରେ ଆଉ ଶ୍ରେୟ ଦେଇ କେହି ଚାହିଁଲେ ତାହାକୁ ପ୍ରକାଶ କରିପାରିବେ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/software-freedom-day

It's September, and That Means It's Time for Software Freedom Day

subha — 2016-09-17T15:42:46Z

Software Freedom Day (SFD), which celebrates the use of free and open software, is just around the corner on September 17. When the day first started in 2004, only 12 teams from different places joined, but it has since grown to include hundreds registered events around the world, depending on the year.

The article was published by Global Voices on September 17, 2016.

Supported by several global organizations like Google, Canonical, Free Software Foundation, Joomla, Creative Commons and Linux Journal, Software Freedom Day draws its inspiration from the philosophy promoted by people like Richard Stallman who argue that free software is all about the freedom and not necessarily free of cost but provides the liberty to users from proprietary software developers’ power and influence. SFD encourages everyone to gather in their own cities (here's a map of places where SFD is organized this year), educate people around them about free software, and promote the cause on social media (with the hashtag #SFD2016 this year). There's also hackathons (hacking free software to modify the code and create what one wants to have in it), running free software installation camps, and even going creative with flying a drone running free software.	What are FOSS, free software, open source, and FLOSS? Free and open source software (FOSS or F/OSS), and free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS) are umbrella terms that are used to include both free software and open source software. Adopted by noted software freedom advocate Richard Stallman in 1983, free software has many names — libre software, freedom-respecting software and software libre are some of them. As defined by the Free Software Foundation, one of the early advocates of software freedom, free software allows users not just to use the software with complete freedom, but to study, modify, and distribute the software and any adapted versions, in both commercial and noncommercial form. The distribution of the software for commercial and noncommercial form, however, depends on the particular license the software is released under. “Open source” was coined as an alternative to free software in 1998 by educational-advocacy organization Open Source Initiative. Open source software is generally created collaboratively, made available with its source code, and it provides the user rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

From South Asia, there are 13 celebratory events in India, eight in Nepal, one in Bangladesh and four in Sri Lanka.

South Asian countries have seen adoption of both free software and open source software by individuals, organizations and the government. The Free Software Movement of India was founded in Bengaluru, India, in 2010 to act as a national coalition of several regional chapters working to promote and grow the free software movement in India.

The Indian government has launched an open data portal at data.gov.in portal for sharing large datasets like the census data under free licenses. The government's new policy emphasizes on adopting open source software. Moreover government's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology asked vendors to include open source software applications while making requests for proposals.

Similarly, there are several free and open source communities and organizations operating from the subcontinent, like Mozilla India, Wikimedia India, the Centre for Internet and Society, Open Knowledge India, Mozilla Bangladesh, Wikimedia Bangladesh, Bangladesh Open Source Network, Open Knowledge Bangladesh, Mozilla Nepal, Wikimedians of Nepal, Open Knowledge Nepal, Wikimedia Community User Group Pakistan, and the Lanka Software Foundation in Sri Lanka.

Mohammad Jahangir Alam, a lecturer from Southern University Bangladesh, argues in a research paper that the use of open source software can help the government save a enormous amount of money that are spent in purchasing proprietary software:

A Large amount of money of government can be saved if the government uses open source software in different IT sectors of government offices and others sectors, Because government is providing computer to all educational institute from school to university level and they are using proprietary software. For this reason government is to expend a large amount of many for buying proprietary software to run the computers. Another one is government paying significant amount of money to the different vendors for buying different types of software to implement e-Governance project. So, the Government can use open source software for implanting projects to minimize cost of the projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/global-voices-september-17-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-it-is-september-and-that-means-it-is-time-for-software-freedom-day

Submitted Comments on the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016

sumandro — 2016-09-01T05:49:51Z

Last month, the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department of the Government of Telangana released the first public draft of the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016, and sought comments from various stakeholders in the state and outside. The draft policy not only aims to facilitate and provide a framework for proactive disclosure of data created by the state government agencies, but also identify the need for integrating such a mandate within the information systems operated by these agencies as well. CIS is grateful to be invited to submit its detailed comments on the same. The submission was drafted by Anubha Sinha and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Download the submitted document: PDF.

1. Preliminary

1.1. This submission presents comments and recommendations by the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) [1] on the proposed draft of the Telangana Open Data Policy 2016 (“the draft policy”). This submission is based on Version 1 of the draft policy shared by the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Telangana (“the ITE&C Department”).

1.2. CIS commends the ITE&C Department for its generous efforts at seeking inputs from various stakeholders to draft an open data policy for the state of Telangana. CIS is thankful for this opportunity to provide a clause-by-clause submission.

2. The Centre for Internet and Society

2.1. The Centre for Internet and Society, CIS, is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfiguration of social processes and structures through the internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.

2.2. This submission is consistent with CIS’ commitment to safeguarding general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved. The comments in this submission aim to further the principle of citizens’ right to information, instituting openness-by-default in governmental activities, and to realise the various kinds of public goods that can emerge from greater availability of open (government) data. The submission is limited to those clauses that most directly have an impact on these principles.

3. Comments and Recommendations

This section presents comments and recommendations directed at the draft policy as a whole, and in certain places, directed at specific clauses of the draft policy.

3.1. Defining the Scope of the Policy in the Preamble

3.1.1. CIS observes and appreciates that the ITE&C Department has identified the open data policy as a catalyst for, and as dependent upon, a larger transformation of the information systems implemented in the state, to specifically ensure that these information systems.

3.1.2. CIS commends the endeavour of the draft policy to share data in open and machine-readable standards. To further this, it will be useful for the preamble to explicitly mandate proactive disclosure in both human-readable and machine-readable formats, using open standards, and under open license(s).

3.1.3. CIS recommends that the draft policy state the scope of the policy at the outset, i.e. in the Preamble section of the document. This will provide greater clarity to the stakeholders who are trying to ascertain applicability of the draft policy to their data.

3.1.4. CIS commends the crucial mandate of creating data inventory within every state government ministry / department. We further recommend that the draft policy also expressly states the need to make these inventories publicly accessible.

3.1.5. CIS commends the draft policy’s aim to build a process to engage with data users for better outcomes. We suggest that the draft policy also enumerates the “outcomes” of such engagement, in order to provide more clarity. We recommend that these “outcomes” include greater public supply of open government data in an effective, well-documented, timely, and responsible manner.

3.1.6. Further, CIS suggests that the draft policy define “information centric and customer centric data” to provide more clarity to the document, as well as its scope and objectives.

3.2. Provide Legal and Policy References

3.2.1. Strengthening transparency, predictability, and legal certainty of rules benefits all stakeholders. Thus, as far as possible, terms in the draft policy should use pre-existing legal definitions. In case of ambiguities arising after the implementation of the policy, consistency in definitions will also lead to greater interpretive certainty. It must be noted that good quality public policies which promote legal certainty, lead to better implementation.

3.2.2. CIS observes that the draft policy re-defines various terms in Section 4 that have already been defined in National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (“NDSAP”) 2012 [2], the Right to Information 2005 (“RTI Act”) [3], and IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 [4]. We strongly recommend that the draft policy uses the pre-existing definitions in these acts, rules, and policies.

3.2.3. Further, CIS observes that while certain sections accurately reflect definitions and parts from other acts, rules and policies, such sections are not referenced back to the latter. These sections include, but are not limited to: Sections 3, 7, 8, 4 (definitions of Data set, Data Archive, Negative list, Sensitive Personal data). We strongly recommend that accurate legal references be added to the draft policy after careful study of the language used.

3.3. Need for More Focused Objective Statement

3.3.1. While the draft policy has a very comprehensive statement of its objectives, including "all issues related to data in terms of the available scope of sharing and accessing spatial and non-spatial data under broad frameworks of standards and interoperability," it may consider offering a more focused statement of its key objective, which is to provide a policy framework for proactive disclosure of government data by the various agencies of the Government of Telangana.

3.3.2. Further, the objective statement must clearly state that the policy enables publication of data created by the agencies of the Government of Telangana, and/or by private agencies working in partnership with public agencies, using public funds as open data (that is, using open standards, and under open license). The present version of the objective statement mentions "sharing" and "accessing" the data concerned under "broad frameworks of standards and interoperability" but does not make it clear if such shared data will be available in open standards, under open licenses, and for royalty-free adaptation and redistribution by the users concerned.

3.4. Suggestions related to the Definitions

3.4.1. The term “Data” has not been defined in accordance with NDSAP 2012. We suggest that the definition provided in NDSAP is followed so as to ensure legal compatibility.

3.4.2. The term “Sensitive Personal Data” seems to have been defined on the basis of the definition provided in the IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011. Please add direct reference so as to make this clear. We further suggest that the term “Personal Information”, also defined in the same IT Rules, is also included and referred to in the draft policy, so that not only Sensitive Personal Data is barred from disclosure under this policy, but also Personal Information (that is "any information that relates to a natural person, which, either directly or indirectly, in combination with other information available or likely to be available with a body corporate, is capable of identifying such person") [5].

3.4.3. The term “Negative List” is defined in a manner that allows the state government ministries and agencies to identify which data are to be considered as non-shareable without any reference to an existing policy framework that list acceptable grounds for such identification. The term must be defined more restrictively, as this definition can allow an agency to avoid disclosure of data that may not be legally justifiable as non-shareable or sensitive. Thus, we recommend a more limited definition which may draw upon the RTI Act 2005, and specifically consider the factors mentioned in Sections 8 and 9 of the Act as the (only) set of acceptable reasons for non-disclosure of government data.

3.4.4. The terms “Shareable Data” and “Sensitive Data” are used in several places in the draft policy but are not defined in Section 4. Both these terms are defined in NDSAP 2012. We suggest that both these terms be listed in Section 4, in accordance with the respective definitions provided in NDSAP 2012.

3.4.5. The terms “Data Archive”, “Data Acquisition”, “Raw Data”, “Standards-Compliant Applications”, and “Unique Data” are defined in Section 4, but none of these terms appear elsewhere in the draft policy. We suggest that these terms are either better integrated into the document, or may not be defined at all.

3.5. Rename Section 6 to Focus on Implementation of the Policy

3.5.1. Though the Section 6 is named as “Shareable Data”, it instead categorically lists down how the policy is to be implemented. This is a very welcome step, but the Section title should reflect this purpose of the Section.

3.5.2. The decision proposed in the draft policy to make it mandatory for "each funding organization" to "highlight data sharing policy as preamble in its RFPs as well as Project proposal formats" is much appreciated and commendable. For a clearer and wider applicability of this measure, we recommend that this responsibility should apply to all state government agencies, including agencies where the state government enjoys significant stake, and all public-private partnerships entered into by the state government agencies, and not only to "funding organizations" (a term that has also not been defined in the draft policy).

3.5.3. While the Section details out various measures and steps of implementation of the policy, it does not clarify which agency and/or committee would have the authority and responsibility to coordinate, monitor, facilitate, and ensure these measures and steps. Not only governmental representatives but also non-governmental representatives may be considered for such a committee.

3.6. Host All Open Government Data in the State Portal

3.6.1. We observe that the Section 6 indicates that , the designated domain for the open government data portal for the state of Telangana, will only store metadata related to the proactive disclosed data sets but not the data sets themselves. This is further clarified in Section 10. We strongly urge the ITE&C Department to reconsider this decision to not to store the actual open data sets in the state open government data portal itself but in the departmental portals. A central archive of the open data assets, hosted by the state open government data portal, will allow for more effective and streamlined management of the open data assets concerned, including their systematic backing-up, better security and integrity, permanent and unique disclosure, and rule-driven updation. This would also reduce the burden upon all the government agencies, especially those that do not have a substantial IT team, to run independent department-specific open data portals.

3.7. Reconsider the Section on Data Classification

3.7.1. While it is clear that the Section 7 on Data Classification follows the classification of various data sets created, managed, and/or hosted by government agencies offered in the NDSAP 2012, it is not very clear what role this classification plays in functioning and implementation of the draft policy. While Open Access and Registered Access data may both be considered as open government data that is to be proactively disclosed by the state government agencies via the state open government data portal, the Restricted Access data overlaps with the kinds of data already included in the Negative List defined in the draft policy (and elsewhere, like the RTI Act 2005). Further, the final sentence in this Section ensures that all data users provide appropriate attribution of the source(s) of the data set concerned, which (though is an important statement) should not be part of this Section on Data Classification. We suggest reconsideration of inclusion of this Section.

3.8. Reconsider the Section on Technology for Sharing and Access

3.8.1. While it is clear that the Section 8 on Technology for Sharing and Access is adapted from the Section 9 of the NDSAP 2012, the text in this Section seems to be not fully compatible with other statements in this draft policy. For example, the Section states that "[t]his integrated repository will hold data of current and historical nature and this repository over a period of time will also encompass data generated by various State Government departments." However, the draft policy states in Section 10 that "data.telangana.gov.in will only have the metadata and data itself will be accessed from the portals of the departments."

3.8.2. We strongly urge the ITE&C Department to revise this Section through close discussion with the NDSAP Project Management Unit, National Informatics Centre, which is the technical team responsible for developing and managing the portal, since the present version of this Section lists the original feature set of the portal as envisioned in 2012 but does not reflect the most recent feature set that has been already implemented in the portal concerned.

3.9. Current Legal Framework (Section 9) should List to Relevant Acts, Rules, Policies, and Guidelines

3.9.1. CIS observes that the draft policy attempts to lay out the applicable legal framework in Section 2 and 9 of the draft policy, and submits that the legal framework is incomplete and recommends that the draft policy lists all the following relevant acts, rules, policies and guidelines:

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012
Right to Information Act, 2005
Information Technology Act, 2002
Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011.

3.9.2. CIS submits that apart from the policies mentioned above, the implementation of the draft policy is intricately linked to concepts of "open standards," "open source software," "open API," and "right to information." These concepts are governed by specific acts and policies, and are applicable to government owned data, as follows:

Adoption of Open Standards: CIS observes that the draft policy draws on the importance of building information systems for interoperability and greater information accessibility. Interoperability is achieved by appropriate implementation of open standards. Thus, CIS submits that the Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance [6] which establishes the guidelines for usage of open standards to ensure seamless interoperability, and the Implementation Guidelines of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012 [7] should be mentioned in the draft policy.
Adoption of Open Source Software: The Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India states that the "Government of India shall endeavour to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software [8]." As the draft policy proposed to guide the development of information systems to share open data is being developed and implemented both by the Government of Telangana and by other agencies (academic, commercial, and otherwise), it must include an explicit reference and embracing of this mandate for adoption of Open Source Software, for reasons of reducing expenses, avoiding vendor lock-ins, re-usability of software components, enabling public accountability, and greater security of software systems.
Implementation of Open APIs: CIS observes that the draft policy refers to Standard compliant applications in Section 4. CIS suggests that final version of the policy refer to and operationalise the Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India [9]. This will ensure that the openly available data is available to the public, as well as to all the government agencies, in a structured digital format that is easy to consume and use on one hand, and is available for various forms of value addition and innovation on the other. Refer to Official Secrets Act, 1923: The Official Secrets Act penalises a person if he/she "obtains, collects, records or publishes or communicates to other person any secret official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy for which relates to a matter the disclosure of which is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State or friendly relations with foreign States [10]." CIS submits that this Act should be referred to in this context of ensuring non-publication of the aforementioned data.

3.10. Mandate a Participatory Process for Developing the Implementation Guidelines

3.10.1. We highly appreciate and welcome the fact that the draft policy emphasises rapid operationalisation of the policy by mandating that the ITE&C Department will prepare a detailed implementation guideline within 6 months of the notification of this policy, and all state government departments will publish at least 5 high value datasets within the next three months. Just as an addition to this mandate, we would like to propose that it can be suggested that the ITE&C Department undertakes a participatory process, with contributions from both government agencies and non-government actors, to develop this implementation guideline document. We believe that opening up government data in an effective and sustainable manner, for most government agencies, involves a systematic change in how the agency undertakes day-to-day data management practices. Hence, to develop productive and practical implementation guidelines, the ITE&C Department needs to gather insights from the other state government agencies regarding their existing data (and metadata) management practices [11]. Further, participation of the non-government actors in this process is crucial to ensure that the implementation guidelines appropriately identify the high value data sets, that is data sets that should be published on a priority basis.

3.11. Defer the Decision about Roles of Data Owners, Generators, and Controllers

3.11.1. As the draft policy does not specifically define the terms “Data Owners”, “Data Generators”, and “Data Controllers”, and the Section 11 only briefly describes some of the roles of these types of actors, we suggest removal of this discussion and the decision regarding the specific roles and functions of the Data Owners / Generators / Controllers from the draft policy itself. It will be perhaps more appropriate and effective to define these terms, as well as their roles and functions, in the implementation guidelines to be prepared by the ITE&C Department after the notification of the open data policy, since these terms relate directly to the final designing of the implementation process.

3.12. CIS is grateful to the ITE&C Department for this opportunity to provide comments, and would be honoured to provide further assistance on the matter.

Endnotes

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/.

[2] See: http://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf.

[3] See: http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm.

[4] See: http://meity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR313E_10511(1).pdf.

[5] See Section 2 (1) (i) of IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011.

[6] See: https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published%20Documents/Policy_on_Open_Standards_for_e-Governance.pdf.

[7] See: https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP_Implementation_Guidelines_2.2.pdf.

[8] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf.

[9] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Open_APIs_19May2015.pdf.

[10] See: http://www.archive.india.gov.in/allimpfrms/allacts/3314.pdf, Sections 2 (2) and 3 (1) (c).

[11] A similar process was undertaken by the IT Department of the Government of Sikkim when developing the implementation guideline document. The ITE&C Department may consider discussing the matter with the said department to exchange relevant learnings.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/comments-on-the-telangana-state-open-data-policy-2016

Open Data Charter Lead Stewards In-Person Meeting

praskrishna — 2016-08-04T02:21:14Z

Sunil Abraham participated remotely in this meeting which was held in Mexico on July 4 and 5, 2016. The event was organized by Open Data Charter.

The Open Data Charter and Open Data for Development Network

The Open Data Charter (ODC) and the Open Data for Development Network (OD4D) are two highly complementary assets for the open data field. The Charter has developed a sound and widely acceptable set of principles, and is building on its momentum to scale adoption and support implementation. The OD4D Network has brought together a broad range of programming from across the field, providing funding and networking activities, and enabling research and on-the-ground work to take place.

The following were the list of attendees for the meeting in Mexico:

Ania
Enrique
Fabrizio
Fernando
Josema
Martin
Richard S.
Randall
Sanjeev
Canada, UK, Pavel, Sunil.
Pablo

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-data-charter-lead-stewards-in-person-meeting

Submitted Comments on the 'Government Open Data Use License - India'

sinha — 2016-07-26T09:23:48Z

The public consultation process of the draft open data license to be used by Government of India has ended yesterday. Here we share the text of the submission by CIS. It was drafted by Anubha Sinha, Pranesh Prakash, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

The following comments on the 'Government Open Data Use License - India' was drafted by Anubha Sinha, Pranesh Prakash, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and submitted through the MyGov portal on July 25, 2016. The original submission can be found here.

I. Preliminary

This submission presents comments by the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) [1] on the draft Government Open Data Use License - India (“the draft licence”) [2] by the Department of Legal Affairs.
This submission is based on the draft licence released on the MyGov portal on June 27, 2016 [3].
CIS commends the Department of Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India for its efforts at seeking inputs from various stakeholders prior to finalising its open data licence. CIS is thankful for the opportunity to have been a part of the discussion during the framing of the licence; and to provide this submission, in furtherance of the feedback process continuing from the draft licence.

II. Overview

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-governmental organisation engaged in research and policy work in the areas of, inter alia, access to knowledge and openness. This clause-by-clause submission is consistent with CIS’ commitment to safeguarding general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved. Accordingly, the comments in this submission aim to further these principles and are limited to those clauses that most directly have an impact on them.

III. Comments and Recommendations

Name of the Licence: CIS recommends naming the licence “Open Data Licence - India” to reflect the nomenclature already established for similar licences in other nations like the UK and Canada. More importantly, the inclusion of the word ‘use’ in the original name “Government Open Data Use License” is misleading, since the licence permits use, sharing, modification and redistribution of open data.
Change Language on Permissible Use of Data: The draft licence uses the terms “Access, use, adapt, and redistribute,” which are used in UNESCO’s definition of open educational resources, whereas, under the Indian Copyright Act [4], it should cover “reproduction, issuing of copies,” etc. To resolve this difference, we suggest the following language be used: “Subject to the provisions of section 7, all users are provided a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to all rights covered by copyright and allied rights, for the duration of existence of such copyright and allied rights over the data or information.”
Add Section on the Scope of Applicability of the Licence: It will be useful to inform the user of the licence on its applicability. The section may be drafted as: “This licence is meant for public use, and especially by all Ministries, Departments, Organizations, Agencies, and autonomous bodies of Government of India, when publicly disclosing, either proactively or reactively, data and information created, generated, collected, and managed using public funds provided by Government of India directly or through authorized agencies.”
Add Sub-Clause Specifying that the Licence is Agnostic of Mode of Access: As part of the section 4 of the draft licence, titled ‘Terms and Conditions of Use of Data,’ a sub-clause should be added that specifies that users may enjoy all the freedom granted under this licence irrespective of their preferred mode of access of the data concerned, say manually downloaded from the website, automatically accessed via an API, collected from a third party involved in re-sharing of this data, accessed in physical/printed form, etc.
Add Sub-Clause on Non-Repudiability and Integrity of the Published Data: To complement the sub-clause 6.e. that notes that data published under this licence should be published permanently and with appropriate versioning (in case of the published data being updated and/or modified), another sub-clause should be added that states that non-repudiability and integrity of published data must be ensured through application of real/digital signature, as applicable, and checksum, as applicable. This is to ensure that an user who has obtained the data, either in physical or digital form, can effectively identify and verify the the agency that has published the data, and if any parts of the data have been lost/modified in the process of distribution and/or transmission (through technological corruption of data, or otherwise).
Combine Section 6 on Exemptions and Section 7 on Termination: Given that the licence cannot reasonably proscribe access to data that has already been published online, it is suggested that it would be better to simply terminate the application of the licence to that data or information that ought not to have been published for grounds provided under section 8 of the RTI Act, or have been inadvertently published. It should also be noted that section 8 of the RTI Act cannot be “violated” (as stated in Section 6.g. of the draft licence), since it only provides permission for the public authority to withhold information, and does not impose an obligation on them (or anyone else) to do so. The combined clause can read: “Upon determination by the data provider that specific data or information should not have been publicly disclosed for the grounds provided under Section 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the data provider may terminate the applicability of the licence for that data or information, and this termination will have the effect of revocation of all rights provided under Section 3 of this licence.”
It will be our pleasure to discuss these submissions with the Department of Legal Affairs in greater detail, supplement these with further submissions if necessary, and offer any other assistance towards the efforts at developing a national open data licence.

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/.

[2] See: https://www.mygov.in/sites/default/files/mygov_1466767582190667.pdf.

[3] See: https://www.mygov.in/group-issue/public-consultation-government-open-data-use-license-india/.

[4] See: http://www.copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1957.pdf.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/submitted-comments-on-the-government-open-data-use-license-india

Public Consultation for the First Draft of 'Government Open Data Use License - India' Announced

sinha — 2016-06-30T09:41:07Z

The first public draft of the open data license to be used by Government of India was released by the Department of Legal Affairs earlier this week. Comments are invited from general public and stakeholders. These are to be submitted via the MyGov portal by July 25, 2016. CIS was a member of the committee constituted to develop the license concerned, and we contributed substantially to the drafting process.

Please read the call for comments here.

The PDF version of the draft license document can be accessed here.

Comments are to be submitted by July 25, 2016.

Government Open Data Use License - India

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy

Government of India

1. Preamble

Structured data available in open format and open license for public access and use, usually termed as “Open Data,” is of prime importance in the contemporary world. Data also is one of the most valuable resources of modern governance, sharing of which enables various and non-exclusive usages for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. Licenses, however, are crucial to ensure that such data is not misused or misinterpreted (for example, by insisting on proper attribution), and that all users have the same and permanent right to use the data.

The open government data initiative started in India with the notification of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP), submitted to the Union Cabinet by the Department of Science and Technology, on 17th March 2012 [1]. The NDSAP identified the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) as the nodal department for the implementation of the policy through National Informatics Centre, while the Department of Science and Technology continues to be the nodal department on policy matters. In pursuance of the Policy, the Open Government Data Platform India [2] was launched in 2012.

While, the appropriate open formats and related aspects for implementation of the Policy has been defined in the “NDSAP Implementation Guidelines” prepared by an inter- ministerial Task Force constituted by the National Informatics Centre [3], the open license for data sets published under NDSAP and through the OGD Platform remained unspecified till now.

2. Definitions

a. “Data” means a representation of Information, numerical compilations and observations, documents, facts, maps, images, charts, tables and figures, concepts in digital and/or analog form, and includes metadata [4], that is all information about data, and/or clarificatory notes provided by data provider(s), without which the data concerned cannot be interpreted or used [5].

b. “Information” means processed data [6].

c. “Data Provider(s)” means person(s) publishing and providing the data under this license.

d. “License” means this document.

e. “Licensor”means any data provider(s) that has the authority to offer the data concerned under the terms of this licence.

f. “User” means natural or legal persons, or body of persons corporate or incorporate, acquiring rights in the data (whether the data is obtained directly from the licensor or otherwise) under this licence.

g. “Use” includes lawful distribution, making copies, adaptation, and all modification and representation of the data, subject to the provisions of this License.

h. “Adapt” means to transform, build upon, or to make any use of the data by itsre-arrangement or alteration [7].

i. “Redistribute” means sharing of the data by the user, either in original or in adapted form (including a subset of the original data), accompanied by appropriate attribute statement, under the same or other suitable license.

j. “Attribution Statement” means a standard notice to be published by all users of data published under this license, that contains the details of the provider, source, and license of the data concerned [8].

k. “Personal Information” means any Information that relates to a natural person,which, either directly or indirectly, in combination with other Information available or likely to be available with a body corporate, is capable of identifying such person [9].

3. Permissible Use of Data

Subject to the conditions listed under section 7, the user may:

a. Access, use, adapt, and redistribute data published under this license for all lawful and non-exclusive purposes, without payment of any royalty or fee;

b. Apply this license worldwide, and in perpetuity;

c. Access, study, copy, share, adapt, publish, redistribute and transmit the data in any medium or format; and

d. Use, adapt, and redistribute the data, either in itself, or by combining it with other data, or by including it within a product/application/service, for all commercial and/or non-commercial purposes.

4. Terms and Conditions of Use of Data

a. Attribution: The user must acknowledge the provider, source, and license of data by explicitly publishing the attribution statement, including the DOI (Digital Object Identifier), or the URL (Uniform Resource Locator), or the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) of the data concerned.

b. Attribution of Multiple Data: If the user is using multiple data together and/or listing of sources of multiple data is not possible, the user may provide a link to a separate page/list that includes the attribution statements and specific URL/URI of all data used.

c. Non-endorsement: The User must not indicate or suggest in any manner that the data provider(s) endorses their use and/or the user.

d. No Warranty: The data provider(s) are not liable for any errors or omissions, and will not under any circumstances be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage caused by its use or otherwise arising in connection with this license or the data, even if specifically advised of the possibility of such loss, injury or damage. Under any circumstances, the user may not hold the data provider(s) responsible for: i) any error, omission or loss of data, and/or ii) any undesirable consequences due to the use of the data as part of an application/product/service (including violation of any prevalent law).

e. Permanent Disclosure and Versioning: The data provider(s) will ensure that a data package once published under this license will always remain publicly available for reference and use. If an already published data is updated by the provider, then the earlier appropriate version(s) must also be kept publicly available with accordance with the archival policy of the National Informatics Centre.

f. Continuity of Provision:The data provider(s) will strive for continuously updating the data concerned, as new data regarding the same becomes available. However, the data provider(s) do not guarantee the continued supply of updated or up-to-date versions of the data, and will not be held liable in case the continued supply of updated data is not provided.

5. Template for Attribution Statement

Unless the user is citing the data using an internationally accepted data citation format [10], an attribution notice in the following format must be explicitly included:

“Data has been published by [Name of Data Provider] and sourced from Open Government Data (OGD) Platform of India: [Name of Data]. ([date of Publication: dd/mm/yyyy]) .[DOI / URL / URI]. Published under Open Government Data License - India: [URL of Open Data License – India].”

For example, “Data has been published by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and sourced from Open Government Data (OGD) Platform of India: Overall Balance of Payments. (08/09/2015). https://data.gov.in/catalog/overall-balance-payments. Published under Open Government Data License - India: [URL of Open Data License - India].”

6. Exemptions

The license does not grant the right to access, use, adapt, and redistribute the following kinds of data:

a. Personal information;

b. Data that the data provider(s) is not authorised to licence;

c. Names, crests, logos and other official symbols of the data provider(s);

d. Data subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade-marks and official marks;

e. Military insignia;

f. Identity documents; and

g. Any data publication of which may violate section 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005 11.

7. Termination

a. Failure to comply with stipulated terms and conditions will cause the user’s rights under this license to end automatically.

b. Where the user’s rights to use data have terminated under the aforementioned clauses or any other Indian law, it reinstates:

i. automatically, as of the date the violation is cured, provided it is cured within 30 days of the discovery of the violation; or

ii. upon express reinstatement by the Licensor.

c. For avoidance of doubt, this section does not affect any rights the licensor may have to seek remedies for violation of this license.

8. Dispute Redressal Mechanism

This license is governed by Indian law, and the copyright of any data shared under this license vests with the licensor, under the Indian Copyright Act.

9. Endnotes

[1] Ministry of Science and Technology. 2012. National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) 2012. Gazette of India. March 17. http://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf.

[2] See: https://data.gov.in/.

[3] See section 3.2 of the Implementation Guidelines for National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) Version 2.2. https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP_Implementation_Guidelines_2.2.pdf.

[4] See section 2.1 of NDSAP 2012.

[5] See section 2.6 of NDSAP 2012.

[6] See section 2.7 of NDSAP 2012.

[7] See section 2 (a) of Indian Copyright Act 1957. http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1957.pdf.

[8] The template of the attribution statement is given in section 5 of the license.

[9] See section 2 (i) of Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011. http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR313E_10511%281%29.pdf.

[10]For example, those listed in the DOI Citation Formatter tool developed by DataCite, CrossRef and others: http://crosscite.org/citeproc/.

[11] See: http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/public-consultation-for-the-first-draft-of-government-open-data-use-license-india-announced

Comments on the National Geospatial Policy (Draft, V.1.0), 2016

sumandro — 2016-06-30T09:40:59Z

The Department of Science and Technology published the first public draft of the National Geospatial Policy (v.1.0) on May 05, 2016, and invited comments from the public. CIS submitted the following comments in response. The comments were authored by Adya Garg, Anubha Sinha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

1. Preliminary

1.1. This submission presents comments and recommendations by the Centre for Internet and Society ("CIS") on the proposed draft of the National Geospatial Policy 2016 ("the draft Policy / the draft NGP") [1]. This submission is based on Version 1.0 of the draft Policy released by the Department of Science and Technology ("DST") on May 5, 2016.

1.2. CIS commends the DST under the aegis of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, for its efforts at seeking inputs from various stakeholders to draft a National Geospatial Policy. CIS is thankful for this opportunity to provide a clause-by-clause submission.

2. The Centre for Internet and Society

2.1. The Centre for Internet and Society, CIS, [2] is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfiguration of social processes and structures through the internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.

2.2. This submission is consistent with CIS’ commitment to safeguarding general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved. The comments in this submission aim to further the principle of citizens’ right to information, instituting openness-by-default in governmental activities, and the various kinds of public goods that can emerge from greater availability of open (geospatial) data created by both public and private agencies and crucially, by the citizens. The submission is limited to those clauses that most directly have an impact on these principles.

3. Comments and Recommendations

This section presents comments and recommendations directed at the draft policy as a whole, and in certain places, directed at specific clauses of the draft policy.

3.1. The draft policy should make references to five policies applicable to geospatial data, products, services, and solutions

3.1.1. CIS observes that the draft policy lists the key policies related to geospatial information and sharing of government data, namely the National Map Policy 2005, the Civil Aviation Requirement 2012, the Remote Sensing Data Policy 2011 and 2012, and the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy 2012 (“NDSAP”).

3.1.2. CIS submits that apart from the policies mentioned above, Geospatial Data,Products, Services and Solutions (“GDPSS”) are also intricately linked to concepts of “open standards,” “open source software,” “open API,” “right to information,” and prohibited places” These concepts are governed by specific acts and policies, and are applicable to geospatial data, as follows:

Adoption of Open Standards: CIS observes that the draft policy captures the importance of open standards in the section 1.4 of the draft policy. It states that “A very high resolution and highly accurate framework to function as a national geospatial standard for all geo-referencing activity through periodically updated National Geospatial Frame [NGF] and National Image Frame [NIF] by ensuring open standards based seamless interoperable geospatial data.”

CIS submits that the Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance [3] which establishes the Guidelines for usage of open standards to ensure seamless interoperability, and the Implementation Guidelines of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012 [4] listing two key open standards for geospatial data - KML and GML, should be mentioned in the draft policy.

CIS recommends that the final version of the NGP embrace open standards as a key principle of all software projects and infrastructures within the purview of the Policy. This is essential for easier sharing and reuse of open (geospatial) data.
Adoption of Open Source Software: The Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India states that the “Government of India shall endeavour to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organisations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software” [5]. As the draft policy proposed to guide the development of GDPSS being developed and implemented both by the Government of India and by other agencies (academic, commercial, and otherwise), it must include an explicit reference and embracing of this mandate for adoption of Open Source Software, for reasons of reducing expenses, avoiding vendor lock-ins, re-usability of software components, enabling public accountability, and greater security of software systems.
Implementation of Open APIs: To actualise the stated principle to “[e]nable promotion, adoption and implementation of emerging / state of the art technologies” as well as to ensure the “[a]vailability of all geospatial data collected through public funded mechanism to all users,” CIS suggests that final version of the NGP must refer to and operationalise the Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India [6]. This will ensure that the openly available geospatial data is available to the public, as well as to all the government agencies, in a structured digital format that is easy to consume and use on one hand, and is available for various forms of value addition and innovation on the other.
Right to Information Act 2005: The framework for reactive disclosure of information and data collected and held by the Government of India, as well as the basis for proactive disclosure of the same, is enshrined in the Right to Information Act 2005 [7]. The draft NGP, CIS proposes, should refer to this Act, and ensure that whenever an Indian citizen request for such government data and/or information that is of geospatial in nature, and the requested data and/or information is both shareable and non-sensitive, the citizen must be provided with the geospatial data and/or information in an open standard and under open license, as applicable.
Refer to Official Secrets Act, 1923: The Official Secrets Act defines “Prohibited Places” and prohibits all activities involving “sketch, plan, model, or note which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly; or indirectly, useful to an enemy or (c) obtains collects, records or publishes or communicates to any other person any secret official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy” [8]. This provides the fundamental legal basis for regulation, expunging, and stopping circulation of geospatial data containing information about Vulnerable Points and Vulnerable Areas. CIS submits that this Act should be referred to in this context of ensuring non-publication of sensitive geospatial data (that is geospatial data related to Prohibited Places).

3.2. Grant adequate permissions to the public to re-use geospatial data

3.2.1. CIS observes that section 1.4 of the draft policy states that, “Geospatial data of any resolution being disseminated through agencies and service providers, both internationally and nationally be treated as unclassified and made available and accessible by Indian Mapping and imaging agencies.”

3.2.2. CIS recommends the abovementioned section be broadened to include not only availability and accessibility of geospatial data, but also its re-use. Further, such accessibility, availability and re-use should not be only limited to public and private entities such as Indian mapping and imaging agencies, but as well as to Indian people in general.

3.2.3. CIS further submits that section 1.4 be revised as “[g]eospatial data of any resolution being disseminated through agencies and service providers, both internationally and nationally be treated as unclassified and made available, accessible, and reusable by Indian mapping and imaging agencies in particular, and by the people of India in general.”

3.3. Ensure Open Access to shareable and non-sensitive geospatial data

3.3.1. CIS observes that the draft policy directs all “geospatial data generating agencies” to classify their data into “open access,” “registered access,” and “restricted access.” The document, however, neither defines “geospatial data generating agencies”, nor does it clarify what conditions the data must satisfy to be classified as one of the three types. Without a listing of such conditions (at least necessary, and not sufficient, conditions), nothing restricts the agencies from classifying all generated geospatial data as “restricted.”

3.3.2. Further, CIS observes that the draft policy aims to provide geospatial data acquired through public funded mechanism to be made available to the public at free of cost. It is submitted that the policy should not only be made available for free of cost, but it should also be made available in open standard format under an open license.

3.3.3. As defined in the section 1.3, the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (“NDSAP”) applies to “all shareable non-sensitive data available either in digital or analog forms but generated using public funds” [9]. Clearly all shareable [10] and non-sensitive [11] geospatial data, either in digital or analog forms, and generated using public funds should be proactively disclosed by the government agency concerns in accordance to the NDSAP. CIS recommends that the draft policy makes an explicit reference to NDSAP when discussing the topic of Open Access geospatial data, and re-iterates the mandate of proactive publication of shareable and non-sensitive government data.

3.3.4. Further, the process for defining an open government data license to be applied to all open government data sets being published under the NDSAP, and through the Open Government Data Platform India, is in progress. Given this, it is absolutely crucial important that the draft NGP takes this into consideration, and mandates that Open Access geospatial data must be published using the open government data license to be defined by the Implementation Guidelines of the NDSAP, when applicable.

3.4. Lack of clarity regarding the clearances and permits required for data acquisition and dissemination, and the procedures thereof

3.4.1. Section 1.8 of the draft policy states that “[a]ll clearances / permits, as necessary, for data acquisition and dissemination be through a single window, online portal. These clearances be provided within a time span of 30 days of filing the online request.” CIS observes that the draft policy does not specify the kind of clearances/permits needed before a public or private entity, or an individual, can undertake acquisition and dissemination of geospatial data. It neither clarifies under what circumstances and conditions application for such clearance / permits would be required for users.

3.4.2. Since the recently published draft Geospatial Information Regulation Bill (“GIRB”) 2016, directly addresses this topic of clearance / permit required to acquire and share geospatial information [12], it will be effective if the NGP can refer to this Bill and provide an overall governance framework for the same. Further, CIS noted that the time span of 30 days mentioned in the draft policy is inconsistent with the time period specified in the GIRB (which is 90 days).

3.4.3. CIS recommends that the draft policy also be amended suitably to include the circumstances and conditions under which required permissions shall be issued. Accordingly, the draft policy should reference the standardised and time bound security vetting process envisaged in the GIRB.

3.5. Clarification Needed regarding “Cybersecurity is to be ensured through … use of Digital Watermarks for authentication of GDPSS”

3.5.1. CIS submits that the draft policy does not elaborate on the use of “Digital Watermarks” to ensure cybersecurity, neither it is explained who will authenticate GDPSS, under what conditions, and for what reasons. CIS recommends that the draft policy be amended suitably to specify the same.

3.6. Remove Classification of Non-Public (at Present) Satellite / Aerial Imagery as Restricted by Default

3.6.1. CIS observes that the draft policy recommends that “[s]atellite/aerial images of resolution other than those currently made available on websites” should all be “classified for restricted access.”

3.6.2. CIS submits that blanket categorisation of all satellite / aerial imagery of resolution that is not currently available through a public website (for whatever reason it might be) as “restricted access” should be re-evaluated, given the immense importance of such imagery to mapping agencies and industry participants using GDPSS.

3.6.3. CIS recommends that the section be revised to define clear principles for defining satellite /aerial imagery as “open,” “registered,” and “restricted.”

3.7. Governance of User-contributed Geospatial Data

3.7.1. A key resource and feature of contemporary geospatial industry in particular, and the digital economy in general, is the proliferation of user-contributed and user-generated geospatial data and information. CIS observes that this crucial topic, as well as the unique governance concerns that it raises, has not been addressed in the draft policy at all. CIS requests the DST to consider this matter with due attention to the specific nature and values of such user-contributed and user-generated in the digital economy on one hand, and in emergency contexts such as natural disasters on the other, and prepare a framework for its appropriate governance as part of the NGP itself.

3.8. Protect Geospatial Privacy of Citizens by Defining Sensitive Personal Geospatial Data and Information

3.8.1. CIS observes that the draft policy lacks rules for collection, use, storage, and distribution of geospatial data from an individual’s privacy standpoint. Further, neither does the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 address these concerns [13]. Section 3 of the Rules define “Sensitive personal data or information”, which do not include geospatial information.

3.8.2. The argument of violation of constitutional right to privacy was pleaded in a case against Google and other private mapping agencies in 2008 [14]. In the judgment, Madras HIgh Court noted that there existed no legislation/guidelines to prohibit mapping programmes from conducting their activities indiscriminately, and the lack of one thereof prevented the Court from injuncting such activities. Thus, there exists a judicial ambiguity on the aspect of collection and use of geospatial data.

3.8.3. CIS submits that the draft policy may be suitably amended to ensure that collection, processing and dissemination of geospatial information is in consonance with the constitutionally protection of an individual’s privacy.

3.9. Clarification Needed regarding “Mechanisms to be put in place to evaluate / audit GDPSS creation, consumption and distribution”

3.9.1. The draft policy suggests that “mechanisms to be put in place to evaluate/audit GDPSS creation, consumption and distribution” without clarifying the scope, purpose, and purview of this mechanism, and most crucially it does not describe what exactly will be evaluated / audited. CIS submits that this section is revised and expanded.

3.9.2. The same section also identifies the need for a “framework to be put in place to assess the data collection versus its utilization towards government program and socio-economic development.” CIS observes that this is a very promising and much welcome gesture by the DST, but this section must be developed as a separate and detailed mandate. At the least, the NGP may suggest that a more detailed guideline document regarding this framework will be developed in near future.

3.10. Data Taxation and Geospatial Cess

3.10.1. The draft policy refers to imposition of “data taxation (geospatial cess)” and use of “licensing” of geospatial data to raise money for geospatial activities of the Government of India. CIS is of the opinion will severely affect the geospatial industry in the country in particular, and will raise the monetary barrier to public use of geospatial data and maps in general; and hence must be strictly avoided.

3.11. Data Dissemination Cell

3.11.1. CIS submits that instead of development of a separate Data Dissemination Cell within all government agencies to operationalise the mandate of the NGP, the Chief Data Officers within all government agencies identified under the implementation process of the NDSAP be given this complementary responsibility. This would ensure effective channelisation of human and financial resources to take forward the joint mandate of NGP and NDSAP towards greater public availability and use of (shareable and non-sensitive) government data.

3.12. Special Infrastructure for Governance, Management, and Publication of Real-time Geospatial Data

3.12.1. A key term that the draft policy does not talk about is “big data.” The static or much-slowly-changing geospatial data such as national boundaries and details of Vulnerable Points and Vulnerable Areas are really a very small part of of the global geospatial information. The much larger and crucial part is the real-time (that is continuously produced, stored, analysed, and used in almost real-time) big geospatial data – from geo-referenced tweets, to GPS systems of cars, to mobile phones moving through the cities and regions. Addressing such networked data systems, where all data collected by digital devices can quite easily be born-georeferenced, and the security and privacy concerns that are engendered by them, should be the ultimate purpose of, and challenge for, a future-looking NGP.

3.12.2. Further, with increasing number of government assets being geo-referenced for the purpose of more effective and real-time management, especially in the transportation sector, the corresponding agencies (which are often not mapping agencies) are acquiring a vast amount of high-velocity geospatial data, which needs to be analysed and (sometimes) published in the real-time. CIS submits a sincere request to DST to highlight the crucial need for special infrastructure for such data, as well as its governance, and identify the key principles concerned in the next version of the draft NGP.

3.13. Sincere Request for Preparation and Circulation of a Second Public Draft of the National Geospatial Policy

3.13.1. CIS commends the DST for publishing the draft policy, and facilitating a consultation process inviting stakeholders and civil society to submit feedback. The NGP envisages to address crucial concepts of privacy, licensing, intellectual property rights, liability, national security, open data, which cut across and impact various technology platforms, industries and the citizens.

3.13.2. In view of the multifarious issues highlighted that arise at the intersection of various legal and ethical concepts, CIS respectfully requests the DST to conduct another round of consultation after the publication of the second draft of the NGP. Multiple rounds of consultation and feedback would contribute to the robustness of the lawmaking process and ensure that the final policy safeguards the general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved.

3.13.3. CIS is thankful to DST for the opportunity to provide comments, and would be privileged to provide further assistance on the matter to DST.

Endnotes

[1] See: http://www.dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/Draft-NGP-Ver%201%20ammended_05May2016.pdf.

[2] See: http://cis-india.org/.

[3] See: https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published%20Documents/Policy_on_Open_Standards_for_e-Governance.pdf.

[4] See: http://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf.

[5] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf.

[6] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Open_APIs_19May2015.pdf.

[7] See: http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm.

[8] See: http://www.archive.india.gov.in/allimpfrms/allacts/3314.pdf, sections 2(d) and 3(b).

[9] See: https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf.

[10] See section 2.11 of NDSAP.

[11] See section 2.10 of NDSAP.

[12] See: http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/GeospatialBill_05052016_eve.pdf.

[13] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR313E_10511%281%29.pdf.

[14] J. Mohanraj v (1) Secretary To Government, Delhi; (2) Indian Space Research Organisation, Bangalore; (3) Google India Private Limited, Bangalore, 2008 Indlaw MAD 3562.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/comments-on-the-national-geospatial-policy-draft-v-1-0-2016

Protecting the Territory, Killing the Map

sumandro — 2016-05-17T10:37:14Z

The politics of making and using maps in India has taken a sudden and complex turn with the publication of the draft Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016. Contrary to the expectations arising out of several government schemes that are promoting the development of the new digital economy in India – from start-ups to the ongoing expansion of connectivity network – the Bill seems to be undoing various economic and humanitarian efforts, and other opportunities involving maps. This article by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Adya Garg was published by The Wire on May 16, 2016.

Published by and cross-posted from The Wire.

The global history of cartography is intimately linked with political needs and economic interests, from the public depiction of sovereign territories to navigating treacherous seas to (wrongly) ‘discover’ the land of spices. In India, the politics of making and using maps has taken a sudden and complex turn with the publication of the draft Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016. Contrary to the expectations arising out of several government schemes that are promoting the development of the new digital economy in India – from start-ups to the ongoing expansion of connectivity network – the Bill seems to be undoing various economic and humanitarian efforts, and other opportunities involving maps, by imposing strict guidelines and harsh penalties on the use of maps by private actors, commercial or otherwise.

The introductory note to the Bill clearly states its primary objective is to ensure the protection of ‘security, sovereignty and integrity of India.’ The concern around ‘security’ is not new when it comes to regulating cartographic activities. It is prominently addressed across the current set of policies and guidelines that govern mapping in India: 1) the National Map Policy, 2005 (“NMP”) and associated guidelines issued by the Survey of India, 2) the Remote Sensing Data Policy, 2011 that regulates satellite-based mapping, and 3) the Civil Aviation Requirement, 2012, which regulates mapping and photography using flights and drones. Protection of ‘sovereignty and integrity,’ however, does not find a mention in any of these map-related policies.

There have of course been several incidents where the government has taken steps (including the temporary blocking of service) against companies that have represented Indian national boundaries that are not in accordance with official maps. Such companies include Google, The Economist, and Al Jazeera. Two companies that have gotten away with no consequences after publicly showing maps of India without certain border regions, interestingly, are Facebook and CCTV.

In the absence of such provisions in the existing map-related policies, thus far, the government has pursued legal action against such ‘anti-national’ depiction of Indian territory under Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (restricting the collection and sharing of information about ‘prohibited places’), the Customs Act, 1962 (prohibiting the export and import of certain maps), and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1990.

Though this present Bill has come into public attention rather suddenly, the Indian State has been planning for a comprehensive legal framework for both enabling and restricting mapping, since the coming of the NMP itself. The first avatar of this effort was the Indian Survey Act that was heard about in 2007, but was never made public. More recently, the first report towards the National Geospatial Information Policy (now called the National Geospatial Policy) came out in 2012. Instead of waiting for this comprehensive policy to be discussed and notified, the Bill seems to have come in a hurry to propose a narrowly designed legal instrument. As is often the problem with such precise devices that also want to be exhaustive, the Bill promises much more collateral damage than actual solutions – it ends up killing the map in the name of protecting the territory.

A quick look at case law on map-related disputes informs us about the motivations of the state in enacting this Bill. A major controversy around ‘sovereignty’ in the field of mapping has been about the depiction of international boundaries of India by Google. After several incidents of conflicts between Google’s map makers and the Indian State regarding the depiction of India’s national boundary, the Survey of India filed a police complaint in 2014. As a result, Google presently shows different map tiles to users from India (according to the boundary specified by the Indian State) and different tiles to users from elsewhere. This geo-targeted solution to the depiction of international borders under dispute has been practiced by Google in the case of other countries too, most notably for Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ukraine and (independent) Crimea.

The internal security concerns have also fuelled conflicts with mapping companies. In 2013, the ‘mapathon’ organised by Google faced a lawsuit for not asking for prior permission from the Survey of India for this exercise in user-contributed mapping. This was preceded by a petition filed by J. Mohanraj in the Madras High Court seeking a complete ban on the Google Earth and Bhuvan (run by ISRO) map applications on the ground that they were both providing information that could be used for planning acts of terror. The petitioner’s argument referred to the provisions of the NMP, and also alleged that such mapping practices violated the individual rights of a person under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court, however, held (2008) that the petitioner was unable to produce any specific “Guidelines/Rules/Law laid down by the Central/State Governments, prohibiting the private organisations or any other individuals to Interactive Mapping Program, covering vast majority of the Planet”.

The trouble with Google re-opened earlier this year as the Pathankot air base was attacked. Incidentally, Vishal Saini, the winner of the 2013 mapathon by Google, contributed to mapping the features of the very same city. Promptly after the attack in January, Lokesh Kumar Sharma filed a case in the Delhi High Court alleging that the availability of sensitive information (from an internal security point-of-view) on Google Maps created security vulnerabilities. In a rather curious manner, the court disposed of the case on February 24, claiming that it has learned from the Additional Solicitor General that ‘steps are in progress to regulate the publication of aerial/satellite geospatial data.’ In hindsight, we see that this was in reference to the draft Bill.

This Bill, evidently, is a product of the Indian State’s inefficient attempts at regulating the making and circulation of maps and geospatial data in digital times. The Bill ends up disregarding the actual features of digital geospatial data and how it forms a fundamental basis (and asset) for today’s digital economy, and, instead, decides to settle for a form of regulation that is much better suited (if at all) to a pre-digital and pre-liberalisation condition. The regulatory measures proposed by the Bill do not only cause worry but also bewilderment. Take for example Section 3 that states that ‘no person shall acquire geospatial imagery or data including value addition of any part of India’ without being expressly given permission for the same or being vetted by the nodal agency set up by the Bill. If implemented strictly, this may mean that you will have to ask for permission and/or security vetting before dropping a pin on the map and sharing your coordinates with your friend or a taxi service. Both involve creating/acquiring geospatial information, and potentially adding value to the map/taxi service as well.

Let’s take an even more bizarre hypothetical situation – the Security Vetting Agency being asked to go through the entire geospatial data chest of Google everyday (or as soon as it is updated) and it taking up to ‘ three months from the date of receipt’ of the data to complete this checking so that Google Maps can tell you how crowded a particular street was three months ago.

Further, a key term that the Bill does not talk about is ‘big data.’ The static or much-slowly-changing geospatial data such as national boundaries and which-military-institute-is-located-where are really the tiny minority of the global geospatial information. The much larger and crucial part is of course the fast-moving big geospatial data – from geo-referenced tweets, to GPS systems of cars, to mobile phones moving through the cities and regions. Addressing such networked data systems, where all data can quite easily be born-georeferenced, and the security and privacy concerns that are engendered by them, should be the ultimate purpose of, and challenge for, a future-looking Geospatial Information Regulation Act.

The present Bill imposes an undesirable bureaucratic structure of licenses and permits upon the GIS industry in the country in particular, and on all sections of the economy using networked devices in general. This will only end up restricting the size of the GIS industry to a few dominant players. For all creators and users of maps for non-commercial, developmental, and humanitarian interests, this Bill appears to be an imminent threat, even if it is never actually applied.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/protecting-the-territory-killing-the-map