Join hands in opposing Microsoft's "Letter of Intent" with Government of Karnataka. 

Microsoft has for long ignored issues relating to Kannada on their Operating Systems. Despite several movements, campaigns to bring the issues to Microsoft's attention, things have just been the same. What more? To push its own standards and grab monopoly, Microsoft has signed a "Letter of Intent" with Government of Karnataka recently.

Implications? many! One serious implication would be Microsoft getting an unfair edge in the state despite its sheer negligence towards Kannada language.

To log a protest, please sign this document and send them by fax or Post to these addresses.

Please Note:-   As government offices do not care much about emails, it is better to send this petition via normal post or by fax and for reference send an email too. 

You are free to change the content of the petition addressed to Honourable Chief Minister to your preference.

Also, we request all petitioners to email us at savekannada@gmail.com once the petition is dispatched. This will help us assess the difference we've all made.

More information and Links:

• Comments on MSDN Blog [blogs.msdn.com]
  

• A letter written by K P Purnachandra Tejasvi about Project Shiksha. [ellakavi]

• Article by N A M Ismail on Sampada [text In Kannada] [sampada.net]
  

• News: Chandrashekhar Kambar logs a protest against Government's deal with Microsoft. [prajavani]

• Article: Language Impediments to E-Governance - Problems and Solutions [vishvakannada] 

What's wrong with Kannada on Microsoft's operating  systems?

• Indic Unicode issues on Windows XP. [baraha.com]
• Kannada related issues on Windows Vista. [sampada.net - text in Kannada]

Open your eyes:

• Why India and States in India should look at open source software as the only software platform. [egov India Wordpress Blog]

• eGovernance issues [egov India Wordpress Blog]

•  Approach Document for The Linux India Initiative by The Government of India [atulchitnis.net]
  

• An Interview with ECIS's Thomas Vinje on the EU Microsoft Decision [groklaw.net]

• Anti trust lawsuits against microsoft and their judgements [europa.eu]

• Kerala logs Microsoft out [financial express]
•  Concerns on implementation of Bangalore-One project [egovindia.wordpress.com]
•  Open Systems for e-Government in Developing and Transition Countries [worldbank.org]
• E-GOVERNANCE: 20 Hot eGov Projects in India. [ciol.com]
• WorldBank View.[worldbank.org]

From the pages of History:

 During the cold war between US and Russia, US planted logic bombs in software sold to the Russians to control their oil pipeline valves. Russia at a pre-determined time the logic bombs embedded in the control systems opened valves that should have been closed. It flooded out a lot of oil costing the Russians a lot of money in both loss of resource and clean-up efforts. Following links give more inputs on this issue. 

Is this is not enough to awaken ourselves about the security risk? Does it not explain inherent insecurity of running sensitive government data on a proprietary OS provided by a foreign company? 

•    Logic Bomb
  

•   'Logic bomb' arms race panics Russia

•   Tech sabotage during the Cold War 

More stuff:

•  Bank of India site hacked, serves up 22 exploits

• Find them using Microsoft solutions ;)

•  Bank of India Hack Exposed In Video 

•  Hacked Bank of India Site Labeled Trustworthy 

  •   Exploit Prevention Labs Blog report 
    

To change the contents on this page and to help in 

rectifying any errors and also volunteers interested

to join hands with us in various stages of this 

campaign please do Send us an E-Mail here.