[Reader-list] WB Government ties up with Microsoft

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

I am writing this in response to the recent postings on the list regarding 
the issue of petitioning the West Bengal government to consider free software 
as an alternative to Microsoft.

Let us suppose that the honourable minsiters and bureaucrats who run the 
Government of West Bengal made a deal to run Linux instead of Microsoft, on 
their 'e governance' projects, would this make a difference to the quality of 
life of the citizens and subjects of west bengal, and would it make a 
difference to their 'freedom' . 

If this be the case, then the people of Mexico and China (whose governments 
enthusiastically push Linux) would have felt 'freer' than in the era when 
microsoft products were used in government computers. Reports from Mexcio and 
from China do not indicate a significant increase in the well being and 
freedom of the inhabitants of Mexico or China in the 'post Linux' era.

Free software happens to run more cheaply and in many cases, more efficiently 
than propeitary software, which is why it makes sense for state governments 
to go in for it. But this is not a socially adequate reason , in my opinion, 
for free software activists to be in bed with state governments. IF they 
decide to do so, then it must be seen as an  expression ofthe (legitmate) 
self interest of free software programmers, to advance their expertise and 
their skills to a big client, not in the interests of society at large. These 
two (the implications of free software for the particular interests of 
programmers and the general interests of society must be seen as distinct)

The philosphical and ethical case for free software rests in its contrariness 
(not always opposition) to the commercial imperative and to any restrictions 
on knowledge. In inisisting that code, be something that is not bough, sold 
or imprisoned, the practitioners of free software suggest the possibility of 
building new (non commodified) relationships of exchange between ourselves 
and the products of our labour, as well as a new configuration of the meaning 
of value. That is a lot, but that is also all there is to it. 

The state on the other hand, rests on the protection that law gives to some 
to extort more value from the labour of others. At the heart of each organ of 
the state is its impilcit recognition that force must maintain the unequal 
relations of labour and those that benefit from labour.

To give an example, if tomorrow, those who run a particular state decide that 
the free exchange of code is an offence that denies it of revenue  and 
corporation X of profit then there is nothing that any free software activist 
can do about this. It will carry with it the force of judicial violence and 
the fiction of the will of the people.This protection has the force of 
socially legitimized violence  (also known as the police, the military and 
state paramilitaries and the prison system) behind it, and the manifest 
fiction of representative democracy as a screen in front of it.

(thats the deal - the market is the milk from which the cream of revenue can 
be skimmed by the strong man who controls the thugs with sticks who police 
the fairground - the strong man and the men with sticks are the state and the 
fairground is the market. The market men need the state to ensure that they 
can squeeze, buy and sell labour and its products, and the state needs the 
market men to get to the cream)

Will the adoption of Linux machines for e governance carry with it for 
instance any checks and balances to ensure that freedom of information is not 
compromised in the state of west bengal, will it bring with it the power to 
scrutinize how and in which instances the managements of jute mills in the 
neighbourhood of calcutta resort to police measures to control a restive 
workforce? Any thing that makes an oppressive machinery run with greater 
efficiency must be resisted by anyone interested in enlarging the scope of 
human freedom. The government of west bengal, like any governement anywhere 
in the world, rests on the daily humiliation of all its citizens and 
subjects, anything that contributes to its power should be resisted. 

Whatever is valuable in free software, IMHO, gets immediately compromised 
when we offer "free software" as the panacea for bad governance. Governance 
will be governance, no matter what you do it with. The radio for instance, 
which has a great democratic cultural potential also was the greatest means 
of fascist propaganda in the twentieth century. The printing press was as 
instrumental in spreading lies as it was in telling the truth. It all depends 
on who has the machine and the code in their hands. One of the key functions 
of the modern state is the centralization and control of information, the 
creation of databanks and immense registers that track the lives of citizens 
and subjects. The history of computing and computing corporations is replete 
with instances in which the computing power of corporations and the computing 
necessities of the state led to several marriages of convenience, this 
hallowed list includes IBMs close relationship to the calcualtion 
requirements for sustaining a system of prison labour in Nazi germany.

I am sure others can give other examples. Information in the hands of the 
state has almost always been dangerous for the citizens, that is why the most 
sinister organs of state power are given the task of information processing 
and intelligence gathering. The relationship between Information Technology 
and the States apparatus has always been one that led to more prisons, more 
laws, more censorship and more weapons of mass destruction. The liberatory  
potential of Information Technology can be realised only when it is not 
reduced to be the ghost in the machine of the state, or the 






I would argue that proponents of free software do everything within their 
means to actively encourage the usage of free software in those contexts that 
are independent of the state and of market forces. Where such spaces do not 
exist, or are feeble, they must join hands with others to create and sustain 
such spaces no matter what the cost. Appealing to the state to run on Linux 
is the easy option of inviting ones own executioner into ones home.

The attempt to petition the state in favour of free software carries with it 
the pathetic baggage of 'urging the state to act in the interests of its 
subjects' and suggests that the free software movement in India has a long 
way  to go in understanding the dynamics of state power. The state as an 
instrument of class power is not and cannot be a democratic insturment, no 
matter how populist its stated agenda.

And frankly, I find the search for , more or less, 'patriotic' software, 
which is 'more' or 'less' suitable for the security of the state, pathetic, 
to say the least. It is nothing less than totally myopic to suggest that code 
should serve as the frontier checkposts of nation states.

While I am all in favour of constant compaigning and vigilance to ensure that 
the few paltry liberties of citizens and others in any state are not 
encroached upon, I find it intriguing to contemplate the spectacle of the 
champions of liberty and freedom  in the free software movement wanting to 
participate in the further control over peoples lives through 'e governance'.

e governance sucks no matter what you do it with - microsoft or linux !

Yours in Dismay

Shuddha