The Left Front thinks it is time the United Progressive Alliance government at the centre transforms its concerns about public security and clauses contained in the common minimum programme into action.
The Left also solicited the use of free software for issues of public utility like weather forecasts, train schedules and other such data.
Communist Party of India-Marxist Politburo member Sitaram Yechuri said here today on the sidelines of a seminar on free software organised by West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited, "The Left feels it is time to implement some of the concerns the Prime Minister voiced in his speech and also be more proactive about the people-friendly policies in the common minimum programme."
Speaking about rising oil prices, Yechuri said that there were no subsidies were being paid by the government.
"If the government imposes taxes and then revokes them, it is not subsidising a commodity," he said. Yechuri spoke at length about the need to legitimise and legalise knowledge as a commodity, yet did not directly suggest that any state government should actually endorse free software policies.
He put stress on the need to introduce free software in the Indian education system.
Debesh Das, state information technology minister, said that though the West Bengal government would not oppose the operations of any individual or company for use of proprietary software, it would consider using open source software as the default exploitation route for the state government-funded infrastructure in e-governance.
"We would not like to oppose any business group, but like any individual, we have the natural tendency to opt for software that is cheap, flexible, modifiable, and at the same time, technically sound," Das said.
Richard M Stallman, president, Free Software Foundation, cautioned that governments should not consider cheap prices while choosing software for purposes of all round development of society.
"While free software is a movement in the area of globalisation of human knowledge, namely software, proprietary software is like electronic colonisation that keeps users divided and helpless. This in turn, helps owners of proprietary software maintain their rule," Stallman said.
In a more direct attack on Microsoft, Stallman said, "Microsoft can offer good deals to governments to gain their support. They offer software for free for school students, but the software is never gratis after that stage. Once governments agree to such deals, they are actually selling the development of their regions as their technology do not allow users to modify or understand the coding of the software, which in turn, restricts development."