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Malaysian Prime Minister gets feedback via the Internet (and isn’t OSS friendly)

Posted on 2/3/2008, 5:44 am, by Colin Charles, under Current Issues, FLOSSAdvocacy, New Media, Web.

It seems that Badawi has caught on the Internet trend. Malaysians can now send their gripes, suggestions, and comments to the Prime Minister, via the Warkah untuk PM website.

Warkah untuk PM

Comment to t he Prime Minister in all four languages

The Star reports that it was the DPM, Najib, who had to launch the website. Whats interesting is that each message from with public will get a response from Abdullah, according to Najib. Does this mean that the sleeping PM will now spend all his waking hours responding to email? I highly doubt it. More interestingly, creative and innovative ideas, by the first hundred submitters, will ensure you get to visit the PM. Its gotten the blogosphere talking.

What I don’t get? They fear public debate, seeing that there’s easy comparison now with the American elections, yet they are interested in hearing public gripes and responding to them?

On open source friendliness…
What pisses me off? The website is running Windows Server 2003, on IIS/6.0. This is even more a waste of public money for a site that is simply a feedback form.

In comparison to the open source friendly, DAP, PKR, and PAS. I’m impressed, they all run Linux, save for the latter, in where PAS runs FreeBSD with the Suhosin-Patched PHP. All served up via Apache HTTPD, and DAP has got a smattering of lighttpd even.

For what it is worth, Barisan Nasional’s website, bn2008, is also running Windows Server 2003 and IIS/6.0. Disgusting.

If they can waste your ringgit on buying proprietary software licenses, when there are clearly open source alternatives, can you trust them with spending and budgeting for a country?

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  • @piju: thanks

    @biatch0: funny as always ;)

    @wk woon/doubleukay: How can the OSS industry not be government friendly? We're always willing to help, and work alongside many folk, all the time. Pity, its not only the microsite, but other important sites too...

    Site is up now. Well, look at the screenshot :)

    @Nik faris: ta.
  • I have to say... Well said.
  • WK Woon
    Looking at it another way, perhaps the local OSS industry isn't govt-friendly? Were OSS solutions made available to the decision makers? And does it *really* matter for a microsite like this which is hosted on the same shared server as 200++ other domains?

    That said, the Warkah Untuk PM website is down right now with a big fat "Service Unavailable" message, so I can't see what's in it heh.
  • biatch0
    I'd buy and recommend Windows Server 2003 + IIS 6.0 if I got a large cut off the magically altered invoice as well. Using OSS would mean that "some" people would only be able to buy a BMW 3 series next month instead of a Mercedes S class. I thought you were smarter than this Colin!!!
  • great words from ur truly heart
    ;)
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