Chandy takes a dig at VS over his Web site

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday made a dig at Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan on using Microsoft products for his Web site (vsachuthanandan.in) after campaigning for free and open source software.

In a letter to the Opposition Leader, the Chief Minister noted that Mr. Achuthanandan was using asp.net to power his Web site. It was also hosted in Singapore on Microsoft Windows Server. The domain was registered through the multinational company GoDaddy.

On the other hand, his (Mr. Chandy’s) official as well as personal Web site was hosted on Linux servers in India. The Web site Keralacm.gov.in was hosted in government data centre and was not being used for the election campaign as it is an official Web site. His private Web site Oommenchandy.net was registered in India.

The Chief Minister said that Mr. Achuthanandan should explain the dichotomy in his words and deeds. “Why is he embracing Microsoft now?”

Mr. Chandy recalled that Mr. Achuthanandan had criticised him for not promoting free and open source software and written letters to him in that regard. Mr. Achuthanandan had even objected to use of free application Microsoft Silverlight by Kerala Technological University. He had always maintained that a Left Front government would encourage free software.

The Chief Minister said that he welcomed the Opposition Leader launching Website, facebook page and mobile application though wisdom had dawned on Mr. Achuthanandan late.

News and Views looked at the ‘who is’ information on the domains vsachuthanandan.in and ommenchandy.net

The Indian domain vsachuthanandan.in was found to be not registered in the name of Mr. Achuthanandan. It is owned by a Technopark company (See image) though the content is published on behalf of Mr. Achuthanandan.

The international domain oommenchandy.net was registered with PDR LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Endurance International Group, Inc. (See image) though Mr. Chandy may have registered the domain through a local reseller.

To learn more about domains and their ownership visit: cyberjournalist.org.in/domain.html