India is one of the developing countries that has a policy in place to promote or encourage adopt of free and open source (FOSS).
The focus of FOSS policy in India was on fostering a software industry as a foreign exchange earner. The government supports the use of FOSS in general, the IT Secretary issued a circular recommending the use of Linux in the government sector.
In October 2011, a draft of ICT policy was issued by the government; however, there is no specific legislations in India regarding FOSS though there were some trials to do so. Nevertheless, FOSS has been able to make significant development in the innovation of many application and tools in the country. Some state governments entered into agreements with private companies to foster FOSS development and facilitate the understanding of FOSS through training.
The Indian experience in promoting FOSS relied on the active involvement of the Government, universities, technology institutes and the private sector including a leading role by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and the establishment of software related R&D. The government implemented many initiatives to promote FOSS, for example it has distributed millions of free CDs with Tamil and Hindi language OSS.
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Successful Indian's experiences in adopting FOSS
Some Indian states have successful experience in adopting FOSS, such as:
- State of Kerala, which has identified FOSS as a major strategic component in its efforts to build an inclusive information society;
- The state government of Madhya Pradesh has decided to use Linux software in its official IT program, which includes its e-governance (Gyandoot) and computer-enabled school education (Headstart);
- The Government of Maharashtra (GoM) has introduced OSS for e-governance in 2003 in areas like treasury management, citizen facilitation centers, document journey management system and the land records management system;
- The state of Uttaranchal signed an e-governance Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IBM in February 2004 to focus on OSS technology, as well as a university program MoU to develop local IT talents.
Some leading Indian characters are supporters of FOSS including the former President of India, Dr Abdul Kalam Azad who has been calling for the use of non-proprietary software, especially in the military sections for security reasons.
The success of the Indian case can be attributed to the role of the state in India. The state was very proactive over the years in relation to software development and ICT in general where they have issued number of ICT related policies but not specific to FOSS and has developed the higher education system in engineering and technical disciplines. Many centers have been created to foster software and computing industry including centers of excellence and numerous other institutions for technology development along with the private sector.
Indian FOSS products samples
FOSS has been developed in all 22 Indian languages, which has facilitated innovations in hardware. For example, one could look at the innovation of “simputer” (simple computer) which addresses illiteracy and affordability problem facing many Indians and that was the developed by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Another innovation was developed using Linux operating system and Open Office, is Aakash, which is a cheap touch screen tablet that costs $50. About 110 million Indian schoolchildren are expected to benefit from the invented tablet. The wide range of tools and projects that are available online have enabled developers and contributors to connect online from across the world and form groups and communities of learning and practice to share their contributions and build software.
Most of the Indian companies have also realized that there is a high level of cost effectiveness in FOSS. In this way, companies do not have to spend money on training their employees to decipher foreign code, and the end customer can get access to cheaper software and updates. The role of the government is especially prominent in developing an educational system that fosters ICT and software. The various state agreements with FOSS companies and other centres to boost its use was also an important factor in the success of the project.
FOSS Indian’s centers
The role of excellence and research centers is also very important as well as the role of ICT centers and private companies. For example Indlinux.org, which is an organization of software technicians, has collaborated in localizing Linux to Indian languages; IBM has signed agreements with some Indian states for training and application of FOSS in certain sectors including state records (birth, death, property tax, water tax, food and civil supplies cards, health services and application); Shiksha India Trust, an initiative of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has recently signed a MoU with Red Hat Inc., the world’s leading provider of OSS solutions to develop the Indian education system.
Indian’s FOSS adoption purpose
The main purpose of FOSS adoption and usage in this experience on the local level is to facilitate easier and more accessible services to the poor. India hasn’t developed an FOSS strategy or laws but it fostered it as part of a greater effort to boost ICT sector and increase its deployment in all sectors. R&D in ICT in general and in FOSS is very important.
Lessons from Indian’s FOSS experience
The decentralization of decision making and implementation of projects within the Indian state is noticeable and could be considered a by lessons learnt in this case. Another lesson learnt is innovation and creating a supply of FOSS products that meet the need of the target population.