The Ministry of Communications and IT has unveiled a ?Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India.? The policy is aimed at encouraging the formal adoption and use of open source software (OSS) in government organisations.
Formulated by the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY), the policy is expected to enable freedom of use and re-use of ICT assets along with availability of strong OSS community support.
At present, most e-governance solutions are developed using closed source software (CSS), which is licensed under the exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. Currently, the users? right to make modifications, sharing, studying, redistribution or reverse engineering is limited. However, under the new policy, the government aims to encourage all its organisations to compare both OSS and CSS options on capability, strategic control, scalability, security, lifetime costs, and support requirements.
The ?Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India,? aims to provide a framework for the rapid and effective adoption of OSS, ensure strategic control in eGovernance applications and systems, and reduce the total cost of ownership of projects. To achieve these objectives, the policy aims to establish a suitable mechanism for the available OSS that includes institutional mechanism, partnership with industry, academia and OSS community.
