The Indian Government encourages adoption of OSS

Mar 30, 2015 12:03 GMT  ·  By

According to a new policy issued by the Indian Government, all employees will have to use open-source software on their computers. The new policy encourages the adoption of open source software across all Indian Government offices, on both desktop and server stations, in order to reduce the costs for acquiring computer software.

The 8-page-long PDF document states that the new policy will be applicable to all Government organisations across India and that the nature of compliance will be mandatory. “Government of India shall endeavor to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software (CSS).”

The main objective of the new OSS (Open Source Software) policy is to provide a path for rapid and effective adoption of open-source software in Indian Government offices, as well as to ensure strategic control in e-Governance applications and systems from a long-term perspective. All the adopted open source software shall be free from any royalty and redistributable.

Indian Government offices are currently using closed source software

It is a known fact that almost all Indian Government computer software are powered by closed source solutions, such as Microsoft Windows, which means that no one will be able to study, modify, share, redistribute or reverse engineer the respective software. With OSS (Open Source Software), the Indian Government not only will save a lot of money, but they will be able to adapt the software to their needs, as well as to improve it if necessary.

This is really great news for the Indian people who still use closed source software in environments where they could be using open-source alternatives and save a lot of money. Congrats to the Indian Government for making this important step for their employees and public institutions.