New Delhi: The Indian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has issued a new policy that mandates the use of Open Source Software (OSS) in government offices across the nation.
Currently, the government offices make use of Closed Source Software (CSS) that is licensed under the exclusive legal right of the software manufacturer and gives the government little rights to do modifications, sharing, studying, redistribution or reverse engineering, thereby shooting up the costs.
The 8-page policy mentions the highlights of implementing the use of OSS across offices. The policy will allow the end user (government) to study, modify, or redistribute the software without any royalty.
The OSS policy is mandatory and applicable to all government organisations under the central governments and those state governments that choose to adopt this policy. All new e-governance applications will be considered for implementation as well as all new versions of legacy and existing applications.
Those government offices implementing the e-governance applications and systems must include a specific requirement in Request for Proposal (RFP) for all suppliers to consider OSS along with CSS while responding. Exceptions will be considered with sufficient justification in the case of specialised domains where OSS solutions may not be available or in case of urgent or strategic need to deploy CSS based solutions or due to lack of expertise in indentified technologies.
The government will establish support for the existing OSS along with actively collaborating with OSS communities in India as well as at the International level and contribute wherever appropriate.
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