An Open Source Raj is Rising
According to CXOtoday.com, India continues its relentless move toward open source on government desktops.
In India ‘Opens’ to Open Source, author Abhinna Shreshtha asks, “Kerala signs a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Red Hat; the president of India sees open source as the way of bringing Information Technology (IT) benefits to the masses; the Government of Maharashtra plans to develop all new applications in Linux – is open source set to topple the rule of proprietary software in India?”
Sidenote: Maharashtra, population 97 million, is the second most-populous state in India, and more populous than any European country except Russia.
The article concludes with a quick survey of other Indian states (and other governments around the world) adopting FOSS: “With third world countries around the globe taking a healthy interest in open-source software, the news that Red Hat wants to create a strong presence in India comes as no surprise. Linux is already the preferred operating system in Kerala, Maharashtra, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu. Red Hat is planning to undertake such initiatives with other state governments in the future. Given the increasing importance being attached to OSS, proprietary software owners’ supremacy in the Indian market may have taken a severe dent.”
India, a rising economic superpower, is another front in the global struggle between proprietary, monopolist software and open source software supporting open formats. The success of open source and formats there will have a significant impact around the world.