Introduction
What is the most important in Digital India? Different persons may have different views, but for me, the most important aspect of the Digital India, a flagship program of Government of India, is policies related to Open Source. In 2015, Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) of Ministry of Communication & Information Technology released three major policies related to open source. These policies are quite comprehensive and are potential game changers.
1.Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India
The most important policy among these is Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India. You may apprehend that National Policy on info Technology 2012 has mentioned one amongst its objectives, “adopting open standards and promoting open supply and open technologies”. In view of the National Policy on Information Technology, “Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India (GoI)” is released to encourage the formal adoption and use of Open Source Software in government organizations. To ensure strategic control in e-Gov applications and systems and define a framework for adoption of OSS along with reducing the total cost of ownership are core objectives of the policy. The Framework For Adoption of Open Source Software In e-Governance Systems is already prepared. The policy statement clearly states, “The Government of India will try to adopt open source software in all e-governance systems related to software from various sources, as a preferred option in comparison to closed source software” and “source code will be available community To study and modify software for / adapter / end-user, and re-split copies of original or modified software To the extent. ” It also says, “Source code shall be free from any royalty.” Open source enthusiasts all over the world will be glad to know that the nature of compliance with the policy is mandatory. Open source as a preferred option is chosen on the basis of the merit of open source and its approach.
2. Policy On Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications
This is an another important policy related to open source philosophy. The policy, Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications, intends to increase the pace of e-governance application development and rapid roll-out/implementation by adopting an open-source development model based on current worldwide practices like GitHub and SourceForge. By this policy, the Government of India wants to promote reuse of existing developed applications. By opening the source code, the Govt. of India wants successful, scalable, high-quality e-gov applications to be developed in a collaborative manner. It is also interested in developing new applications to encourage creativity within and outside the government by encouraging collaborative development between the government. departments/agencies and private organizations, citizens and developers to create innovative e-gov applications and solutions. e-gov application source open approach including the use and release of application source code to the public can reduce costs and development time and improve the overall quality and security through increased transparency and mass peer review. A Collaborative Application Development Platform is being prepared to achieve the objective of the same.
3. Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India
Under the overarching vision of Digital India, Government of India aims to make all government services digitally accessible to citizens through multiple channels, such as the web, mobile, and common service delivery outlets. To accomplish this objective, a transferable ecosystem of data, applications, and processes is required which will provide the right information to the right user at the right time. For promoting Open Standards for software interoperability across various Government departments and agencies, GoI has already notified the “Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance” and “Technical Standards on Interoperability Framework for e-Governance”. To reach the information gathered by governmental organizations, the “Open Government” focuses on open API initiatives worldwide. This policy intends to encourage the formal use of Open APIs in government organizations. This policy determines the government’s approach to the utilization of “Open APIs” to a market software system ability for all e-governance applications and systems and to supply access to information and services, to the market participation of stakeholders as well as voters.
Significant work in the field of Open Source has happened in India earlier as well, but this is the first time concrete and comprehensive policies are in place to guide the agencies of the Government of India. The implementation of the policies has been started and we are hopeful that open source, like in other parts of the world, will be hugely helpful and successful in bridging the digital divide in India.
Credit- digital India
