Open Source is critical for the e-gov projects

Rajarshi Bhattacharyya, Country Head - Suse

"The growth and adoption of open source in India has been quite remarkable. India is one of the biggest contributors and users of open source technologies today. I think there is a natural inclination towards open technologies among Indian customers, as compared to many other markets in the world, and that is because Open source has come a long way from being just a cost-effective alternative to proprietary technologies.

In fact, it has been used widely by organizations, governments and the vast community of developers in the country as the most preferred platform to drive innovation, growth and customer satisfaction. Our mission critical applications, complex application like SAP, core banking solutions, R&D and even our railways ticket booking systems are all open source based.

Adoption of open source is critical for the success of Digital India programme, especially for our e-gov projects and electronic delivery of services to citizens. Interoperability is paramount to deliver citizen services through multiple channels like web and mobile. It’s evident that the Indian Government is aware of this and has introduced policies and reforms to promote the usage and development of open source technologies. Open Source Software is now the preference in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, in comparison to Closed Source Software. We are sure that open source can help greatly in bridging the digital divide in the country.

Open source technology today is fairly mature and it is much more flexible. Considering the volume of data that the governments need to process, open source is the only scalable and robust platform which can ensure better outcome. Interoperability is another aspect which goes in favor of Open Source. Government’s infrastructure and systems need to support multiple systems, standards, applications and processes, which is possible only through the adoption of open technologies. Government, as customers, also appreciates freedom of choice the biggest advantage of open source. Open source can be run on mainframes or Desktops, without compromising on performance or quality.

There has been a concerted effort from the government to promote the usage and development of open source technologies and it’s certainly paying off. As you rightly pointed out, government in itself is a huge market for open source, with initiatives such as Digital India, smart cities and various other e-gov projects moving to the next level. And projects like Digital India has an all-encompassing impact on the whole ecosystem. So government’s decision to promote open source has certainly resulted in more opportunities in other sectors. Other than the government, Open source today is widely accepted by verticals such as BFSI, telcom, manufacturing and enterprise sector."