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Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram
By Roy Mathew
Though the Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, has said that the matter would be looked into, it is yet to gain serious attention of policy makers at the top level. The Information Technology Department is planning the development of certain major free software-based application. However, a comprehensive policy to promote the use of free software in various arenas such as in education was yet to emerge. The software for FRIENDS project was developed with seed money from the Microsoft India. The copyright claims of the private company that actually developed the software and the raid by Crime Branch in the office of the company engaged for the development of the software for the second phase of the project hit the initiative. The Government has spent considerable amount for the simple software that the FRIENDS employed. Now, it may have to develop software for the second phase from the scratch if the claims of company that developed the original software holds. The use of open source/free software would help the Government to avoid several problems that could arise on account of use of proprietary software. One major issue is the permanence of public data. The FRIENDS imbroglio showed that the Government had become dependent on the goodwill of the suppliers on maintenance of the software. As the Government proceeds to acquire more data using various proprietary software, a day may come when private suppliers withdraw their support for their products. Thus a lot of data can become unusable or costly to port to other systems. Open source would guarantee the permanence or public data as the Government would not be dependent on any single supplier or their conditionalities for updates and future usability of data. A related problem is that of data formats. Companies like the Microsoft keep on changing formats. This would necessitate frequent upgradation of the systems used for e-governance. The people who access Government data would also be forced to buy specified software products and update them frequently. On the other hand, standard and open format would guarantee continued access of Governmental data by the public without high recurring costs. A third issue is security. As Government is not in possession of the source code, it can never be sure of what the software does, and the security problems that can arise from the use of the software. It would have to wait for a patch from the supplier, if a security breach occurs. There is also the possibility that suppliers may embed spy codes in the software. It can lead to leaking of confidential Governmental information. Privacy of citizens would be compromised if information about them with the Government gets into the hands of interested parties. In view of such problems and the cost factor in using proprietary software, some Governments have started moves to use open source/free software. Initiatives have come from the European Commission, France, China, Mexico and Norway. Peru is making the use of open source software mandatory through a law. In the long term, widespread adoption of free software can become a boon to software developers in the State. They can think of big projects without much investment. They would not have to worry about paying royalties for every pieces of code they may weave together. An early switch to free software would help to avoid migration costs if the Government decides to go in for it at a later stage. Besides, cash starved Government stands to save a lot money, both in hardware and software. Most of the free software requires lesser resources such as memory and processor speed to run, thus reducing hardware costs. Though the free software may not be necessarily free in all cases, one is free to copy it and there are no stringent licensing requirements (similar to those which apply to proprietary software).
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