9 ms·

Indian Government adopts an open source policy

136 points by sinatra 11y ago

sillyryan 11y ago
Very cool. Check them too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters
eklavya 11y ago
Better late than never.
- eklavya 11y ago
  Is that sentence offensive somehow? Why the down vote?
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    I didn't down vote you, but my guess is the "Better late" part. In what way are they late? There aren't many governments who are committed to using open source software in a mandatory fashion. I can only think of 3 off the top of my head. So, I think they are on the leading edge, if anything. One other point about you comment is that, while being succinct is excellent (something I need to learn), I couldn't really see what point you were trying to make. Sometimes it seems obvious to you, but to someone else your comment really could mean anything at all. So, what were you trying to communicate on the topic?
  - melling 11y ago
    Governments around the world aren't rushing to adopt open source. As far as governments, they're an early adopter. So, it shouldn't rate a snarky comment.
    - eklavya 11y ago
      If that came out as snarky that was not my intent. It was kind of like "finally, yay!" ;)
  - eklavya 11y ago
    @mikekchar thanks for the explanation. Can't seem to reply to you directly so replying here. If you see this in the light of the rest of the world they seem to be leading. But that's not the only measure. There have been discussions going on on this forever. It took them a really long time to formulate a policy. BOSS linux has been around for 8 years now but none of the govt divisions supported it. The most frustrating was to see the Income Ta department insisting (maybe not officially but my uncle who is a tax consultant told me they can't use anything else) on Microsoft Word documents to file tax. So I think all the resources were there but only the policy and political will was lacking.
  - Lewton 11y ago
    I didn't downvote but Why not downvote it? votes are for improving the signal to noise ratio, was your post signal or noise?
dharma1 11y ago
great. more details somewhere? what distros?
- eklavya 11y ago
  They have their own distro https://bosslinux.in https://bosslinux.in
  - giis 11y ago
    Boss Linux is based on Debian. I don't think there much difference between the two.
    - eklavya 11y ago
      Don't really know if it's included or how useful it is but they have this: https://bosslinux.in/boss-mool https://bosslinux.in/boss-mool
      - shared4you 11y ago
        Linus Torvalds would be so happy to hear that Linux is moving to C++ and OOP. http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus
sremani 11y ago
The bigger question is Should the State be making an Operating System? Choosing Linux is entirely different question and can be made successful with abundance of spending on retraining.
- swayvil 11y ago
  What retraining? I have several clients, computer illiterate old ladies, who use Ubuntu and Debian just fine. No retraining required. They just jump on that desktop and go.
  - sremani 11y ago
    We are talking about Government Offices here. The UX difference between Word and LibreOffice is noticeable. People need retraining, no matter how facsimile both are. Its matter of productivity.
    - sandworm101 11y ago
      >We are talking about Government Offices here. [...] People need retraining. Why do government workers always need formal retraining? Every job i've ever worked involved constant intake of new skills without dropping tools and attending a class. For a new OS in an office environ that generally boils down to "Here is your new OS. Play around with the colours if you want, but that memo is still due Thursday."
      - m0v_eax 11y ago
        Your anecdotal evidence is hardly the norm.
    - bad_user 11y ago
      Microsoft Office switched to the Ribbon, being a huge UI overhaul, yet people, companies and institutions still switched. Yes, the UI is different, but the concepts you're dealing with are still the same and if you know the concepts then a new UI is just a small and temporary inconvenience, rather then a barrier. The biggest problem will actually be incompatibilities, which happen for example with advanced usage of Excel documents, but you know, in such cases it's better to switch to portable formats that work across multiple products (i.e. ODF) and it's better to do it sooner rather than later, because as a freaking government you should keep your documents accessible for everybody. And if you switch to portable formats and a set of features supported in both Microsoft Office and LibreOffice, you don't even have to move everybody to LibreOffice at once. So on the whole I feel that this is a red herring.
ayyapad 11y ago
Interesting. Looks like a further framework for adoption is released as well - http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Final_Framework%20for%20Adoption%20of%20OSS.pdf http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Final_Frame...
mahouse 11y ago
Designated Linux distribution.
trequartista 11y ago
While this is excellent news, couldn't find answers to a few important questions: 1. Where is the source for Boss Linux. It's based on Debian, but couldn't find the link to view the source. It's all nice to talk about embracing open source, but shouldn't CDAC also publish the source for Boss Linux? 2. What is the update mechanism? How frequently will this distro be updated?
- jezclaremurugan 11y ago
  1 - I'll edit this with the repo link - it is indeed public but my google fu/memory fails me now 2 - Regular updates follow debian stable, new releases are once every 1-2 years.
rushabh 11y ago
This is based on a policy document released a couple months back. Here is a better article http://opensource.com/government/15/8/india-adopts-open-source-policy http://opensource.com/government/15/8/india-adopts-open-sour... In general, this is just intent. I am not sure how the government plans to implement this. Government in India is huge and complex and most of the arms run independently, which is great for IT services vendors like IBM, TCS and others since they make money by selling the same stuff over and over again. People who I know and are working in various organizations with the government are pretty frustrated with the pace and lack of intent on the ground. Most Indian FOSS projects like BOSS Linux are pretty lame and they don't have any real community behind them. I think they took down the forum on the BOSS linux website, because there were no questions asked. Some of the other "successful" services like Spoken Tutorials (http://spoken-tutorial.org/ http://spoken-tutorial.org/) are pretty bad too (though I see websites have improved). As a tax paying Indian citizen, I really hope all this changes.
- zanny 11y ago
  Most old guard politicians are not prepared to say "there is already a great community project out there - be it Debian / Ubuntu / Fedora / etc - we should probe which ones are interested in working with us rather than just taking their code and trying to go it solo. Their answer is always take the product in the market and throw a few million dollars at it to make it do what we want. And then ignore the fact its software, and needs constant maintenance and vigilance and they could get that all for free if they were participatory rather than off on their own.
- dang 11y ago
  > Here is a better article Thank you. URL changed to that from http://tuxdiary.com/2015/11/02/indian-govt-adopts-open-source/ http://tuxdiary.com/2015/11/02/indian-govt-adopts-open-sourc....
remael 11y ago
The article says India is following in the steps of Germany and UK. I'm not aware of a policy in Germany that pushes government organistaions into using open source software. There are city administrations, like Munich, which switched over to Linux on their own account. Though that is nowhere near a national policy. What is the author referring to?
Apocryphon 11y ago
I recall reading about the Brazilian government's OSS policy a decade ago: http://www.wired.com/2004/11/linux-6/ http://www.wired.com/2004/11/linux-6/
kumarm 11y ago
I know we are supposed cheer this as victory for Open Source. But anything a government of India (Current or former) does with Technology, I would take it with a grain of salt. Here are recent Indian Government (or Indian States) Projects: 1. Cheap 35$ laptop. We all know how that turned out. 2. Here a App developed by a State Government with Multi Million Dollars budget recently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apgov.apspeaks https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apgov.apsp... Yes it has only 1000 downloads after multi million dollar budget and not even localized to local language. This is by a state CM's personal pet project who claims to be pro Technology. When Governments like this announce any initiative, look beyond headlines, Someone is making merry of tax payers money.
- jezclaremurugan 11y ago
  I understand why you are cynical, but I've been part of the BOSS linux team couple of years ago and I would say it was money well spent. To cite just one example - BOSS Linux was installed along side Windows (dual boot) in the free laptops given to students by the Tamil Nadu govt. This alone helped introduce thousands of students to linux.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    ... helped introduce thousands of students to linux. Why is that so good, and so worth lots of government money?
    - hrjet 11y ago
      > Why is that so good.. It encourages tinkering which is especially important for students. Also, many other general benefits that open-source brings. For example, open source code is more trustable than closed source.
      - hchenji 11y ago
        Yeah but if GNULinux is free in the first place, why spend so much govt. money on it?
jezclaremurugan 11y ago
I worked in the BOSS linux team from 2010-2012. I can probably answer some questions. Let me address the most common sentiment.. Why BOSS when we already have Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat etc.? Support - gov bodies moving to linux need guaranteed support at optimal cost. Localization - if you are working with Indian languages primarily, BOSS linux provides a better experience out of the box. Some customization - some depts. request and get further customized versions.
- shared4you 11y ago
  What is BOSS Linux's contribution to upstream (Debian) ? AFAIK, it's zero. Some gripes about BOSS: (1) On the BOSS Download page, the download button downloads i386. Why isn't the 64-bit ISO listed there ? (2) Why are there no torrents for ISOs ? Don't they know how bad Internet connection in India is ? As far localization, my experience had been that BOSS is no better than Debian.
foolinaround 11y ago
considering that so many of the systems are older spec, BOSSLinux should now take off from CrunchBang instead of from Debian. This way, they do not have to re-invent the wheel, but focus resources in the localization efforts for the OS, as well as the applications supported in the OS. There would have been a meaningful contribution upstream.

136 points by sinatra 11y ago

Very cool. Check them too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters

eklavya 11y ago

Better late than never.

eklavya 11y ago
Is that sentence offensive somehow? Why the down vote?
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I didn't down vote you, but my guess is the "Better late" part. In what way are they late? There aren't many governments who are committed to using open source software in a mandatory fashion. I can only think of 3 off the top of my head. So, I think they are on the leading edge, if anything. One other point about you comment is that, while being succinct is excellent (something I need to learn), I couldn't really see what point you were trying to make. Sometimes it seems obvious to you, but to someone else your comment really could mean anything at all. So, what were you trying to communicate on the topic?
- melling 11y ago
  Governments around the world aren't rushing to adopt open source. As far as governments, they're an early adopter. So, it shouldn't rate a snarky comment.
  - eklavya 11y ago
    If that came out as snarky that was not my intent. It was kind of like "finally, yay!" ;)
- eklavya 11y ago
  @mikekchar thanks for the explanation. Can't seem to reply to you directly so replying here. If you see this in the light of the rest of the world they seem to be leading. But that's not the only measure. There have been discussions going on on this forever. It took them a really long time to formulate a policy. BOSS linux has been around for 8 years now but none of the govt divisions supported it. The most frustrating was to see the Income Ta department insisting (maybe not officially but my uncle who is a tax consultant told me they can't use anything else) on Microsoft Word documents to file tax. So I think all the resources were there but only the policy and political will was lacking.
- Lewton 11y ago
  I didn't downvote but Why not downvote it? votes are for improving the signal to noise ratio, was your post signal or noise?

dharma1 11y ago

great. more details somewhere? what distros?

eklavya 11y ago
They have their own distro https://bosslinux.in https://bosslinux.in
- giis 11y ago
  Boss Linux is based on Debian. I don't think there much difference between the two.
  - eklavya 11y ago
    Don't really know if it's included or how useful it is but they have this: https://bosslinux.in/boss-mool https://bosslinux.in/boss-mool
    - shared4you 11y ago
      Linus Torvalds would be so happy to hear that Linux is moving to C++ and OOP. http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus

sremani 11y ago

The bigger question is Should the State be making an Operating System? Choosing Linux is entirely different question and can be made successful with abundance of spending on retraining.

swayvil 11y ago
What retraining? I have several clients, computer illiterate old ladies, who use Ubuntu and Debian just fine. No retraining required. They just jump on that desktop and go.
- sremani 11y ago
  We are talking about Government Offices here. The UX difference between Word and LibreOffice is noticeable. People need retraining, no matter how facsimile both are. Its matter of productivity.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    >We are talking about Government Offices here. [...] People need retraining. Why do government workers always need formal retraining? Every job i've ever worked involved constant intake of new skills without dropping tools and attending a class. For a new OS in an office environ that generally boils down to "Here is your new OS. Play around with the colours if you want, but that memo is still due Thursday."
    - m0v_eax 11y ago
      Your anecdotal evidence is hardly the norm.
  - bad_user 11y ago
    Microsoft Office switched to the Ribbon, being a huge UI overhaul, yet people, companies and institutions still switched. Yes, the UI is different, but the concepts you're dealing with are still the same and if you know the concepts then a new UI is just a small and temporary inconvenience, rather then a barrier. The biggest problem will actually be incompatibilities, which happen for example with advanced usage of Excel documents, but you know, in such cases it's better to switch to portable formats that work across multiple products (i.e. ODF) and it's better to do it sooner rather than later, because as a freaking government you should keep your documents accessible for everybody. And if you switch to portable formats and a set of features supported in both Microsoft Office and LibreOffice, you don't even have to move everybody to LibreOffice at once. So on the whole I feel that this is a red herring.

ayyapad 11y ago

Interesting. Looks like a further framework for adoption is released as well - http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Final_Framework%20for%20Adoption%20of%20OSS.pdf http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Final_Frame...

mahouse 11y ago

Designated Linux distribution.

trequartista 11y ago

While this is excellent news, couldn't find answers to a few important questions: 1. Where is the source for Boss Linux. It's based on Debian, but couldn't find the link to view the source. It's all nice to talk about embracing open source, but shouldn't CDAC also publish the source for Boss Linux? 2. What is the update mechanism? How frequently will this distro be updated?

jezclaremurugan 11y ago
1 - I'll edit this with the repo link - it is indeed public but my google fu/memory fails me now 2 - Regular updates follow debian stable, new releases are once every 1-2 years.

rushabh 11y ago

This is based on a policy document released a couple months back. Here is a better article http://opensource.com/government/15/8/india-adopts-open-source-policy http://opensource.com/government/15/8/india-adopts-open-sour... In general, this is just intent. I am not sure how the government plans to implement this. Government in India is huge and complex and most of the arms run independently, which is great for IT services vendors like IBM, TCS and others since they make money by selling the same stuff over and over again. People who I know and are working in various organizations with the government are pretty frustrated with the pace and lack of intent on the ground. Most Indian FOSS projects like BOSS Linux are pretty lame and they don't have any real community behind them. I think they took down the forum on the BOSS linux website, because there were no questions asked. Some of the other "successful" services like Spoken Tutorials (http://spoken-tutorial.org/ http://spoken-tutorial.org/) are pretty bad too (though I see websites have improved). As a tax paying Indian citizen, I really hope all this changes.

zanny 11y ago
Most old guard politicians are not prepared to say "there is already a great community project out there - be it Debian / Ubuntu / Fedora / etc - we should probe which ones are interested in working with us rather than just taking their code and trying to go it solo. Their answer is always take the product in the market and throw a few million dollars at it to make it do what we want. And then ignore the fact its software, and needs constant maintenance and vigilance and they could get that all for free if they were participatory rather than off on their own.
dang 11y ago
> Here is a better article Thank you. URL changed to that from http://tuxdiary.com/2015/11/02/indian-govt-adopts-open-source/ http://tuxdiary.com/2015/11/02/indian-govt-adopts-open-sourc....

remael 11y ago

The article says India is following in the steps of Germany and UK. I'm not aware of a policy in Germany that pushes government organistaions into using open source software. There are city administrations, like Munich, which switched over to Linux on their own account. Though that is nowhere near a national policy. What is the author referring to?

Apocryphon 11y ago

I recall reading about the Brazilian government's OSS policy a decade ago: http://www.wired.com/2004/11/linux-6/ http://www.wired.com/2004/11/linux-6/

kumarm 11y ago

I know we are supposed cheer this as victory for Open Source. But anything a government of India (Current or former) does with Technology, I would take it with a grain of salt. Here are recent Indian Government (or Indian States) Projects: 1. Cheap 35$ laptop. We all know how that turned out. 2. Here a App developed by a State Government with Multi Million Dollars budget recently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apgov.apspeaks https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apgov.apsp... Yes it has only 1000 downloads after multi million dollar budget and not even localized to local language. This is by a state CM's personal pet project who claims to be pro Technology. When Governments like this announce any initiative, look beyond headlines, Someone is making merry of tax payers money.

jezclaremurugan 11y ago
I understand why you are cynical, but I've been part of the BOSS linux team couple of years ago and I would say it was money well spent. To cite just one example - BOSS Linux was installed along side Windows (dual boot) in the free laptops given to students by the Tamil Nadu govt. This alone helped introduce thousands of students to linux.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  ... helped introduce thousands of students to linux. Why is that so good, and so worth lots of government money?
  - hrjet 11y ago
    > Why is that so good.. It encourages tinkering which is especially important for students. Also, many other general benefits that open-source brings. For example, open source code is more trustable than closed source.
    - hchenji 11y ago
      Yeah but if GNULinux is free in the first place, why spend so much govt. money on it?

jezclaremurugan 11y ago

I worked in the BOSS linux team from 2010-2012. I can probably answer some questions. Let me address the most common sentiment.. Why BOSS when we already have Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat etc.? Support - gov bodies moving to linux need guaranteed support at optimal cost. Localization - if you are working with Indian languages primarily, BOSS linux provides a better experience out of the box. Some customization - some depts. request and get further customized versions.

shared4you 11y ago
What is BOSS Linux's contribution to upstream (Debian) ? AFAIK, it's zero. Some gripes about BOSS: (1) On the BOSS Download page, the download button downloads i386. Why isn't the 64-bit ISO listed there ? (2) Why are there no torrents for ISOs ? Don't they know how bad Internet connection in India is ? As far localization, my experience had been that BOSS is no better than Debian.

foolinaround 11y ago

considering that so many of the systems are older spec, BOSSLinux should now take off from CrunchBang instead of from Debian. This way, they do not have to re-invent the wheel, but focus resources in the localization efforts for the OS, as well as the applications supported in the OS. There would have been a meaningful contribution upstream.