Below is the text of a question raised in the Indian parliament:

Government of India * Ministry of Communications and Information Technology * Departemnt of Information Technology * Rajya Sabha unstarred question No 976 * To be answered on 11-12-2003

Promotion of Free/Libre and Open Source Software

Will the Minister of Comunications & Information Technology be pleased to state:-

(a) what steps have been taken since the announcement of the Linux India Initiative by Government on the issue of promoting free/libre and open source software within the country;

(b) the level of usage of FLOSS products in Government and semi-Government organisations; and

(c) whether the research benefits of publicly-funded computing institutions would be made sharable to all, by placing the same under the General Public Licence (GPL) or similar licences that do not restrict sharing of knowledge due to copyright restrictions?

ANSWER

Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology (SU Thirunavukkarasar)

(a): Two more consultative meetings have been held since then for in-depth discussion on projects and policy positions to be taken -- one with the Government and associated agencies and another with NGOs/Civil Society. Various related initiatives, as planned, under Linux India Initiative exercise are also being pursued.

(b): They are growing.

(c): Research benefits of publicly funded computing institutions are being shared wherever appropriate. For instance, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) had added components relating to a number of Indian languages for Linux available under General Public Licence (GPL) in September, 2003. Similarly, open office solutions have been provided for Indian languages under GPL developed by C-DAC, CollabCAD software developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) package has also been put in a limited sharing mode within certain agencies of Government. C-DAC has also put its Indian fonts in public domain. Wherever appropriate, software developed under public funded efforts are being shared under GPL or similar licenses that do not restrict the sharing of knowledge due to copyright restrictions ****

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