Dear All,

The political support for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) continues  to increase.

The CPI(M) manifesto released on the 16th of March calls for the promotion of FOSS. The manifesto can be accessed at http://www.cpim.org/manifesto.pdf

Following are some of the highlights of the policy -

• Promoting free software and other such new technologies, which are free from monopoly ownership through copyrights or patents; • Scrapping the Public Funded R&D Bill, that seeks to allow patenting of products that are developed through public funded laboratories • Revamping the functioning of the Patent offices to ensure strict adherence to the Indian Patent Act; Stop training and orientation of Indian Patent office personnel by the US and European Patent offices

With key parties from both the left and the right end of the political spectrum  endorsing FOSS, the Congress is left as the only major national party which is yet to formally take a position on FOSS. One hopes that the Congress too will soon extend its support for free software when it releases its own manifesto next week, and explicitly acknowledge the significant political, socio-cultural and economic advantages of FOSS over proprietary software platforms. During last UPA govt some initiatives to adopt Free Software and Open standards are already happened such as Knowledge Commission report supporting FOSS in Governance & Education, 11th 5 year plan endorsing FOSS to counter digital divide & National Draft Policy on Open standards for E-Governance. Also the threat of Software patents came up during last UPA regime. Hope Congress will continue the support to Free software and Open standards by clearly stating it on their election manifesto. Also the stand on software patents is also getting important . (See http://public-software.in/FOSS-manifesto for a call from the Network of the FOSS Community in India (http://fosscom.in ) to the political parties, to recognise the advantages of FOSS in their election manifestos).

Thanks, Anivar Aravind

-- Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.