Adoption of Free and Open Source Software in India

摘要

The significance and robustness of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) are now well known at stages of development as well as deployment. It's natural to assume that the products of FOSS to be deployed as a preference over the commercially available propriety software. However, proprietary software not only exists but is also thriving. The present paper looks into the aspect of adoption of FOSS, with special emphasis to India. The two natural arena for adoption- Governance and Academia are chosen for study. The policy initiatives, frameworks and challenges in the implementation of FOSS in these two areas are discussed, while giving instances of its successful adoption. The study also discusses in brief the adoption of FOSS in business enterprise, where its adoption is dynamic and accelerated. Several challenges in adoption of FOSS over propriety software are also pointed out.