The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, has undertaken a research project that evaluates the ‘Impact of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in India.’ This project is funded by the Samagata Foundation.
What is FOSS?
Free and Open Source Software can be defined as software that provides users the freedom to run, study, change, improve and distribute original or modified versions of the software. It differs from closed source or proprietary software that not only lacks these attributes but can only be used in its executable form post obtaining a licence.
The code development in FOSS is characterised by contributions from volunteers of the open source community, with a core group of skilled programmers overseeing administration and governance. The motivation for FOSS contributions generally stems from the desire to develop solutions for addressing common challenges, learning software development and signalling their skills and abilities to potential employers.
In the past two decades, the use of FOSS has expanded far beyond hobbyist circles to large-scale commercial uses. While FOSS is freely available, the software in its original form may not be directly usable for many business applications. Hence, firms have shifted to generating revenue by providing value-added and support services for FOSS. These include software integration, consultancy, maintenance, security updates, training, etc.
FOSS offers immense benefits such as lower costs, better security and reliability, freedom from vendor lock-in, ability to customise software as per requirement and improved development velocity by allowing developers to incrementally build on existing solutions.
Government solutions built at population scale such as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) have also benefitted immensely from the use of FOSS, allowing them to employ a modular architecture and save taxpayer funds otherwise spent on licensing fees for proprietary software solutions. However, despite government procurement guidelines requiring adoption of open source for all e-governance systems, implementation of the same has been poor.
Given its nature as a public good, very often the economic value of FOSS is not given due attention. FOSS also faces several challenges such as intellectual property infringement claims, lack of incentives to sustain contributions for development, maintenance and support, and pushback from proprietary software firms.
Project Overview
This study aims to evaluate the impact of FOSS in India by gaining insights into why, how and to what extent organisations are adopting FOSS; factors considered while evaluating different types of software solutions; and the benefits and challenges experienced by virtue of adopting FOSS. Additionally, it aims to capture the economic impact or value addition provided by FOSS in terms of acquisition and operating costs as compared to its alternatives.
The study would be conducted with four types of organisations in India. They are start-ups, non-profits, medium size firms and large firms. Organisations in four sectors — Finance; Software and IT Services; Healthcare and Education; in addition to some public sector entities are considered for this study.
Project Components:
- Data: The data gathered through this study is expected to help in better identifying the extent of FOSS usage in different sectors and the economic impact of FOSS.
- Case studies: The semi-structured interviews conducted as part of the study will help in developing a robust set of case studies.
Expected Output
The project aims to publish the findings in the form of a report, and it will highlight patterns of engagement and experience with FOSS in India. It will also make policy recommendations for augmenting FOSS contributions and adoption in India.
Duration
This is a six-month project and we aim to release the report by January 2025.
