The Government of India seems to have finally woken up to the fact that if the country needs to retain its #1 status as the IT service provider to the world, it has to look inwards. Interestingly, the realization seems to have come with China, which is already a name to reckon with in the hardware sector, flexing its muscles to beat India in the software game of IT. And what better way to take competition head on than to take a leaf out of the competitor’s strategy book. Hence the decision by the department of technology (DIT) to launch a countrywide drive to promote the open source operating system Linux as the "platform of choice." 

Interestingly, Linux finds itself at the coveted position not because of better technology. Rather, what swung DIT’s decision in it’s favor is the realization that India needs a low cost open source platform instead of proprietary solutions to further steer its growth in the IT sector. Experts suggest that though India has made a name for itself selling solutions, software as a product is expensive within the country. And while the country has managed to grow despite such prohibitive expenses, it is believed that the country will start feeling the pinch badly once India starts implementing IPR protection laws in a more stringent manner as per its commitment to the world. A quick look at statistics and one can understand the severity of the situation. Amongst the proprietary solutions, Microsoft today controls over 90% of the desktop software market in the country. Unfortunately, over 60% of this is pirated copy. The reason: high cost of software.

What is Linux? Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The current full-featured version is 2.4 (released January 2001) and development continues.  Linux is developed under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. This however, doesn’t mean that Linux and its assorted distributions are free—companies and developers may charge money for it as long as the source code remains available. Linux may be used for a wide variety of purposes including networking, software development, and as an end-user platform. Linux is often considered an excellent, low-cost alternative to other more expensive operating systems. Due to the very nature of Linux’s functionality and availability, it has become quite popular worldwide and a vast number of software programmers have taken Linux’s source code and adapted it to meet their individual needs. Various companies are also undertaking several projects for porting Linux to various hardware configurations.

Lessons from China
According to experts, the Chinese government has consistently promoted its local software based on Linux majorly for cost reasons. However, security is also reported to be a big reason that has led to China’s support of Linux. With the source code for proprietary software concealed, the likes of Microsoft have quite often found themselves in unfavorable conditions in China—especially in defense and security related applications. What’s more, the Chinese company Redflag Software, which was set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the country’s most prestigious research institute, has often come out with low-cost software based on Linux, in direct competition to Window-based software.

However, security does not seem to be the prime concern of DIT, at least for the time being. According to sources, the Indian government’s plan is purely driven by the more simple arithmetic of costing. Unlike the Microsoft-developed Windows operating system, Linux code is free and downloadable from the Internet. With the addition of special applications, it can be personalized to meet specific needs. And while Microsoft officials in India declined to make any comments on the issue, the Linux enthusiasts see it as a clear victory for the open source movement. Will this lead to more investments by Microsoft in the country or lowering of its price is something we will report in the same space in times to come.

Shubhendu Parth in New Delhi