National Resource Centre for Free/Open Source Software

Last updated
Logo of NRCFOSS Logo of NRCFOSS.JPG
Logo of NRCFOSS

National Resource Centre for Free/Open Source Software (NRCFOSS) is an organisation created and financed in India by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India in April 2005. [1]

Contents

It is jointly administered by the Chennai Division of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the AU-KBC Research Centre of Anna University.

Some state governments, for example Kerala, already have programmes to popularize FOSS among the masses especially among the students. The founding of NRCFOSS is the first initiative by the Government of India in the direction of making efforts for increasing the acceptance of FOSS at a national level. NRCFOSS is designed to give a boost to the efforts to popularize FOSS products among lay computer users of India. [2]

Objectives

NRCFOSS is mandated to work in areas related to Free/Open Source Software basically with the following objectives: [3]

Initial achievements

NRCFOSS has caused the introduction of elective papers in FOSS in the syllabi and curriculum of Anna University. [4] The syllabi is applicable to around 250 engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University. It has prepared the entire course material for these elective papers and made it available for free download. [5] [6]

NRCFOSS has organized a series of workshops and seminars in different parts of India to popularize the idea of FOSS. It developed the FOSS Lab Server as an archive of various resources that are essential for the students taking FOSS courses. [7]

It contains source code, documentation and mailing list archives. NRCFOSS developed Bharat Operating System Solutions a Linux distribution made specifically for the Indian environment. The latest version of this Free/Open Source Software, BOSS GNU/Linux v6.0, was released on March 4, 2015. This software supports eighteen Indian languages out of a total of twenty-two constitutionally recognized languages in India at the desktop level. [8]

Related Research Articles

The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the software. Software which meets these requirements is termed free software. The word 'free' is ambiguous in English, although in this context, it means 'free as in freedom', not 'free as in zero price'. A common example is, "to think of free speech, not free beer."

Red Hat American software company providing open-source software products

Red Hat, Inc. is an American IBM subsidiary software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.

Bangalore Linux User Group

The Bangalore Linux Users Group (BLUG) is a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) user group.

Free and open-source software Software whose source code is available and which is permissively licensed

Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software. That is, anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the source code is usually hidden from the users.

Free/open-source software – the source availability model used by free and open-source software (FOSS) – and closed source are two approaches to the distribution of software.

ILUG-Delhi is a Linux user group, and is the Delhi Chapter of the India Linux User Group community (ILUG).

The Free and Open Source Software Asia-Pacific Consultation, or FOSSAP, was an event promoting free and open source software held twice in Asia, in 2004 and 2005. The first event was held in March 2004 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while the second event was held in September 2005 in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

International Open Source Network

The International Open Source Network has as its slogan "software freedom for all". It is a Centre of Excellence for free software in the Asia-Pacific region.

FOSS.IN

FOSS.IN, previously known as Linux Bangalore, was an annual free and open source software (FOSS) conference, held in Bangalore, India from 2001 to 2012. From 2001 to 2004, it was known as Linux Bangalore, before it took on a new name and wider focus. During its lifetime, it was one of the largest FOSS events in Asia, with participants from around the world. It focused on the technical and software side of FOSS, encouraging development and contribution to FOSS projects from India. The event was held every year in late November or early December.

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing An autonomous scientific society

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is an Indian autonomous scientific society, operating under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Anna University K B Chandrasekhar Research Centre

The Anna University - K. B. Chandrasekhar Research Centre (AU-KBC) is located in the Madras Institute of Technology (MIT). The centre was founded by K. B. Chandrasekhar, MIT alumnus and co-founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. The AU-KBC Research Centre is a first of its kind, a public-private research centre in India, being the partnership between a wholly for-profit company and a state institution. The Center has no employees, and all researchers stationed there are employees of the for-profit company KBCRF. The Centre's original goal, when it had its own employees, was to generate research and products of international quality. Its current goal is to create revenue for KBCRF and its sister for-profit concerns.

Indic Computing means "computing in Indic", i.e., Indian Scripts and Languages. It involves developing software in Indic Scripts/languages, Input methods, Localization of computer applications, web development, Database Management, Spell checkers, Speech to Text and Text to Speech applications and OCR in Indian languages.

Bharat Operating System Solutions

Bharat Operating System Solutions is an Indian Linux distribution derived from Debian. BOSS Linux is officially released in four editions: BOSS Desktop, EduBOSS, BOSS Advanced Server and BOSS MOOL. The latest stable version 8.0 ("Unnati"), was released on 15 October 2019.

OSSICS, an acronym for Open Software Solutions Industrial Cooperative Society Limited, is the first business enterprise for software development in the co-operative sector of Kerala, India. OSSICS was started in the year 1998 and has its head office in Ernakulam in Kerala. The co-operative society began working with a team of 11 software professionals. Currently, it has a strength of nearly 60 professionals. Its members include engineers, revenue-model experts and economy advisers.

The history of Free Software in India can be seen from three different perspectives - the growth of Free Software usage, the growth of Free Software communities, the adoption of Free Software policies by the governments. India was quite late to the free software scene with adoption and penetration growing towards the end of the 1990s with the formation of pockets of Free Software communities spread across the country. The communities were typically centered around educational institutions or free software supporting organizations.

The state of Kerala, in India has had an active Free software community since early 1980s. The initial users were those who started using TeX in the city of Thiruvananthapuram. Subsequently Free software users groups were formed in some of the different cities like Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and around engineering colleges in the state. The Free software community in Kerala was instrumental in creating a policy environment at the state government level that was biased towards Free software. The government of Kerala policy on Free software gives first preference to Free and Open Source software for its IT requirements. The state claims to be the only state in the world where IT education is imparted over a Free software operating system.

KITE Kerala

Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) is a state owned special purpose company under education department of the Government of Kerala. It was developed to support ICT enabled education for schools in Kerala. The erstwhile IT@School Project was transformed into KITE for extending its scope of operations in August 2017. KITE was the first SPV company to get funded by KIIFB.

References

  1. ↑ Department of Information Technology, Free/ Open Source Software (FOSS) Initiative Archived 2009-01-29 at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved on 30 October 2008).
  2. ↑ "Digital Review of Asia-Pacific 2007-2008", CRDI, (Retrieved on 28 October 2008).
  3. ↑ Anna University documents on NRCFOSS , (Retrieved on 28 Oct 08)
  4. ↑ NRCFOSS: Presentation by C N Krishnan (Retrieved on 30 October 2008).
  5. ↑ "Introduction to Linux: Installation and Programming", Edited by Dr.N.B.Venkateswarlu, NRCFOSS Series, BS Publications, Hyderabad. ISBN   81-7800-113-6.
  6. ↑ "South Asians for regional co-operation", International Open Source Network (Retrieved on 28 October 2008)
  7. ↑ FOSS Lab Server (Retrieved on 28 October 2008).
  8. ↑ ”C-DAC launches BOSS Linux version 3.0”, C-DAC Press release dated 4 September 08 (Retrieved on 28 Oct 08)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.