NCOSS-09 Looks At Open Source Beyond GNU/Linux

The two-day National Conference on Open Source Software (NCOSS - 09) was inaugurated by Prof D B Phatak of IIT (Mumbai) in Mumbai yesterday. Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) with support from Computer Society of India (CSI) and IEEE Computer Society have conceived the event to bring together the various groups working on developing Open Source Applications. In the inaugural speech, Phatak stressed the need for India to strive to be a net-giver from its current role of a 'net-taker' with respect to the worldwide open source community.

Prof C R Muthukrishnan of IIT (Chennai) delivered the keynote address, focussing on the possible changes in the Free/ Open Source Software (FOSS) environment as industry adoption of FOSS is picking up momentum. Prof Prabhu Ramachandran of IIT (Mumbai), a well-known FOSS contributor, spoke about the use of Python resources for rapid development of scientific applications.

S Ramakrishnan, director general, C-DAC, said, "Open Source Software is maturing rapidly and different stakeholders in India are looking at it as a serious option for adoption. Government enterprises, the developers’ community, academia and users in verticals have in their recent years made specific moves for adoption. There are specific large-scale programmes, which are being undertaken by the Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India in Open Source Software as well as Open Standards especially in the context of National e-Governance Programme (NeGP)".

"Institutions such as C-DAC and the vendor community are taking these opportunities well. The coming years will help overcome the barriers and take advantage of the opportunities in Open Source Software adoption in multiple verticals. NCOSS is another step with a specific focus on application layers and has received excellent response in case studies, reports on tools, etc," he added.