All Things Policy The State of FOSS in India
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Sep 2, 2025 Rashi Singhal, an Academic Fellow at NLSIU and co-author of the 'Rise of FOSS in India' report, dives deep into the evolution of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in India. She highlights FOSS's transformative effect on sectors like healthcare and education, emphasizing its benefits beyond cost savings, such as security and reliability. Rashi discusses the challenges of FOSS adoption, the need for policies like Open Source Program Offices, and strategies to enhance technical capacity, aiming to boost digital inclusion and self-reliance in India's tech landscape.
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FOSS Is Now Foundational
- FOSS has moved from niche to a foundational layer and often dominates organizations' tech stacks.
- It delivers lower TCO, customization, faster development and freedom from vendor lock-in.
Why Organizations Choose FOSS
- Organizations choose FOSS based on technical fit and business factors like community and support.
- Ease of integration, maintainability and an active support ecosystem drive adoption decisions.
Licensing Trends And Tension
- Indian organizations prefer permissive licenses and avoid viral ones, anticipating licensing shifts from AI code generation.
- Around half of organizations releasing code still use restrictive licenses for their projects.