‘FOSS Provides the Most Innovation-friendly Technology Ecosystem’ – Satish Babu, ICFOSS Director

TechnoparkToday.Com>>Kochi, March 8, 2013:  Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and related domains provide the most conducive ecosystem for innovation compared to than other technology options according to Satish Babu, Director, International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) and the National President, Computer Society of India. He was speaking at the 5-day workshop organized by Information Technology, SOE, CUSAT on “Innovations & Open source tools in IT.

”He said, “Not just the Big Three – Google, Facebook and Twitter- but a large proportion of startups in the Silicon Valley and outside have also adopted Open Source as the technology platform of their choice, considering their grueling time schedules, demanding technological requirements and low resource availability.”

“By lowering barriers to entry-by eliminating factors such as restrictive licensing regimes and high costs associated with proprietary software – the FOSS ecosystem encourages experimentation and extension, thereby enabling innovation.”

Satish Babu said that while India has made significant economic progress through its IT Industry, the distribution of the benefits of such development was not uniform. The 2012 ITU report on global ICT Development placed India at 119th out of the 155 countries, which showed a clear asymmetry in the spread of ICTs to all parts of the country. There was therefore a need to create a model of ICT development and innovation that addressed distributive justice in parameters such as technology access and wealth creation from ICT innovations.

Such a model should focus not only on economic capital but also intellectual capital and social capital which would be essential for the balanced development of the nation. In such a model, FOSS, given its robustness, lack of licensing restrictions, and near-zero costs, could play an important role in fostering innovation. He concluded.

The workshop during these days also had sessions from leading professionals from the IT sector such as: Dr. K. C. Chandrasekharan Nair, MD, TBI, Technopark, Arun Balachandran, CEO, NRI – TBI, R. M Sonar, IIT Mumbai, Dr. Sreekumar, CDIT, Mr. Binu, Tech. Architect, TCS and P. M. Radhakrishnan, SOE, CUSAT.