Free software centre coming up in Technopark

The State government proposes to set up an ‘International Centre for Free and Open Software’ here by December this year, according to an official press release.

The project report for this centre was made ready by Rahul De’, Hewlett-Packard Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

He handed over the report to Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Wednesday.

The centre will offer consultancy services to the government departments, public sector undertakings, educational institutions and small business concerns for deploying free software for their various operations.

The government will set apart Rs.60 lakh for starting the centre. It’s really great so see such immense support from the government to promote free software.

Very recently an Opensource and GNU Linux install fest was conducted at Technopark, and it was a one week mega event where thousands of techies participated and installed many free and opensource software on their laptops.

Trivandrum, and especially Technopark is a giant pool of resources and opensource enthusiasts, so such an initiative is the need of the time. It can work miracles in the history of opensource and free software computing.