Session on future directions of FOSS held

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) held a consultation session on ‘Future directions of FOSS in India’ at Technopark here on Tuesday in order to establish future directions for the use and promotion of free and open source software in the country.The consultation session is first of a series of similar sessions.The session was opened by Satish Babu, Director, ICFOSS, who presented a brief history of FOSS in India along with its central philosophy, that of free access to knowledge.A FOSS visioning expert committee was set up to help prepare the roadmap for ICFOSS.The committee comprises Rahul De of IIM-Bangalore, Sebastian Morris of IIM-Ahmedabad, Sunil Mani of Centre for Development Studies (CDS) and Soman Nair, Registrar of CDS.The participants of the consultation - representing a cross-section of stakeholders including the government, technology organisations, institutions of higher education, NGOs and the FOSS community - outlined their vision for the future of FOSS in their respective domains, highlighting gaps and limitations to be resolved, and making suggestions for the way ahead.