It’s Time to Become an ‘Uploading Nation’

India has been a ‘downloading nation’ for many decades, though our IT services organisations have made the country proud. But the time is now ripe to turn into an ‘uploading nation’ by contributing to global open source software. This is what Prof. S. Sadagopan opined when he spoke at Open Source India last October. The founding director of the Bengaluru-based IIITB (he served the institute from 1999 to 2021) also outlined the work done by this great institute in the domain of open source.

After BSNL launched the consumer internet in 1995, everyone started downloading whatever they wanted — annual reports, course materials, the Vedas or cooking recipes. Downloading made lives much easier. Today, India is a nation of developers and we are coders for the world. But the question is: If we are a developer nation, why are we only downloading and not contributing to open source? Thankfully, while this was a bitter truth a decade ago, it is not so anymore! Today, open source has matured enough for countrywide growth and adoption across various sectors in India, and is making inroads into domains like education, healthcare, land and property management, and even drug discovery.

Open source does not need any kind of aggressive selling today, but there was a time when it was caught in the middle of religious wars in the tech world. Big companies like Microsoft were not very supportive of the open source movement. These attitudes are now a thing of the past, and open source is widely accepted today.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of open source was almost mystical and challenging to us. Our PhD and master’s theses often included program listings as an appendix, showcasing the tradition we come from. (Program listing is the complete listing of a computer program, source code, and all files that make up the program.)

In the 1980s, Richard Stallman initiated the free software movement. Stallman had his following, but his push for everything to be free was challenging because people still needed to make money. The open source movement then evolved into a more practical approach, acknowledging the need for financial viability. For instance, before the advent of routers, I built one in my lab by installing two network cards in a PC and used open source software from the US-based MIT.

The emergence of Linux marked a significant milestone in the open source journey. In India, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) developed fonts in Kannada, Telugu, Bangla, etc. This is how it all started.

In the last two decades, there has been a complete transformation in every aspect of the user interface and the software value chain. Open source has established dominant players in various segments. For operating systems, we have Linux; in programming languages, PHP and Python stand out. MySQL leads in databases, Apache in servers, Firefox in browsers, and LibreOffice in office suites. The Android operating system, which needs no introduction, is everywhere. The community aspect has also flourished, with platforms like GitHub fostering numerous open source communities.

The journey of open source in India

Open source has impacted everything and is providing solutions daily. Whether you know it or not, open source is a part of everyone’s life. Everyone using a mobile phone is consuming some form of open source. Here is how India is making a mark in this domain.

Open education: Education has benefited a lot from open source. MIT’s OpenCourseWare is a pioneering example of open source educational content. With over a billion views, it has made high-quality educational material accessible to a global audience.

Similarly, in India, the NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) is an excellent example of the impact of open source on education. Coordinated by the

IITs and IISc, NPTEL offers over

600 certification courses across 22 disciplines. It has become one of the largest educational programmes to be downloaded on YouTube, offering 56,000 hours of content in English and an additional 12,000 hours translated into various Indian languages.

These platforms exemplify how open source can democratise education, making high-quality learning resources available to anyone with internet access.

Drug discovery: The Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) project, which began in Bengaluru, is an initiative funded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). CSIR oversees a network of 43 labs under its banner. Since its inception in 2008, OSDD has received about 35 million dollars in funding and has engaged nearly 500 contributors.

Drug discovery traditionally involved significant time and financial investments — typically around a billion dollars and seven years per drug. However, the OSDD project has significantly revolutionised this process. By leveraging the collective intelligence and collaborative efforts of a wide range of contributors from diverse fields, OSDD has managed to reduce both the cost and the time required for drug discovery. What used to take years now takes just a few months, with costs reduced drastically. This dramatic reduction in time and cost is a testament to the power of open source methodologies in pharmaceutical research.

ONDC: The core objective of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is to empower around 12 million small shopkeepers and sellers to harness the benefits of online presence. The aim is to simplify the process of going digital for these businesses. Instead of requiring complex software setups or the need for technical personnel, these shopkeepers can manage their online services by just pressing a few keys on their mobile phones. This level of accessibility and ease of use is what makes ONDC a powerful tool — and it’s built on an innovative protocol, which is worth exploring.

Maya OS: The indigenous Maya OS operating system is expected to be used by all branches of the Indian Armed Forces. The adoption of Maya OS by such a critical and extensive organisation is a significant step. It showcases the growing reliance on advanced open source technology and software within essential national sectors like defence, and underscores the importance of technological selfsufficiency and security in these areas.

Aadhaar- the national ID: Aadhaar, the systems for which were initiated in India around 2009, was successfully deployed as a UID in 2014 and is a landmark project. Developed for the Indian government with taxpayers’ money, it has achieved population-scale digital infrastructure that has been managed from within India.

Between 2009 and 2014, cloud technology matured significantly. While Aadhaar benefited from this, it couldn’t fully utilise the cloud’s capabilities then. Similarly, software development methodologies and microservices architectures were not as advanced as today, limiting Aadhaar’s full potential in these aspects.

Beyond software: Open source has expanded beyond software into hardware. IIITB and NIMHANS are collaboratively contributing in this regard. Prof. Madhav Rao from IIITB and Dr Vikas Vizhayil, a neurosurgeon at NIMHANS, are together working on robotic brain surgery. An exoskeleton machine for individuals with severe back issues, who can’t get up on their own, is being developed. It’s designed to learn from the user’s movements and walk with them. The machine is currently being tested, and the design will be open sourced, thanks to Prof. Rao’s efforts.

Since 2018, our focus has also expanded to include chip-level design, with some of these designs being made open source. All this reflects a shift in thinking about open source – it’s not just about software anymore. The artificial division between hardware and software is becoming obsolete.

Miles to go…

India is gradually making significant strides in various sectors, including education and healthcare, by leveraging open source solutions, but there are miles to go.

A critical area being explored is the open sourcing of academic assessment processes. In a country with 1.4 billion people, any large-scale assessment like the JEE exams presents logistical challenges. The aim is to streamline processes such as exam scheduling, registration, distribution of hall tickets, and more, using open source solutions. This approach could revolutionise how large-scale academic assessments are conducted.

In healthcare, following the success in vaccine distribution, we are looking at extending open source methodologies to manage health records and other tests. The Indian government’s initiatives in health management are also embracing these approaches.

In the area of land and property management, land records across cities can be standardised by integrating them into systems like DigiLocker, ensuring easy and secure access to property documents.

Despite these advancements, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what open source can achieve in India. We’ve seen only 5 to 10 per cent of its true potential. The journey ahead, covering the remaining 90 to 95 per cent, is still long and filled with opportunities.

The time is ripe for action, so every developer should pledge to contribute to open source through coding, documentation, community support, or any other value addition to the open source ecosystem. This is not just a call to engage with technology, it’s an invitation to be part of a transformative movement where India becomes an ‘uploading nation’.

Open source is crucial for cost reduction and accelerated delivery of tailored solutions to meet market demands. At OSI 2023, OSFY’s Yashasvini Razdan got a chance to speak to Dr Biswajit Mohapatra, Head, Customer Solutions at Amazon Web Services, who spoke about how open source empowered businesses with flexibility, experimentation, and agile methodologies for genuine customer satisfaction.

Q . What AI/ML opportunity do you see in India? A. According to India’s NASSCOM report, the country’s GDP is predicted to be US$ 5 trillion by 2025. The GDP from AI and data will be around US$ 500 billion, which means that almost 10% of this entire US$ 5 trillion GDP will come from AI and data. Around 45% of this 500 billion will be used by India’s finance, retail and agriculture industries. AI/ ML is pervasive across every nook and cranny of India, from large banks and insurance companies to remote rural places. So that’s the opportunity that India is offering. Q . How has the adoption of open source technology grown across different industry sectors in India?

A. India is the fastest growing country in the world in terms of open source adoption. There is increased adoption of open source use cases across the fintech, insurance, healthcare, retail and agriculture industries. I would have expected the banking and telecom domains to have greater leverage of open source, but that’s probably a little slower. However, other industries like media

and entertainment have really picked up open source adoption. Q . As a community leader, how do you encourage developers to adopt open source across businesses?

A. In today’s business landscape, every customer demands accelerated delivery at a reduced cost, making it a critical aspect of our engagements. Failing to meet these expectations means someone else will step in. Open source allows us to lower costs, accelerate delivery, and tailor solutions to fit specific use cases to meet the fast-paced demands of the market. It also provides the flexibility for the community and users to experiment, iterate faster, and embrace agile methodologies. The third advantage stems from the democratisation of technology. In the current landscape, every company is essentially a tech company — even entities like banks today are tech companies with a banking licence. Open source becomes integral in this scenario, enabling companies to stay technologically competitive. Q . How can the balance between data security and open source be maintained?

A. Attacks are happening faster than one can respond. How we put in the right mechanism to make open source software resilient plays a significant role in eliminating vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. We must have proper guardrails to manage data in transit, data in use, and data at rest. Open source never compromises on data privacy. So many techniques, cryptography, etc, can be brought into focus through open source. For instance, in the context of cloud and open source, cryptography is employed, but the efficacy of cryptographic algorithms is not foolproof. Consider a scenario where an individual begins selling personal information online. Without proper guardrails, someone observing this activity could extract and potentially misuse that information. Collaborative efforts within the industry and the open source community, or even at an individual level, are needed to establish effective guardrails that prevent unauthorised extraction of personal information. It’s important to harden your security posture, manage risk and compliance, and automate governance processes to ensure open source data security. Q . But with the influx of information, isn’t it easy to break through these guardrails?

A. Indeed, obtaining information on virtually anything has become quite effortless today. This is where responsible AI plays a crucial role – in implementing the proper guidance and mechanisms to maintain a balance. Another consideration is the ability to redact information and ensure that I have all the information while creating a bubble around it so that it is not easily accessible to any unauthorised or malicious entity. For instance, one might have various contact numbers and other details available, but it’s vital to establish guidelines to prevent the disclosure of all information. The information can still be accessible, but it remains within a defined bubble, ensuring that the linkage between different pieces of information is restricted and not readily available to external entities. Q . With the increasing reliance of Indian startups on open source systems and the community’s growth, who holds the responsibility for putting up these guardrails?

A. The community is growing, and adoption is a good sign. But at the same time, it’s a shared responsibility that extends beyond mere coding, especially when placing data in the cloud or utilising open source. Simply assuming the cloud provider’s systems will handle everything is not accurate. Being an equal stakeholder in managing and monitoring is very important. Sometimes, clients believe that once data is on the cloud, the cloud provider secures everything, but so many things go on within the application. Neglecting these areas compromises actual security. This is not exclusive to open source; it involves culture and mindset. Everyone, whether an individual or a company, needs to adopt the same responsibility model. We have been on a 100-year journey in open source and yet we are still at the tip of the iceberg. It will only grow; there is no finish line for open source, whether physical or technological. Q . How does a company harness the power of open source to generate revenue?

A. Anyone can use open source technology. Take, for instance, adtech which is utilised to attract users. That, in itself, will generate revenue. Selection of the right open source solutions, focus on compatibility and integration, implementation of right security measures, and robust update processes need to be ingrained into business to leverage the power of open source and generate revenue. Today I can provide a differentiated value proposition to business through open source software integration. Q . What should businesses engaging with open source prioritise – profitability or open innovation?

A. The primary focus should always be customer satisfaction, which inherently leads to financial success, regardless of the technology used.

For finding the right player, open innovation opportunities are a must. Customers often appear content but are inherently dissatisfied and crave for more value. It is of paramount

importance to leverage open innovation opportunities to provide richer customer experiences.

Q . How can a company effectively manage innovation, brand positioning, market presence, and technology stack within their overall workflow and architecture?

A. Today, to make businesses successful and drive differentiated value propositions, experimentation is critical. Open source technology plays an important role in providing opportunities for experimentation, democratising the process, and making it more iterative and pervasive. The rapid evolution of technology, especially in the cloud and open source domain, has accelerated experimentation.

Architectures are designed with cost optimisation in mind, reflecting customers’ changing priorities. The contemporary customer introduces four dimensions of cost in the context of providing cost optimisation services.

The first dimension revolves around measurement, billing, and accounting. The second focuses on sales and exploring avenues for cost optimisation. The third dimension is centred on planning, involving forecasting and future-oriented design. Creating a culture and framework for costoptimised operating models constitutes the fourth dimension. All these things are feasible and more streamlined due to the widespread adoption of open source technologies, which seamlessly connect with industry trends.

Q . How do companies gauge what open source libraries to utilise?

A. This is a critical question, and as mentioned earlier, certain aspects need attention quicker than specific products. Regarding credibility and usage, consider a scenario where I employ a pre-existing model from a third-party foundation as part of my services. If that model doesn’t align with my compliance requirements, it must be customised to meet those specific business needs. While open source technology is valuable, it’s essential to recognise that it may not always perfectly fit my compliance and customer service requirements. Therefore, a nuanced approach is necessary to address the dynamic aspects that come to life in this context.

Q . Who assumes responsibility for maintaining the updates from the third-party open source library, software usage, and regular updates?

A. Navigating through the organisational vision due to the internal management of open source libraries demands establishing appropriate policies and procedures. As you rightly pointed out, determining who manages the updates is the challenge. We must implement an education mechanism and specific policies to ensure that the tools used align seamlessly with the organisation’s project goals. Without the right guidance, policies, and procedures, there’s potential for trouble. Drawing the line in this context is crucial, and this is where partnerships play a pivotal role. Open source service providers, like the community village, offer valuable assistance, aiding organisations in carefully delivering and integrating updates. While this might be somewhat complex, the best defence today lies in having well-defined policies and procedures within the organisation and forming a structured process.

Q . What strategies can be employed to select licences for open source systems to maintain openness while preventing misuse or exploitation?

A. There are a lot of rules around licensing technology. There is no one-size-fits-all licensing strategy in the open source world. There are two main types of open source licences – permissive and copyleft. The latter specifies how the open source software can be used, modified and distributed. I’ve also seen open source code generation tools using line-of-code-based licensing models. Yet, challenges arise when code analysis breaks down or when making the tools available to users on their platform of choice. There are also flexible licensing models where options like user-level or usage-based pricing strategy are followed catering to users’ varying needs, whether they’re part of a large enterprise or individuals working from a local coffee shop. There’s no universal answer for licensing, but there is a definite need to formulate strategies that can be standardised across the community.

Q . How does AWS leverage open source AI/ML solutions?

A. AWS is a proven leader in AI/ML solutions and can help solve real world business problems in any industry. Organisations can innovate with confidence by building on 20+ years of experience at Amazon. AWS AI/ML solutions increase productivity of data scientists multi-fold, who can now focus their efforts on improving customer experiences, optimising business processes and accelerating innovation. In short, it helps them create impactful solutions faster. You can use ready-made, purpose-built AI services, or your own models with AWS ML services. This can be used to create more intelligent contact centres, detect fraud and personalise user experiences, and much more. We unlock the potential of GenAI by offering the most performant infrastructure for it with the flexibility to build your own foundation models, and by making GenAI powered applications available on AWS cloud.