The use of open source software in India is all set to advance further and increased participation from government and industry could see a balanced distribution of proprietory and open source software, Robert Adkins, president, Technetra, said on Friday.
It is unrealistic to expect that open source would replace Microsoft Windows in the next 10 years but there have been significant involvement of the industry with the deployment and development of open source, Adkins, who heads a US company that implements large scale open source projects told PTI at the ongoing 'Linux Asia 2004'.
"India is already a force to reckon with on open source movement. But there can be competition and cooperation both for the players -- proprietory and open source in the Indian market and one need not develop at the cost of the other," Adkins said.
"All players should try to develop the market as it benefits everybody," Adkins said.
Open source software is vital for a market like India primarily from cost of point of view. "If the only software solutions provider -- Microsoft -- follows a global pricing model for its products in India, it becomes quite costly for people to use that software," he said.
"Open source, which has a free component also could be one of the software solutions options for the Indian market other than Microsoft," he said.
He further said that desktops based on open source software were now ready even for the retail level of the Indian market.
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