Open Source AND Commercial Software

1
Open Source AND Commercial Software

• S Sadagopan, IIIT-Bangalore
• Skoch Summit
• Delhi
• February 17, 2005

2
Agenda

• Role of Open Source
• Role of Commercial Software
• Relevance to India
• Pragmatism is the key
• Way forward
• Summary

3
Role of Open Source

• Learning, Discovery, Freedom oriented
• Idealistic
• Suits academics
• Drives innovation
• Capitalizes on groups of committed individuals
• Internet is a boon
• Growing but still a niche

4
Role of Commercial Software

• Entrepreneurial
• Realistic
• Sunrise Industry
• Suits thriving, profitable businesses
• Innovation thanks to R D Dollars
• Focus as there is a Captain deliverables road
  map .. Are under better control
• Growing into a trillion Dollar opportunity
  beyond computing, communication, electronics.. To
  medical, governance, automotive, process control,
  industrial automation

5
Relevance to India

• Largest number of engineering students (1.2
  Million any time)
• Second largest software professionals
• Software is still expensive
• Most of the leading software companies present in
  India (US, UK, Germany, Japan, France, China..)
• Growing software industry ( 15 Billion export in
  2005)
• Need to capitalize on the commercial software

6
Way forward

• Have strong open Source groups
• Governments should pragmatically address
• for education,
• for deployment,
• for negotiation,
• for critical support,
• for manpower needs,
• for export dollars
• Open Source is NOT Linux

7
Summary

• Open Source Or Commercial is NOT the question it
  is always Open Source AND Commercial Software
• Pragmatism is the Key
• We are yet to prove ourselves in Open Source
• Leave it to the Experts and not those belonging
  to the Camp
• Any questions?