Innovation Happens on Open Sources

In a recently held event in New Delhi Peter Lees, Chief Technologist & Director of Sales Engineering, Asia Pacific, SUSE said, “Open Source is where all the innovation happens”. According to him, all the new technologies, all the new ideas and all the new approach have their foundation in open source. “In the past few years, open source has exploded. There are millions of open source projects that can help manage your business.

Commenting on the adoption of Open Source in the government sector, Anand Pande, Senior Vice President & CISO, Goods & Service Tax Network (GSTN) said, “There are government policies which recommend or mandates use of open source, open API, open platforms within the government establishments. The adoption is increasing.”

Debabrata Nayak, Project Director (Open Source Collaboration) & Addl. Director, Director, Digital Locker, National e-Governance Division (NeGD), says, “Open Source is a platform for the government to build along with the citizens.”

[From (Left to Right) : Shashi Dharan, Managing Director, Bharat Exhibtions, Peter Lees, Chief Technologist & Director of Sales Engineering, Asia Pacific, SUSE, Sanjeet Sen, Director - Product Marketing, Open Source on Azure, Microsoft, Golok Kumar Simli, Principal Consultant & Chief of Technology, Passport Seva, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India, Saurabh Jain, Vice President, Paytm, Debabrata Nayak, Project Director (Open Source Collaboration) & Addl. Director, Digital Locker, National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Anand Pande, Senior Vice President & CISO, Goods & Services Tax Network (GSTN), L. R. Prakash, Director, C-DAC, Chennai, Kamal Dodeja, Global Manager – Open Source, Cloud Native Engineering and Consulting, Oracle]

The rise of digital transformation in India has pushed the adoption of Open Source both by the enterprises and the government. According to a recent research, the Open Source Services market will be worth more than $30 billion by 2022.

While most see Open Source only from a technology aspect, Microsoft sees it as culture as well. Shedding light on this, Sanjeet Sen, Director, Product Marketing, Open Source on Azure, Microsoft, said, “The basic premise of open source is contribution. Within Microsoft now, if there are any new projects build by engineers, then anyone can contribute to the same. So that is the cultural change that we are seeing. From the technology part, there are three pillars for Open Source. The first is enabling, second is releasing and third is contribution”.

Other aspects touched over the course of the panel discussion were innovations that have been achieved by using Open Source, the security concerns and the way ahead.

Saurabh Jain, Vice President, Paytm pointed out that no big open source name has come out of India. “All the big names in open source be it Linux or Wordpress, they have been started in the west and that is what I would like to change,” he said.