Open source technologies are making significant inroads in governments around the world, avers Gopi Ganapathy, President & CEO, Essentia, US (www.essentia-corp.com). This is as a result of open source providing significant benefits such as low cost, flexibility of use and modification, lack of vendor lock-in, and most important of all the ability to create drive a vibrant local economy of solution providers in innovation, development, deployment, training and support, adds Gopi, during a recent interaction with Business Line.

“It is pure and simple economics. Times are tough, the amount of work needed to generate what we did just two years ago is doubling, we need to get productive and efficient without compromising our ability to innovate. Open source is the way.”

Our conversation continues over the email. Excerpts from the interview.

Why should India pay attention to open source?