FOSS INNOVATION IN INDIAN COURTS

 Inspired by the Allahabad High Court

Inspired and led by the Allahabad High Court, Indian courts have adopted Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) as standard software to deploy. In the 40^th year of establishment of Free Software Foundation (FSF), it is relevant to narrate this story. 

It will be narrated in different posts. This is the first post and is introduction of the same.

Examples of FOSS

FOSS INNOVATION IN COURTS: Inspired by the Allahabad High Court

Introduction|| 

In the early days of software development (namely 1950s and 1960s), it was mostly collaborative among the scientific and academic communities. But soon, the protective nature of software began. 

In early 1980s, Richard Stallman, a researcher at the MIT AI Lab, argued that if this protective nature of software continues, then only a few people would dominate the software industry unless freedoms were granted. He argued that software should grant the following freedom to the software users:

1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose; 
2. The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this; 
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour; 
4. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. 

He called it free software (FS), started GNU (GNU is not Unix) project, and established Free Software Foundation (FSF). According to Stallman, 'Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price and one may think 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'. 

Copyrights are used to own a software, but free software ensures that no one may be able to own it or does exactly the opposite by using copyright. So, a new word, ‘copyleft’ was coined for it. 

Later, Stallman, with the help of lawyers, drafted a licence known as 'General public licence' (GPL). It contains conditions that copylefts the software. A software released under GPL or GPLed software may be integrated with another  GPLed software but not with any other proprietary software. He started releasing software under GPL. 

The philosophy of FSF conveyed an anti-business message. In the spring of 1997, a group of leaders in the free software community assembled in California. They envisaged broadening of free software. In order to do so, an Open Source Initiative (OSI) was started that drafted ten guidelines and if a software licence qualified those ten, it was called Open Source Software (OSS). 

The circle of OSS is much larger than free software or GPLed software. The licenses that fulfil these ten guidelines copyleft the software to different degrees. GPLed software copylefts a software to the maximum and Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) does it to the minimum. Thus, free software is part of OSS but not vice-versa. All of them together came to be known as Free/ Open Source Software or just FOSS. 

Initially proprietary software was the norm for computerisation in the Indian judiciary but not anymore: now FOSS is the norm. FSF was established on 4^th October 1985. This being the 40^th anniversary, it is proper to narrate how this change came about.

In the next post we will talk about how courts in India are being computerised.

इस चिट्ठी को हिन्दी में यहां  पढ़ा जा सकता है।

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