At CIS we believe that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration. The advent of the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be open and collaborative -- just try to think of projects such as the Linux kernel or Wikipedia having been developed without the Internet. Even the Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Thus, we are committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software.
Openness Blog
A regularly updated blog covering CIS' work on open content and open access, free and open source software, open standards, and software patents.
Free and Open Source Software
Free and open source software (FOSS) is a good thing from both the perspective of programmer and user freedoms as well as from the perspective of better and more efficient software production. Also, FOSS forms the backbone of the Internet (BIND/NSD for DNS servers, Apache for web servers, sendmail/postfix/qmail for mail servers, Asterisk for VoIP servers, etc.), and the Internet as we know it would not exist without FOSS.
Open Content and Open Access
Open Content (of which Open Access can be thought of as a subcategory) is that content which is freely available on the Internet with or without rights to modify or re-use it. Open content can take many manifestations from openly-licensed materials (Creative Commons, etc.), open access to scholarly literature (scientific, legal, etc.), open educational resources, to open access to the law (particularly legislations and judgments). We at CIS believe that sharing of knowledge and culture is only human.
Open Standards
The Centre for Internet and Society promotes Open Standards, i.e., standards that are technically and legally free to study, free to use, developed and managed in an open manner, with a complete implementation available to all. Open standards help all -- government and citizens, industry and consumers -- by allowing greater interoperability and choice (since they are necessary for free and open source software), greater competition, reduction in costs, and greater long-term reliability. As part of our work on Open Standards, we have been providing the comments to the Indian government's Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, and have been working as a member of the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards at the UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forums.
Software Patents
Software patents are a potent threat to both open standards as well as FOSS. While in India, pure software patents (i.e., a patent over a "computer programme per se") is not allowed, still software patents are to be reckoned with. The draft patent manual prepared by the Patent Office in 2008 seemingly goes against section 3(k) of the Patents Act, and allows partially for software patents. Further, the Patent Office sometimes incorrectly grants software patents, even though the same is prohibited by the law.
