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 Forum.
- Event Report: Community Discussion on Open Standards — by Karan Saini, Prem Sylvester and Anishka Vaishnav — last modified Aug 02, 2019 06:51 AM
- This community discussion organised by HasGeek was held at the office of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India on June 20, 2019.
- Discussion on Open Standards with Bernd Erk and Jiten Vaidya Jun 20, 2019 from 06:00 PM to 07:30 PM — The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, — by Admin
- Rootconf organised a discussion on open standards at CIS Bangalore office. Zainab Bawa, Karan Saini and Anwesha Das coordinated and organised the event.
- Regulating the Internet: The Government of India & Standards Development at the IETF — by Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham — last modified Jan 22, 2019 07:29 AM
- The institution of open standards has been described as a formidable regulatory regime governing the Internet. Given the regulatory and domestic policy implications that technical standards can have, there is a need for Indian governmental agencies to focus adequate resources geared towards achieving favourable outcomes at standards development fora.
- Comments on the Draft National Policy on Software Products — by Anubha Sinha, Rohini Lakshané, and Udbhav Tiwari — last modified Dec 12, 2016 02:45 PM
- The Centre for Internet & Society submitted public comments to the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Information & Communications Technology, Govt. of India on the National Policy of Software Products on December 9, 2016.
- (Lack of) Representation of Non-Western World in Process of Creation of Web Standards — by Harsh Gupta — last modified Oct 20, 2016 01:44 AM
- World Wide Consortium (W3C) as a standard setting organization for the World Wide Web plays a very important role in shaping the web. We focus on the ongoing controversy related to Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and found that there was a serious lack of participation from people from non-western countries. We also found serious lack of gender diversity in the EME debate.
- How we celebrated Software Freedom Day — by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Oct 07, 2016 02:02 AM
- A small group of 6 FOSS contributors from communities such as Mozilla, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, Open Street Map and users of FOSS solutions gathered in Bengaluru to celebrate Software Freedom Day. Subhashish Panigrahi who was a part of the event, reports the developments.
- Software Freedom Day: The Importance of Free and Open Source Software — by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Sep 18, 2016 03:46 AM
- Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 17 celebrates the liberty that free and open software and the philosophy of freedom brings into people’s lives. When SFD was started in 2004, only 12 teams from different places joined. It grew to a whooping 1000 by 2010 across the world. Explaining the aim of the celebration, SFD’s official website says,
- ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସ: ଆମ ହାତେ ଆମ କୋଡ଼ ଲେଖିବା — by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Sep 18, 2016 03:33 AM
- Software Freedom Day (SFD), which celebrates the use of free and open software, was celebrated in many cities today. The piece sheds light on the philosophy of software freedom, and how free and open source software is making a significant social change. I have also shared how anyone can contribute to the FOSS movement in different ways and celebrate SFD.
- It's September, and That Means It's Time for Software Freedom Day — by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Sep 17, 2016 03:42 PM
- Software Freedom Day (SFD), which celebrates the use of free and open software, is just around the corner on September 17. When the day first started in 2004, only 12 teams from different places joined, but it has since grown to include hundreds registered events around the world, depending on the year.
- Comments on the National Geospatial Policy (Draft, V.1.0), 2016 — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Jun 30, 2016 09:40 AM
- The Department of Science and Technology published the first public draft of the National Geospatial Policy (v.1.0) on May 05, 2016, and invited comments from the public. CIS submitted the following comments in response. The comments were authored by Adya Garg, Anubha Sinha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
- Google, Apple and Microsoft may need licence for satellite mapping in India — by Prasad Krishna — last modified May 10, 2016 03:20 PM
- Cold response from MNCs like Google to India's security concerns is seen as a prime reason for the proposed legislation to regulate mapping of the country, a move that critics call "return of the Licence Raj" and "digital nationalism".
- Adoption of Standards in Smart Cities - Way Forward for India — by Vanya Rakesh — last modified Apr 11, 2016 03:04 AM
- With a paradigm shift towards the concept of “Smart Cities’ globally, as well as India, such cities have been defined by several international standardization bodies and countries, however, there is no uniform definition adopted globally. The glue that allows infrastructures to link and operate efficiently is standards as they make technologies interoperable and efficient.
- Pre-Budget Consultation 2016 - Submission to the IT Group of the Ministry of Finance — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Jan 12, 2016 01:34 PM
- The Ministry of Finance has recently held pre-budget consultations with different stakeholder groups in connection with the Union Budget 2016-17. We were invited to take part in the consultation for the IT (hardware and software) group organised on January 07, 2016, and submit a suggestion note. We are sharing the note below. It was prepared and presented by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, with contributions from Rohini Lakshané, Anubha Sinha, and other members of CIS.
- ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର — by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Jan 05, 2016 06:30 AM
- Odia newspaper Sambad carried this featured column of mine yesterday in their Sunday supplement "Sambada Rabibara" on December 6, 2015.
- Hits and Misses With the Draft Encryption Policy — by Sunil Abraham — last modified Sep 26, 2015 04:46 PM
- Most encryption standards are open standards. They are developed by open participation in a publicly scrutable process by industry, academia and governments in standard setting organisations (SSOs) using the principles of “rough consensus” – sometimes established by the number of participants humming in unison – and “running code” – a working implementation of the standard. The open model of standards development is based on the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) philosophy that “many eyes make all bugs shallow”.
- Software Freedom Pledge — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Sep 25, 2015 12:26 PM
- On September 19, 2015, celebrated globally as Software Freedom Day, a number of enthusiasts got together and collectively took a pledge.
- Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants — by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Jul 17, 2013 06:33 AM
- On May 13, 2013, the Access to Knowledge team led by Subhashish Panigrahi conducted a Wikipedia Introductory Session at the National Informatics Centre in New Delhi for the consultants working for Data and India portal. This session was aimed to emphasize how these portals and their useful data could be used on Wikipedia to create good quality articles.
- Second International e-Governance Conference — by Prasad Krishna — last modified Dec 11, 2012 10:50 AM
- The second international conference on governance and electronics which is held under the motto "Together Toward Digital Inclusion" is organized by the National Committee for Corporate Governance Electronic Iraq and the United Nations Development Programme at Rashid Hotel in Baghdad from December 2-3, 2012. The event aims to review the achievements of the program e-governance Iraqi national, and discuss the challenges of applying e-governance as a tool to achieve public sector reform and digital inclusion.
- PDF Format — by admin — last modified Aug 23, 2011 03:06 AM
- Oo.org Format — by admin — last modified Aug 23, 2011 03:06 AM
- MS Format — by admin — last modified Aug 23, 2011 03:07 AM
- Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Aug 24, 2011 06:32 AM
- A draft of the 'National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy', which some hope will be the open data policy of India, was made available for public comments in early May. This is what the Centre for Internet and Society submitted.
- CIS Comments on the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (Phase I) — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified May 22, 2013 10:48 AM
- In November 2010, the Central Government released the Draft 0.6 of the Technical Standards for the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (Phase I), requesting comments by January 27, 2011. Here are the comments that CIS submitted.
- CPOV : Wikipedia Research Initiative — by Nishant Shah — last modified Aug 23, 2011 02:52 AM
- The Second event, towards building the Critical Point of View Reader on Wikipedia, brings a range of scholars, practitioners, theorists and activists to critically reflect on the state of Wikipedia in our contemporary Information Societies. Organised in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by the Institute of Network Cultures, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, the event builds on the debates and discussions initiated at the WikiWars that launched off the knowledge network in Bangalore in January 2010. Follow the Live Tweets at #CPOV
- Arguments Against Software Patents in India — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Mar 13, 2012 10:43 AM
- CIS believes that software patents are harmful for the software industry and for consumers. In this post, Pranesh Prakash looks at the philosophical, legal and practical reasons for holding such a position in India. This is a slightly modified version of a presentation made by Pranesh Prakash at the iTechLaw conference in Bangalore on February 5, 2010, as part of a panel discussing software patents in India, the United States, and the European Union.
