The state of Kerala, India, has opened Swatantra, the largest government FOSS center in the world. Swatantra falls under the auspices of Kerala's International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS). In 2001, Kerala adopted a formal, pro-FOSS technology policy.
'Swatantra', an initiative of International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), will house the FOSS incubation centre and training space. It is aimed at enhancing the government's agenda of promoting democratic access to information with the objective of sustainable economic development.
Earlier on SN:
Government of Indian State Fully Adopts FOSS in Schools; Saves $45M (2017)
Government of India Adopts FOSS Preferred Policy (2015)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @05:00PM (1 child)
"Largest?" By what, budget? Number of people? Acre?
"It is aimed at enhancing the government’s agenda of promoting democratic access to information with the objective of sustainable economic development."
What does this mean really? Are they gonna develop software or develop policy? Sounds more like a shallow PR move than anything of substance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday March 04 2019, @05:06PM
Seems, after further internet searching, like they mean square footage of office space specifically devoted to developing open source projects, excluding offices run mixed between for-profit ventures related to open source like the former red-hat headquarters.