Nasscom Moots Certification Of Licensed Software

All electronic data processing (EDP) managers in the government may henceforth have to certify that the computer software used in their respective departments is licensed and hence legal. A proposal to this effect would be submitted to the government next week by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

The proposal would detail the modus operandi of such a scheme, Nasscom executive director Dewang Mehta said. Preliminary talks with government officials have yielded a positive response to this proposal, he said.

June-1997 has been declared as the anti-piracy month, and the software companies association will be announcing a series of initiatives to intensify the war on software piracy, he said.

The use of unlicensed software often results from lack of awareness, Mehta said, adding that one of the important facets of Nasscoms anti-piracy campaign is awareness creation.

The losses due to software piracy in the country in 1996-97 was estimated at Rs 500 crore, with a piracy rate of 60 per cent.

Nasscom is targeting a piracy rate of less than 25 per cent by the turn of the century, he said.