Game changer: Making sense of open source software in digital economy

Earlier government projects used open-source technology, but the codes were never opened up to the larger community, reports Neha Alawadhi

Earlier this month, the government said India would allow its digital platform for the Covid-19 vaccination drive, CoWIN, to be open source for all countries to access, adapt and use, thereby becoming one of many countries that have open-sourced their government projects. 

Open-sourcing a software means that people can look at the code and suggest improvements or issues, and also use the code under a licence to develop similar products. India has had an open-source policy since 2015.

The source code of any government application, according to the policy, will be available for the community/adopter/end-user to study and modify the