C-DAC part of the project
Mumbai, July 25, 2005

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mumbai will be the Indian participant in the mammoth and first-of-its-kind 35 million rupees multi-country project called FLOSSWORLD supported by the European Union (EU) in the area of Open Source Software. This 2-year project involves 17 partner institutions across 12 countries worldwide, jointly receiving RS 3.5 crore from the EUs 6th Framework Research Programme. C-DACs participation in the FLOSSWORLD project supported by NASSCOM, reinforces its strong commitment to Open Source Software as a major thrust area of research.

FLOSSWORLD promotes international collaboration between the EU and third world countries, conducting research and developing policy guidelines related to Free/ Libre/ Open Source Software (FLOSS) at a global level for the first time in Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, India, Malaysia and South Africa.

Led by the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands, the project brings together major European Research Institutes and leading public Research Institutes in the target countries.

C-DAC, Mumbai has been an active player in various Open Source activities including localization. Its Indix project aims at localizing suitable components within the Linux Operating System to enable applications to create, edit, view, and print contents in twelve major Indian languages. C-DAC has also been a key player in the setting up of the Open Source Software Resource Centre (OSSRC) in the country, in association with the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai (IIT-B) and the IBM Corporation. The OSSRC's goals are to develop, adopt and disseminate solutions, education and content that use open standards in support of India's economic development plans. The OSSRC is expected to be a nerve centre for Open Source Software (OSS) activities in the country.

Other members of the FLOSSWORLD consortium include USUARIA – the largest ICT business user organization and Fundacion Via Libre, a developer community organization, both based in Argentina; the National Information Technology Institute of the Office of the President of Brazil, and the University of Campinas, Brazil; Internet Society Bulgaria; China Education and Research Network under the Ministry of Education and China Standard Software Co Ltd, the country’s leading Free/ Libre/ Open Source Software vendor; Multimedia Institute MI2, Zagreb and the Croatian Academic Research Network under the Ministry of Science and Technology; MIMOS Bhd, an R&D organization owned by the Government of Malaysia and author of the draft National Open Source Policy; Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the largest R&D organization in Africa and home to the Mereka Institute’s Open Source Centre, and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

The FLOSSWORLD project is supported by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), which is the representative of the Indian IT industry, Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, USA, Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc, Japan, the Open Society Institute and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

As the Open Source movement gains momentum the world over, international bodies such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union are making special efforts to harness the potential of this movement. The European Union’s decision to support the FLOSSWORLD project is an endorsement of this trend.

A project factsheet is available at www.flossworld.org

For more information, please contact:

Dr. M. Sasikumar, C-DAC, Mumbai
Raintree Marg, Near Bharati Vidyapeeth, Opp Kharghar Railway Station
Sector 7, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai 400614, India
Phone: +91-22-27565303 / 04 / 05 x 30
Telefax: +91-22-27560004
Click here to send an eMail

Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, FLOSSWORLD Coordinator
MERIT, University of Maastricht, Netherlands
Postbus 616, 6200MD Maastricht, Netherlands
Phone: +31 6 29 07 44 87
Fax: + 31 6 29 07 44 87
Click here to send an eMail