Moving on from Red Hat to Google

Last month, I moved from Red Hat to Google. After spending six-and-half years at Red Hat, it was a tough decision to make because I got to work on issues like open standards and open source that have such long-term implications for India. To tell the truth, I had also gotten into a warm comfort zone in my previous job and was wondering what to do next, after we won the open standards fight in India.

In the last year or so, there were several offers, but none of them really excited me because I was looking for a role that has a large social impact. When Google sounded me out, I thought this could be interesting because Internet penetration in India, especially the web in India languages, is one area that can have a large impact. I know that broadband, 3G, 4G etc are on their way, yadda, yadda, yadda, and Internet usage will inevitably grow, but those who have been involved in policy know that there is a great difference between having policies on paper and actually having *political will* behind those policies. For example, every politician and bureaucrat agrees that computing in Indian languages is a good idea, but our so-called software superpower of a country has not made this a reality, even as it relentlessly churns out code for the rest of the world.

Another reason for taking up Google's offer was that I'll be able to continue my involvement in open source and open standards. In some ways, it was also a good time to leave Red Hat because most of the defensive work needed to protect the open source community -- open standards, software patents etc -- have been taken care of. Apart from the FOSS non-profits like FSF and FSMI, the Indian FOSS community now has an layer of non-profits like IT For Change, the Center for Internet and Society, Knowledge Commons and others who look at FOSS from an outside-in perspective and advocate for FOSS as a social good. The setting up of the Software Freedom Law Center's India chapter has also helped give the community some sorely needed legal firepower. I feel that these developments have greatly strengthened the community.

I want to conclude by saying that I see great hope for the future, event though the current policy environment seems so bleak and depressing. is is because, in the last six-and-half years, I have had the privilege of working with many bright, passionate individuals who are working for the larger good. Some of them have left the civil service or the corporate world to work in NGOs, and most of them have the caliber to be successful entrepreneurs or business leaders but have chosen to be involved in the area of public policy. This is an exciting development that will change India's destiny.

A sad day for open standards

Let me admit it--I am saddened to see that OOXML now has the ISO stamp. The open source and free software communities are motivated by the dream of building an inclusive information society. Open standards--which can be freely implemented by anyone on a royalty-free basis and are created through consensus--are the foundation of this dream.

Therefore the Open Source Foundation of India feels that OOXML is an April Fool's Day joke played on the whole world and is a very sad outcome for open standards. The manner in which Microsoft has pushed OOXML through the ISO has breached all norms of standards creation. The voting results show that emerging economies like China, India, South Africa have voted against OOXML. Due to the manner in which one organization has hijacked the standards institution, we need to ask ourselves, "Can we trust these organizations with the critical standards that India depends upon?"

China's reaction has been to create standards of its own and it is reported that they have plans of creating 10,000 of their own standards. To protect our country's interests, we will have to ask organizations like ISO to follow transparent and ethical standards creation processes. Alternately, emerging economies will have to come together to create standards institutions that cannot be hijacked by monopolistic organizations.

Those who want to know the value of open standards just have to look at the amount of innovation that has happened on the Internet and compare it to the desktop world where competition has been systematically killed off to protect monopolies. Vendor driven standards like OOXML are not open standards and the Software Freedom Law Center has cautioned open source and free software developers from implementing OOXML due to legal risks. Since open source is the most viable alternative to expensive proprietary software, the global open source community is extremely unhappy with this development.

Eben, Kerala and other issues

I had a very long chat with Eben Moglen last week and had gone down to Delhi in this heat wave to meet with him. On Saturday morning, when the temperature was 45 degrees centigrade, around 50 people turned up to hear him talk about the issue of software patents and Microsoft's claims that Linux violates its patents. Eben is a combative force-of-nature and I am glad he is on our side!

We spoke about a number of things that will become common knowledge once the Software Freedom Law Center unveils its plans for India. Before, coming to Delhi, Eben had spent three days in Kerala. We agreed that it was important that Kerala succeeded with Free and Open Source Software because it is one place where there is both, political will as well as grassroots support for FOSS. The plans to set up an academic center of excellence for FOSS in Kerala was another thing that we spoke about. This academy is a wonderful idea and I would love to teach there. Incidentally, I will now be speaking on open source at the IIT Bombay's course on ICT for Development.