Setting up of National resource Centre in FOSS

Published on March 10, 2005 By Tripathi In Business

National Resource Centre for
Free and Open Source Software
Part-I : Human Resource Development (AU-KBC Research Centre)
Part-II : Product Development (C-DAC, Chennai)

A proposal submitted to the

Department of Information Technology
Ministry of Communication & Information Technology
Government of India
New Delhi

By

AU-KBC Research Centre
Anna University
Chennai
&

C-DAC
Chennai

February 28, 2005.

PROFORMA FOR SUBMITTING R&D PROJECT PROPOSAL
FOR SEEKING FINANCIAL SUPPORT

SUMMARY SHEET

1. Title of Project
National Resource Centre for FOSS Development

2. Organisations : Ana University Chennai
AU-KBC Research Centre,
M.I.T. Campus of Anna University,
Chromepet, Chennai – 600 044.

&
C-DAC
2nd floor, Senthil Tower
AI, First Avennue
Ashok Nagar
Chennai- 600 083.
3.
(i) Chief investigator (AU) :

Name : Prof. C N Krishnan
Designation : Professor of Electronics Engg.
& Director AU-KBC Research Centre.

Department : AU-KBC Research Centre.
Address : MIT Campus of Anna University
: Chennai—600 044

(ii) Chief Investigator (CDAC)

Name : M. R. Rajagopalan

Designation : Programme Coordinator & Head

Department : C-DAC, Chennai

Address : 2nd floor, Senthil Towers
: AI, First Avennue
: Ashok Nagar
: Chennai- 600 083.

4. Nature of Project : Application oriented Research, Design & Development

5. Objective of the Project

The overall Objective of the proposal is to set up a National Resource Centre (NRC) for FOSS(Free and Open Source Software) that will contribute to the growth of FOSS in India through Research and Development, Human Resource Development, Networking and Entrepreneurship Development , as well as serve as the reference point for all FOSS related activities in the country, including the creation and maintenance of a national FOSS Portal.
The following are the more specific objectives of the proposal:
• Human Resource Development for general FOSS capacity building in the formal and non-formal sectors
• Research, Training, Networking, Entrepreneurship development and other support for promotion of FOSS and Localisation efforts in the country keeping in mind affordability and sustainability
• Design, Development and Deployment of FOSS products and technologies in the country with emphasis in the areas of E-governance, School Education and SME s.
• Encourage and promote the development of applications under FOSS & SOA framework in the area of school education, SME’s, and e-governance domain
• Develop generic robust middleware based on OSS that will be relevant for school, SME’s, and e-governance domain
• Cooperate and collaborate with Resource Centre at Mumbai (CDAC & IIT), national and international institutions, research laboratories and other academic /research institutes.
• Organize study programmes, Lectures symposia, conferences exhibitions and similar promotional activities related to FOSS development, including the holding of an annual “FOSS Congress”.
• Establish and maintain a research and reference library in pursuance of the objectives of the centre

6. Expected outcome in physical terms (as applicable)

AUKBC Research Centre, Chennai:

1. Training 100 Teachers from 50 Engineering Colleges to offer 2 Elective Courses, Lab classes and student projects so as to create about 3000 Engineers / MCA’s every year with exposure and training in the area of FOSS.

2. Supporting the various agencies of school education in the formulation of course syllabus and contents for FOSS education in schools.

3. Providing support ( Syllabus, contents, S/w Tool Kits) to agencies in the Non-formal Sector like DOEACC, CDAC and others to enable them conduct FOSS courses for User Groups.

4. Establishing linkages and networking between various FOSS Groups working in the country so as to enable generation of a National level response to emerging International trends in this area. A “ FOSS Congress ” would be held annually at the national level to serve as a platform show casing India’s strength in this field to the world.

5. Coordinating and supporting the work of our research community in the proliferation and promotion of FOSS technologies, resources and culture, and help build an appropriate eco system for it.

6. Coordinating and promoting the work of the different Localisation groups in the country in an appropriate manner to enable easy creation and access of Indian language contents on the Net, and thereby help reduce the problem of the Digital Divide.

7. Collaborating with C-DAC Chennai in the development of FOSS products and technologies, especially in the areas needing research support.

8. Collaborating with C-DAC Chennai in creation of a FOSS Portal addressing the HRD needs of the country.

9. Jointly with C-DAC Chennai, and in collaboration with other agencies of Trade and Industry, help build appropriate Business Models and promote Entrepreneurship in the country in the area of FOSS and Localisation.

10. Keeping a watch on the global global discourse on “ FOSS vs. proprietary Software”( in terms of maintainability, robustness, total cost of ownership, affordability, open standards etc.), and providing the necessary inputs to DIT in this area.

C-DAC, Chennai

11. Integrated Service Oriented Architectural (SOA) framework and security services for e-Governance

12. Linux based Tamil Computer for Schools and FOSS related services

13. Linux / RT Linux enhancements, Middleware for embedded systems

14. Device driver development

15. Testing & development services for all India efforts in FOSS for such products including their feature enhancements for uploading to National FOSS database.

16. Development of National FOSS Resource Portal

17. Provide information and advise on FOSS issues and deployments in e-Governance, Health / Agriculture sector

18. Demonstrate the use of FOSS within SME environments

7. Duration of Project : 3 -Years .

8. Likely End User(s) :
Government Agencies and Departments, Educational and other HRD Institutions, R&D institutions, SME s, Software Industry, etc.

9. Name of other organizations jointly participating in the project :
This is a coordinated activity between Anna University (AU-KBC Research Centre) and C-DAC Chennai, and many other institutions, organizations , enterprises, agencies, departments, groups and individuals interested in this area are expected to join in the specific programs and activities as they develop.

10. Total Budget outlay
Expenditure in Rs. Lakhs
Sl. No Head I Year
12 Months II Year
12 Months III Year
12 Months Total
36 Months
C-DAC AU Total C-DAC AU Total C-DAC AU Total C-DAC AU Total

1 Capital Equipment & Software(non-recurring) 35.00 25.00 60.00 15.00 --- 15.00 10.00 --- 10.00 60.00 25.00 85.00
2 Consumable stores (incl. internet charges, mainte-nance, books etc.) 5.00 8.00 13.00 9.00 7.00 16.00 9.00 5.00 14.00 23.00 20.00 43.00
3 Manpower
34.08 30.00 64.08 34.08 40.00 74.08 34.08 30.00 64.08 102.24 100.00 202.24
4 Travel, Meetings, Conferences & Training 10.00 13.00 23.00 7.00 13.00 20.00 7.00 9.00 16.00 24.00 35.00 59.00
5 Contingencies 10.00 20.00 30.00 7.00 8.00 15.00 7.00 8.00 15.00 24.00 35.00 59.00
6 Overheads 6.59 14.40 20.99 5.47 10.20 15.67 4.70 7.65 12.35 16.76 32.25 49.01

Grand Total 100.67 110.40 211.07 77.55 78.20 155.75 71.78 58.65 130.43 250.00 247.25 497.25

Grand Total : Rs. 497.25 Lacs

FE Component : Nil

11. a) Contribution of Project Implementing/ & other Organisation in Total Budget Outlay :
The contributions in kind from the participating institutions in terms of their expertise and resources have been taken into account while drawing up the above budget.

DIT Contribution : Rs. 497.25 Lacs

Signature of Chief Investigator (CDAC Chennai) Signature of Chief Investigator(AU)
Designation: Program Coordinator &Head. Designation: Director, AU-KBC Centre
Date: 28th Feb 05 Date:28th Feb 05

Comments

Tripathi

on Mar 10, 2005

Kindly refer to the meeting notice dated 28.02.05 and remarks of the chairman vide his email dated march 7 05 by email to me and forwarded to all the members of exoert committee for setting up of the National resource Centre in FOSS , the detailed proposal were sent by speed post by undersigned on Masrch 4th 05.

Hope all the members haver received the above .

2. In consultation with the chairman JS( p Agrawala), since it is not possible for him to leave the station because of the parliament being in session and other important assignments it has now been decided to obtain and process the views of memnbers of the expert committee through webl;ogging.

Accordingly the" Summary proposal giving key informations about the objectives and expected outcomes in physical terms by the implementing agencies- AU KBC research centre chennai for Part-I HR developmrent ii) CDAC Chennai for part - II - product developments , duration totla budget outlay and other details is placed as the resource material for the web logging for your able comments.

All comments keeping a closed view on the observations / recommendations of the individual members are welcome upto March16th05 ( Wednesday) and closed thereafter.

Kindly participate in this weblogging mode of expert committee meeting to recommend the DIT for suitable decision on the proposal "SETting up National resouirce Centre for FOSS", Part _I AUKBC reseach Centre and Part- II CDAC Chennai - product development of total out lay RS. $(&>25 lakhs for a period of 3 yrs as Grant-in-aid from DIT-

R. C. Tripathi , Member Convenor

Tripathi

on Mar 14, 2005

The proposal takes the best recourse for tapping the application of FOSs in India in almost all domains particularly for HR development right from school education in local anguage upto advanced projects development using FOSS throutgh teacher training, annual FOSS congress meet , products development as relevant to the e-gov and to work INDIA'S reference point to the international development sin FOSS.

The project out lay in terms of finanace and duration seems commensurate with objectives and targets.

DIT may consider the proposal for necessary financial and administrative support. - R.C. Tripathi , Member convenor

Tripathi

on Mar 14, 2005

Tripathi

on Mar 15, 2005

[Aide Memoire / Reminder:

Respected members of the Expert Committee,

DIT Project for "Setting up of the National Resource Centre in FOSS at Chennai " may kindly recollect this blogged mode of solicitation of their views has not been received so far except of the undersigned and of Prof. Shyamsunder through an email received as below.
" 3/14/2005 09:44 PM
The project is interesting. as I am away from Mumbai till 25th March I will not be able to give detailed comments.Thanks
Shyam"
2 As only two days are left now in total , i hereby again request all of you send your comments/views/recommendatations latest by March 16th 2005
3. In case no comments/views/recommendations are received by March 16th 05 evening , it will be presumed that you are in agreement with the subject project proposal for financial support of DIT.
- R.C. Tripathi , Member convenor

N. Balakrishnan

on Mar 15, 2005

The proposal is timely and needs to be supported, but with modifications which are an absolute must before we proceed.
The role of Anna University in training 3000 users seems OK. But the inherent strength of CDAC in productizing is not very evident. They must make sure that
1. They continously validate, engineer, harden and ceritify for security and off band executions. They must also make sure that the localized versions of the Open software becomes available to Government and Educationla Institutions free of cost ( Free Open software) Free should not be misguided by saying that it will be made available freely but at a cost- If the cost becomes prhibitive even for what are called "support", the users will shy away from open source- In brief CDAC should become the Indian Version of SUZE and Red Hat but at no cost to the users.
2. The proposal seems to be giving an impression that FOSS is all about LINUX and possibly Open Office- no - If the E-governance has to be a success, it should look at many things including a free open version of equivalants of ORACLE, MATLAB,
IMSL, debuggers, parralelizers etc. There seems to be no mention of these.
3. Solaris has also coming under Open source now. Like this many other open source SWs are in the pipe line including many Bioinformatics and visualization tools etc. FOSS shoule become a single window for all these for checking for secutity, correctness, reengineering and code walk thru.
4. CDAC should establish a call centre based support services for all the products that it delivers.
5. It would be nice if CDAC gives the list of SW that it will make freely available as a road map. Anna University must give these packages to the trained staff free along with a good courseware.

With the above met in writing, I would have no heistation in clearing the proposal.

N Balakrishnan

js(pa)

on Mar 16, 2005

I am grateful to Prof Balki and Shyamsundar for their comments. the assurance from Prof raghavan and Ramki to send their comments is also appreciated.
The whole project is to craete an atmosphere of going ahead and doing something in this vital area rather than making supportive statements. The emphasis on manpower generation on one hand and product development on the other is also a welcome step.
I endorse the project and hope to get your support for its speedy implementation. I prpose to release the funds this financial year.
Pankaj agrawala
Joint Secretary

Adv(AKC)

on Mar 16, 2005

The project is timely and recommended for support.

- Advisor(A.K. Charkravarti), DIT

Tripathi

on Mar 16, 2005

copy of email received earlier from Prof. Shyamsunder, TIFR, Mumbai

Dear Dr. Tripathi:
The project is interesting. As I am away from Mumbai till 25th March,
I will not be able to give detailed comments.
Thanks
shyam 03.14.2005

Tripathi

on Mar 17, 2005

copy of email received from Prof. Raghavan, IIT Chennai

I studied the papers relating to FOSS. The proposal is well done and the Goals are set in line with the National requirements.
The parties chosen have adequate background to carry out the task envisaged.
I fell encouraged to recommend that the proposal be accepted and the Research Awards be made to AU-KBC and CDAC.
I congratulate all those who put in lot of effort in making the proposal and Mr Tripathi in carrying out his mission meticulously.
In case I can be of any help further in this matter, I would be happy to be of service.

Raghavan

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