Programmers from the free software community across the country will soon have a common platform to develop IT tools and applications for general use by civil society as well as government and institutions.

The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) here has launched a new initiative named “Code Free for India” (CoFFI), under which the programmers will be invited to develop various applications and desktop, Internet, mobile, Cloud and Internet- of- Things tools.

Launching CoFFI at a function held here to mark the Software Freedom Day celebrations on Saturday, ICFOSS director Satish Babu said it would provide a broad umbrella for the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) community members and groups who would like to help address local issues and needs.

Objective

“It aims at providing a platform to initiatives that are successful locally to scale up to State or national levels. The initiative will also encourage use of local language computing tools and contemporary FOSS technology while keeping in mind, bandwidth and device limitations in the country,” he said.

The Software Freedom Day was jointly organised by ICFOSS, Technopark, and Free Software User Group (FSUG), Thiruvananthapuram.

P.H. Kurian, Principal Secretary, IT, who was the chief guest, gave away awards to the Kerala State Electricity Board and Kerala Khadi and Village Industries Board for their efforts in migrating to free software.

Mr. Kurian said: “One of the biggest problems is that our government does not have software developers and, therefore, it becomes difficult to continuously sustain software applications.”

He urged the free software group and ICFOSS to come forward and create a group within the government that was permanently committed towards free software and lend a helping hand to the smooth functioning of the IT programmes in the government. Free Software Foundation of India (FSF-India) Board member V Sasikumar spoke at the event. The celebrations were coordinated by Zyxware Technologies.