The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting open source adoption, has announced the launch of its India entity, LF India. This move aims to bolster open source contributions across India's ecosystem of enterprises, startups, and the government.

India is already a significant player in the open source landscape, with 13.2 million developers using GitHub for their projects, according to Microsoft. The country is also the second-largest market for open source developers after the U.S. and is expected to surpass the U.S. by 2028. However, contributions to open source projects from the Indian developer community are relatively limited, with only about 200,000 developers currently contributing to open source projects hosted by the Linux Foundation.

The establishment of LF India is a strategic move to tap into India's vast developer community and promote open source contributions. "India is becoming quite a big contributor and user of open source. So, we said let's just set up LF India for local collaborations so that we can have a global impact," said Arpit Joshipura, general manager and SVP of the Linux Foundation and head of LF India, in an interview.

The Indian entity will work with local developers, enterprises, startups, and intergovernmental organizations in the country to incubate and support open source software projects. This includes providing training and support for open source deployments, as well as collaborating with local entities such as open source networking firm OpenNets and nonprofit organization International Startup Foundation.

India has a strong history of adopting open source software, with several local communities promoting its adoption over the years. The Indian government has also embraced open source technologies to save costs and limit reliance on proprietary solutions. In 2021, the government announced a policy on adopting open source software to encourage its use among state-run organizations and departments.

Some notable examples of open source adoption in India include the Reserve Bank of India and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which are already using some of Linux Foundation's projects through the LF Decentralized Trust for developments such as the ongoing pilots for Digital Rupee and National Blockchain Framework.

The LF India will focus on developing projects that will directly be launched upstream into the Linux Foundation's global entity, unlike its European counterpart, which develops region-specific projects due to regulatory restrictions. The Indian entity will explore areas such as cloud-native, telecommunications, edge/IoT, blockchain, security, and domain-specific AI technologies.

The launch of LF India is also expected to stimulate ongoing tech collaborations between the U.S. government and its Indian counterpart, enabling the standardization of open source de-facto for critical infrastructure, including telecom. "Through our collaborative efforts with the likes of the Linux Foundation and LF India, we are harnessing the power of open source innovation to build a more secure, resilient, and trustworthy 6G ecosystem, ensuring the integrity of our communications and safeguarding national security for generations to come," said Tom Rondeau, principal director for FutureG for the U.S. Department of Defense, in a prepared statement.

The local setup will also host events to bring the Indian open source community closer and enable networking among open source contributors and developers. The Linux Foundation is currently hosting its first two-day event, KubeCon, in Delhi this week and is set to hold its second version in Hyderabad in August next year, followed by its flagship open source software event Open Source Summit in the city.

Sub-organizations of the Linux Foundation will also benefit from the Indian entity, which is expected to attract more contributors. The country is already the fourth-largest contributor to the Linux Foundation's Cloud Native Computing Foundation and is the third-largest base for Kubernetes contributors.

"As open source continues on its global growth trajectory, we are time and again inspired by the rapid adoption of open technology in India, driven by policy and investment by government and organizations across the region," said Jim Zemlin, executive director, Linux Foundation. "LF India is an important milestone in the Linux Foundation's mission to expand global awareness of open source."

The launch of LF India marks a significant step forward in promoting open source adoption and contributions in India, and its impact is likely to be felt globally. As the country continues to grow its presence in the open source landscape, the Linux Foundation's India entity is poised to play a crucial role in shaping the future of open source innovation.