Navigating Through The Storm Clouds Of Big Tech: How Open Source Can Fuel India’s Digital Ascent

India woke up to a harsh reality of digital dependency in July 2025, with Microsoft's suspension of cloud services for Nayara Energy, over EU-imposed restrictions.

This action was not asked by any Indian authority, yet Microsoft abruptly cut off Nayara’s access to its proprietary data and digital infrastructure, which brought to an abrupt halt its essential services such as logistics and cargo handling.

It is not just an issue of dependence on digital tools like cloud services but involves other aspects of digital sovereignty as well, including social media.

The perils of such dependence were highlighted in the book “Careless People,” published this year by a former Meta executive-turned-whistleblower, which exposed the Meta’s unethical practices in the country, serving their interests while disregarding both citizens’ security and India’s regulatory framework.

A disturbing revelation among many was that Facebook had offered advertisers the opportunity to target thirteen-to-seventeen year olds during moments of psychological vulnerability.

Unfortunately, these incidents are just the tip of the iceberg, with the iceberg being a deeper malaise of extraterritorial dominance of foreign tech giants. This dependence on Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google leaves the world’s fourth-largest economy vulnerable to levers of control over which it has no authority.

Now, the question is how can India free itself from these invisible chains?

The answer does not lie in merely drafting stricter rules or bargaining for exemptions. These actions would be similar to applying Band-Aids on a festering wound. What India needs to do is to reimagine the foundations of its digital infrastructure. The alternative is already visible in the global commons: enterprise-grade open-source solutions.

Unlike proprietary systems locked behind foreign licenses, open source is code that can be inspected, modified, and deployed freely by anyone. The best part about these systems is that there are no black boxes dictating terms, and no remote ‘kill switches’ waiting to be flipped in foreign capitals. For a nation, this means the core of its digital infrastructure remains accessible, improvable, and under sovereign control.

Not just technological independence, open source also benefits India economically by reducing reliance on expensive proprietary licenses. Apart from it, these systems have the capability to foster scalable and interoperable digital public infrastructure that can support millions of users daily which has been exemplified by National programs like Digital India and IndiaStack.

Yet, perhaps the most unexpected dividend of open source is the community. In the majority of cases, open-source projects evolve into a living ecosystem where developers continuously test, refine and strengthen the code. This living ecosystem, in turn, fuels national growth by providing a ready pool of talented folks to enterprises and ensuring that India’s digital infrastructure builds resilience against corporate monopolies.

Even tech giants who once dismissed the model have been forced to bow to its inevitability. Just look at Microsoft: Its former CEO once called Linux, a leading open source OS, a ‘cancer’. Yet today, the same company runs its main server technology ‘.NET Core’ as open source. That’s a proof that openness has outcompeted the old fortress model. Open source is not only about better code or corporate adoption but it is also a matter of statecraft. Hence it would be instructive to see  how this model has been incorporated in certain countries.

France’s Open-Source Model

France has shown how deliberate policy can weave open source into the fabric of its public administration, offering  a playbook India would do well to study. At the heart of French strategy is the country’s “open by default” principle under its Digital Republic Bill which requires public data to be freely available and reusable.

Along with it, France ensures that adoption runs across government services, while backing this vision with resources. These measures have yielded positive outcomes like multiplying transparency, strengthening public trust in digital methods, and providing opportunities for open-source applications to thrive.

In addition to regulations, the French government has allocated a ‘€30 million’ fund to help local authorities adopt and innovate with open-source solutions, something which can be replicated in the Indian case. Apart from that, France has also moved decisively against big tech dominance through competition policies and enforcement actions that prevent global giants from stifling sovereign alternatives.

Recognition programs such as Label Territoires Numériques Libre, celebrate and benchmark government bodies that embrace collaborative open-source tools, creating an incentive for wider adoption. At the same time, France has invested in the future of its digital commons by involving engineering students in developing software for government use, creating a steady pipeline of local expertise.

The results speak for themselves.

France is now the fastest-growing open-source market in Europe, projected to reach $4.28 billion by 2030, with annual growth of nearly nine percent, which is more than double the wider IT sector. What began as a strategy for sovereignty has also become an engine of economic opportunity.

America’s Playbook: Open Source and the Making of a Digital Superpower

If France’s model is a demonstration of how open source systems can be wielded as a tool of sovereignty then the American story shows how it can transform a nation into a digital superpower.

In 2010, when open source methods were still largely confined to hobbyists with limited professional application, NASA had the foresight to harness open source for developing a cloud computing platform under the initiative called OpenStack. The goal was clear and strategic: to create a scalable infrastructure-as-a-service platform that the agency and other members of the ecosystem could own and manage independently, rather than being locked by the invisible handcuffs of proprietary code.

The initiative did not stop at NASA. The US National Security Agency soon adopted OpenStack across the intelligence community to meet its high-security needs. This forced the development of secure APIs, stronger protections for operating systems, and specialized code that elevated the entire ecosystem. 

But, what started as a forced development to meet NSA’s needs, quickly catalyzed growth in the commercial world, as companies raced to meet these new technical and compliance benchmarks.

As a result, the government’s adoption of OpenStack set standards for automation, scalability, and security, which was embraced by the private sector, driving the sector’s growth.

Momentum grew as multiple public agencies and technology companies began contributing to the project. For example, Red Hat’s version of OpenStack was supported by over one lakh community members and about 700 companies across 185 countries.

The ripple effects were not limited to America and extended as far as Australia, which adopted OpenStack to build a secure and sovereign national cloud platform.

This sovereign platform strengthened security of the government departments and even intelligence agencies in the country. What started as a U.S. government-led open-source experiment evolved into a global standard, demonstrating how state leadership in open source can reshape entire industries.

Compared to the aforementioned models, what are India’s Open-Source Initiatives?

Firstly, it is not as if India has been a passive observer in attempting open-source initiatives.

At multiple levels, efforts have been made. One example is the Kerala Government’s International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), which was established with the mandate of popularising open source within the state and across the country. To achieve this, the government has partnered with local, national, and international organisations working in the open-source domain.

From back-end accounting tools such as GNUKhata to e-governance applications, ICFOSS programs have enabled entrepreneurs and government bodies to function without the shadow of vendor lock-in, thus demonstrating that open-source platforms can succeed even within India’s complex public sector.

At the national level, the Government of India introduced the Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software (2015) to encourage formal integration of open source in government organisations. Apart from it, India Stack is perhaps the most successful demonstration of open-source principles applied at national scale. By designing a suite of open API’s, which includes Aadhaar, UPI, and DigiLocker, India has advanced both social and financial inclusion.

Even in the private sector, notable efforts have been made. The Open Cloud Compute (OCC) Initiative, a People+AI-led and Nandan Nilekani-backed project, seeks to create a federated network of interoperable micro data centres in India, whose goal is to democratise AI computing by lowering costs, expanding accessibility, and strengthening data sovereignty.

Even with these green shots, the overall landscape still appears like a patchwork quilt rather than a coherent tapestry. Initiatives such as ICFOSS in Kerala are laudable, but they operate at the state level, without the scale of national impact.

At national level, the Policy on Adoption of Open Software for Government of India set a progressive direction, but actual implementation has been patchy, lacking the kind of coordinated push seen in France.

Collaboration is another missing piece. It’s not that India lacks open-source communities; the issue is that they operate in silos, with little co-creation or pooling of resources.

Had the United States worked in this way, without active government–industry collaboration, OpenStack would never have grown to its present scale. Apart from collaboration, skill and literacy gaps make solving this problem even tougher. 

Another obstacle is Industry buy-in.

Many Indian IT and software companies prefer to keep their code closed, viewing open source as a danger to their market growth. But, the reality is the openness of their source code can serve as a multiplier, if it is accompanied by a culture that values contribution and reciprocity.

Even for the entrepreneurs who are smart enough to open their source code, the challenges are plenty. They have to face regulatory uncertainty, challenges in achieving financial sustainability without government support, and the absence of structured mentorship networks that could help build viable businesses around open-source products.

Added to this is the lack of proper documentation mechanisms, which raises the cost of adoption and consequently slows down the scaling of open-source solutions. But, most important, out of them is a lack of a functioning national body to regulate, manage, and coordinate open-source adoption in India’s public and private sectors.

Cracking India’s Code to Success

If India truly wishes to embed digital sovereignty into its growth story, several steps need to be taken.

First, the government must establish an actively functioning National Open-Source Authority to provide the backbone to the open source ecosystem, by offering regulatory certainty, financial support to ensure open source companies’ sustainability, and proper documentation of open source systems.

The initiative would also address the problem of lack of coordination between the public and private sectors, thereby fostering entrepreneurship while scaling adoption across industries.

Secondly, the government should adopt an “open-source first” procurement policy, similar to what France has done.

The policy would reduce India’s dependence on foreign cloud giants such as Google and Microsoft cloud, and nurture domestic projects like the Open Compute Cloud. Additionally, open-source education must be reimagined. Computer science curricula in engineering colleges should include open-source principles, and encourage students to start contributing to open source ecosystem practices through hands-on project work.

Finally, and most importantly, community building must form the core of this movement. Community forums, regular meetups and competitive hackathons can be organised to strengthen collaboration, while mentorship programs that provide guidance to newcomers from experienced maintainers can fast-track skill development.

The same ecosystem has historically powered the United States’ technology leadership, and today, India has the potential to do the same.

The numbers already speak for themselves.

According to Github, India is the second-largest community of open-source contributors on GitHub, and by 2028, it is projected to become the largest developer community in the world. What is missing is not talent, but a catalyst, a national-level ecosystem that the government can seed, much like France and the US did, but tailored to Indian realities.

Once such a foundation is in place, India’s youth and innovators will not only build alternatives to Microsoft and Google in cloud computing but also expand into other critical areas of digital Aatmanirbharta including social media, AI, cybersecurity, and beyond.

In the realm of social media also, open-algorithm platforms could be developed to challenge the dominance of X and Meta, ensuring that India is not caught in the next wave of digital colonisation.

Digital sovereignty will not be achieved overnight. It is a long journey, perhaps a decade, that requires vision, persistence and strategic incentives by the government keeping in mind the national interests. The choice before India is stark: either increase its dependence on foreign systems, or build its own resilient ecosystem. The time to act is now because in the digital world, sovereignty once lost is sovereignty hard to regain.