India’s Operating System to be Developed by DRDO

It is reported that, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India is developing own Operating System due to security threat. For this purpose DRDO starting two new software engineering centres; One in Bangalore and the other one in New Delhi. 50 scientists from these two centres will work on the operating system development. Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Centre for Development of Telematics will work with DRDO to develop the new secure Operating System.
“In today’s world where you have tremendous requirements of security on whatever you do – economy, banking and defense – it is essential that you need to have an operating system. With a home-grown system, the source code will be with us and it helps in securing our systems.” Dr V K Saraswat, DRDO Director, said while speaking to presspersons after opening a training facility at the DRDO’s Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. The new operating system would also have commercial use. He did not mention about the money involved for the project and the timeframe.
Dr. Saraswat said: “We do not have our own operating system. Today, various bodies, including banks and defense establishments, need security. Having our own operating system will help us prevent hacking of our systems.To start with, we will have 25 scientists at each of these centres. We are in touch with institutes such as the Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Centre for Development of Telematics, besides universities and industries. We will use available talent.With a home-grown system, the source code will be with us and it helps in securing our systems.
C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) had derived an Indian Operating System named BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions). BOSS is a GNU/Linux distribution developed from Debian for enhancing the use of Free/ Open Source Software throughout India. It supports Intel and AMD x86/x86-64 architecture. BOSS GNU/Linux advanced server has unique features such as Web server, proxy server, Database server, Mail server, Network server, File and Print server, SMS server and LDAP server. BOSS GNU/Linux advanced server is comprised with administration tool such as webmin which is a web based interface, Gadmin, PHP myadmin, PHP LDAP admin, PG admin.
Many free software geeks do not support for the new closed Operating System initiative by DRDO. If closed source means more secure, Windows operating system should have been the most secure operating system! It is worth thinking about do we really need an OS for specifically for India, if yes, what would be the real objective of such an operating system and how is it going to assist us in the long run? Let us wait and see hoe it turns out into.

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