Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) announced the launch of BOSS product at the Electronics and Information Technology Exposition (ELITEX) ’2007 organized by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi during January 10-11, 2007. The BOSS, Bharat Operating Systems Solutions. Thiru Dayanidhi Maran also visited the C-DAC stall and evinced keen interest in the displayed products and solutions.

BOSS has been developed at the National Resource Centre for Free and Open Source Software (NRCFOSS) of C-DAC. The NRCFOSS is promoted by the Department of Information Technology, MC⁢, Government of India to address the issues related to FOSS in the Indian context and to explore how FOSS can play the twin roles of helping to bridge the digital divide as well as develop the ecosystem for the Indian software industry to address the needs of a variety of users. BOSS Linux is an Indian distribution of GNU/Linux based on the Debian. It consists of the Linux operating system kernel, office application software suite BharateeyaOO, Internet access software (e.g. web browser, email, chat etc.), and file sharing / converter and multimedia applications. The desktop environment and applications have been localized to enable the use of Indian languages. This Linux distribution (distro) is targeted at the government users, kiosks, SMEs, and general users initrially. The ultimate objective of creating BOSS Linux is to enable the people of India, most of whom are not English-literate, to be exposed to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and GNU/Linux. A BOSS development repository is being prepared and this should make it easier for other developers to build other specialized Linux distros(distributions) based on BOSS Linux.

The availability of BOSS Linux will have a positive impact on the digital divide in India as more people can now have access to software in their local language to use the Internet and other information and communications technology (ICT) facilities. Community Information centres (CIC’s), and Internet cafes will benefit from BOSS Linux too as this software can be utilized to power these outlets and it is affordable and easy to install, use and support.

Commenting on the launch, Mr S Ramakrishnan, Director General, CDAC said that this was “a momentous journey for C-DAC to see its latest products and technologies being launched by Hon. Minister in one of the country’s largest IT platforms. It will boost C-DAC’s committment to redouble its efforts to work on carrying its products to the market on a large scale and signals a new chapter in the coming of age of C-DAC”.