Dheeksha Rabindra


BANGALORE: After receiving encouraging signs from a few Indian States towards open source, Sun Microsystems Inc. is now expecting significant contribution towards open source from students in the country.


Despite high participation rate in various contests, Sun observed that the contribution to open source from the Indian student community is modest. However, the firm believes that students play an important role in evangelizing open source.


With an aim to encourage contribution to open source, the company has launched a “Code for Freedom Contest” for college and university students.


“This contest is about creating opportunities for students in India to learn more about open source technology and it is a unique contest in India,” said Anil Gupta, vice president, India Engineering Centre, Sun Microsystems.


“It is unique in combination in three ways: It offers an opportunity to students to work on real source code, real problem and make a real difference. We provide support to help them contribute to open source and we are offering this across the wide spectrum of technology from open source to applications.”


He added that a technology combination comprising OpenSolaris, Project GlassFish, NetBeans, Apache Derby and Open Portal -- was thrown open for contest for the first time globally.


“We desire to bridge the gap (between high participation and modest contribution) and help the students to learn in the process. Our desire is to build student community around open source technology in India. This contest aims at encouraging more contribution from Indian students towards open source,” Gupta stated.