Summary

The State Government of Kerala released the Draft Kerala IT Policy in November of 2023 for public comments. We don’t yet have a new revision of the Draft Bill, so let’s go through the Nov 2023 draft to understand what the Kerala Govt. intends to do over the coming years and the role that FOSS plays in the draft policy.

Talk outcomes

0. Reduce/remove mental barriers that technical audience members have regarding Public Policy by walking them through the actual draft policy document
1. Provide a rudimentary introduction of Public Policy to the audience that enables them to understand why and how policies are drafted
2. Debate the proposed policy changes with the audience members to understand whether or not they have an impact on the Kerala FOSS community (including the members of the Industry).

Key points

1. How does the Kerala State Govt. perceive FOSS
2. What are the key policy objectives of the draft bill and what role does FOSS play in them
3. How is the draft bill allocating budget and how much of it directly impacts FOSS adoption and creation in Kerala
4. What is missing from the draft bill that the FOSS (and IT) community in Kerala sorely need

References

• The key takeaways of my talk can be found in this forum post.
• This talk will be similar to an earlier tech policy talk on the Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 at MumbaiFOSS 2023