Earlier this month, the government said India would allow its digital platform for the Covid-19 vaccination drive, CoWIN, to be open source for all countries to access, adapt and use, thereby becoming one of many countries that have open-sourced their government projects. Open-sourcing a software means that people can look at the code and suggest improvements or issues, and also use the code under a licence to develop similar products.

       India has had an open-source policy since 2015. The source code of any government application, according to the policy, will be available for the ...