Open-sourcing project govt panel: What’s in store for online retailers

Source: Indian Express

What is the News?

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade(DPIIT) has issued orders for appointing an advisory committee for its Open Network for Digital Commerce(ONDC) project.

About Open Network for Digital Commerce(ONDC) project:

• The ONDC Project is aimed at curbing digital monopolies in the e-commerce sector.
• This will be done by making the e-commerce process open-source. Thus, it creates a platform that can be utilized by all online retailers.
• Several operational aspects including onboarding of sellers, vendor discovery, price discovery, and product cataloging could be made open source on the lines of Unified Payments Interface(UPI).
• The project of developing this open network has been given to the Quality Council of India(QCI).

What is the meaning of Open Source?

• Making a software or a process open-source means that the code or the steps of that process is made available freely for others to use, redistribute and modify.
• For example, the operating system of Apple’s iPhones — iOS — is closed source, which means, it cannot be legally modified or reverse engineered.
  • On the other hand, Google’s Android operating system is open-source and therefore it is possible for smartphone OEMs such as Samsung, Xiaomi to modify it for their hardware.
• Hence, if the ONDC gets implemented and mandated, it would mean that all e-commerce companies will have to operate using the same processes. This could give a huge booster shot to smaller online retailers and new entrants.