Explained: How open-source software is powering India's startup ecosystem

Using open-source software gives startups the access to a powerful community and better tools

Kailash Nadh, chief technology officer at Zerodha, one of India’s fastest-growing trading platforms, believes that the company would not have been what it is today if it wasn’t not for free and open-source software (FOSS). Without FOSS, the company could not have scaled up in terms of business, offerings and customers.

FOSS is a type of software in which the source code is released under a licence and the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute it to anyone and for any purpose. 

Zerodha’s Nadh chose open-source software because he had been using it since