India proposes forcing smartphone makers to give source code

This is such a completely insane proposal.

As an Indian (but now an NRI), I would not want the government having access to the source of my device.

For one, I don’t think governments should be allowed to dictate what to ship on phones by default beyond perhaps regulating what you cannot ship.

Secondly, I don’t think any government has the long term trust to prevent using this for state sponsored cyberattacks. If not the current administration, then another.

Lastly, I also don’t trust any government (but especially the Indian governments to have the technical capacity to prevent leaks. Which I think would be devastating for any companies IP, and also taint a lot of open source out there globally.