We are happy to announce that the Maharashtra State Board's IT syllabus of XI standard is now based on Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). The books have been released in the market. Despite Ubuntu 18.04 being the default recommended OS, students can choose their own GNU/Linux distro. The book follows the National Education Policy in ICT education in order to make the education cost-effective, ethical and accessible to all. Around 1.5 lakh students in Maharashtra will be introduced to Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) from this and successive years.

This is a result of efforts made by veteran founders of ILUG-Bombay, Krishnakant Mane and his GNUKhata team, Prajakta Patkar, Karan Kamdar and Abhijit of GNUKhata team.

Special thanks to Dr. Nagarjuna, Prof. Khedkar, Prof. Abhinav Jog, Chandita, and Kasinath Guru; Adv. V P Patil, Adv. Amardev Unniyal and Sudhakar Kashyap for their help regarding PIL, Fr. Jude and Sajida of St Mary High School, Sr. Meena of Auxilium High School, Gayathri Narayanan (SIWS College), Vidyadhar Mhatre, Shrikrishna Joshi,Sudhanwa Joglekar, Gaurav Pant and many other members from PLUG, Balbharti, Hon. Director, Support Staff and of course to all BOS team members (listed in the textbook) , Rushubh Mehta and Dr Nambiar, Director DBIT, for providing space for ilug-bom meetings and FLOSS events.