Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is rapidly growing as an industry. The reliability, efficiency, stability, and most importantly, the licensing and cost (or lack thereof) all prompt shifts from proprietary software towards FOSS. The movement is not restricted to hardcore developers and tech geeks. Many big names have joined the FOSS movement, including Google, Intel, Yahoo! and Amazon. Software like Apache is spearheading the shift, with its market share well surpassing that of other web servers[1]. Sun is moving to make all it's software Open Source[2]. A background in FOSS is proving to be financially rewarding as well, in more ways than one [3].
A small FOSS conference of 6 hours duration will comprise of talks given by Indian FOSS developers who have made significant contributions to various projects. The talks will target wanna-be FOSS contributors with a special focus on students. Pre requisites for these talks are some prior experience with FOSS and some experience in software development. Talks will explore areas where you can contribute to FOSS projects. Entry will be on a first-come-first-serve basis.
The event requires no pre-registration
Sudharshan S.
Sudharshan is a student pursuing Computer Science and Engineering in the Shri Andal Alagar College of Engineering and is an active contributor to the Openmoko and freesmartphone.org projects. He will talk about the new freesmartphone.org framework and some of its components, along with a touch of D-Bus. The talk will also showcase his contribution to the same. This talk will be useful for those enthusiastic about developing applications for Linux powered smartphones. Sudharshan's first contribution to the FOSS world was to the Linux Desktop Testing Project. He is an active member of the ILUG-C and is known on IRC as 'Sup3rkiddo'. He likes Python,50 paise Pani Puris, and Superman, and blogs at http://sudharsh.wordpress.com
Akarsh Simha
Akarsh Simha is a student of Engineering Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is a contributor to KStars which is part of the KDE Edutainment module. He will talk about contributing to KDE, and about the KDE community in India. The talk will also showcase his contributions to KStars. This talk will be useful for those who like KDE or C++ and would like to contribute to KDE. Akarsh is also an active member of the IIT Madras Linux User Group and is known on IRC as 'kstar'. He swears by KDE, Konqueror, C++, GNU EMacs and Debian, and blogs at http://kstars.wordpress.com
Dr. Kapil Hari Paranjape
Dr. Kapil Hari Paranjape is a member of the mathematics faculty at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Dr. Kapil is one of 6 Indian Debian Developers and has spent a lot of time tinkering with open source projects and promoting GNU/Linux. He has been a long time hacker, from his "punch-card days" as he puts it in The Linux Gazette, and has also authoured several articles for the Linux Gazette. He is an active member of the ILUG-C, and blogs at http://www.imsc.res.in/~kapil/blog/
Shreyas Srinivasan
Shreyas Srinivasan contributes to GNOME. He has contributed to GNOME, Evolution and is the kind of guy who would go out of the way to increase contribution to FOSS. He co-founded RadioVeRVe, an internet radio based in Bangalore, that uses only Open Source Software on the server. He is also one of the organizers of FOSS.IN, the annual international FOSS Developers' Conference held at Bangalore. Shreyas blogs at http://blogs.gnome.org/shres and is known as 'shres' on IRC. He likes EMacs and has started loving Python. He will be demonstrating the tools used by FOSS developers along with Arun Chaganty at the "FOSS Foundry" talk.
Arun Chaganty
Arun is a second year student of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Madras. He contributes to Anjuta DevStudio, a popular IDE for GNOME, originally authored by Naba Kumar, an Indian FOSS developer. He has integrated vim as an editor into the Anjuta IDE with full fledged debugging support, as a part of his Google SoC project. He is an active FOSS evangelist, manages the meetings of the IITM LUG, and has an affinity for ASCII art. He blogs at http://arunchaganty.wordpress.com and is known as 'kstarisalsoblind' (and sometimes as 'vimzard') on IRC. He will be joining Shreyas as "assistant" for the "FOSS Foundry" talk.
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