[smc-discuss] Fwd: [FSUG-Bangalore] National Conference on Free Software 2008 (Day 1)

Sat Nov 15 18:46:10 PST 2008

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rakesh 'arky' Ambati <rakesh_ambati at yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 1:42 AM
Subject: [FSUG-Bangalore] National Conference on Free Software 2008 (Day 1)
To: fsug-bangalore at mm.gnu.org.in, fsf-friends at mm.gnu.org.in

Hi,

A brief blog post about day one of the National Conference on Free
Software 2008 in Cochin (Kerala).

Cheers

--arky

Rakesh 'arky' Ambati
Blog [ http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com ]

National Conference on Free Software 2008 :: Day 1
------------------------------------------------
http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com/2008/11/national-conference-on-free-software.html

The YMCA camp building is just a stone throw away from the Cochin
backwaters, I spent some time looking the slow churning waters and the
sun rise above green coconut groves beyond it. Time it seems has a
different pace over here, it is a far cry from the bustling city life.

My reverie was broken with the arrival of the delegates from Karnataka
and I was glad to few familiar faces from my adopted city Bangalore.
Its been almost two years since I attended any of the free software
events, I least expected the National Conference on Free software here
in Cochin, kerala would see such a large gathering from from all over
India.

If there is something experience thought me, it is best to beat the
crowds to the common bathrooms first thing in the morning. The
organisers of the event certainly messed up the event, this is evident
to me standing outside the YMCA camp until 9:00 waiting for the
transit bus to arrive, I had already downed couple of tea's while I
waited. We were expected to reach the CUSAT campus for the morning
breakfast and registration. Even after the bus arrived, things didn't
improve, there wasn't any sign of volunteers, I went around asking
people to get into the bus so that we can make it to the event and
have some chow.

The bus dropped us off near the building where the breakfast was
arranged, the sight of idly, vada and puri renewed my hunger pangs.
Its 9:35 AM and I am so hungry, but the catering staff is asking me
for the food coupons, Darn!, a good samaritan in form of event
volunteer came to our rescue in time and explained that we haven't
registered yet and requested the catering team to let us have our
breakfast first.

Registration for the event was no different, it was packed with
people. Thank god there were counters for different states. And by the
time I reached the registration counter with a filled form, the cost
of the event increased. I had to shell out Rs.300 for registration,
food and accommodation. Its not that its a huge amount but perhaps the
organisers could have clearly stated so on their website and
subsequent correspondence when we registered online. Most of the
fellow delegates just payed the registration fee and choice to eat at
the canteen anyway.

The registrations were stopped midway so that people can attended the
inaugural ceremony at the CUSAT Open Air Auditorium. The events
keynote address was delivered by the octogenarian Justice V.R.Krishna
Iyer over a video link. I won't be surprised if the video link was
setup with proprietary software solution. The Minister for Education
and culture M.A. Baby , Government of kerala and the Vice Chancellor
of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) addressed
the gathering. There were the usual gaffs about free software and
apologies for having to leave early to catch a flight and rants about
the political injustices, but not in that order :p .

The most exciting part of any free software conference for me is on
the sidelines, I had a wonderful time meeting old friends and make new
friends and associating faces to their cyberspace avatars. We headed
to the Indian Coffee house for quick lunch, Anivar treated us to nice
lunch of vegetable rice and I quickly downed it with a dash of
lemonade. I choose to attend the 'Swathanthra Software Philosophy and
its Relevance' in the free software stream at the SMS Auditorium,
CUSAT. The first lecture was delivered by Dr.Nagarjuna Chairman of
Free Software Foundation of India (FSFI). The talk titled 'On right to
decode and encode and copyleft politics' is perhaps the best one yet
in this event. I think the talk begs its own separate post so I choose
not to write much about it here.

The second talk of the session was given by Sasi P.M of CDAC, he
briefly talked about the history and some key points of the free
software. Perhaps the slides were prepared for some other event since
it was generously peppered with 'open source' phrases all over it.

Later Dr.Nagarjuna and I traveled to the STIC Auditorium for his
'Gnowledge' talk, the schedule of the conference is so baldly prepared
that it was totally chaos. Reaching the STIC building we saw that
there were anybody there to attend the talk. Sameer who guided us to
the STIC building saved the day by going back and sending few students
over to attend the talk while we grappled with issue of getting an
Internet connection using our wireless Datacards. The Gnowledge talk
was more informal with Dr.Nagarjuna engaging the students at the end
of main talk with a conversation about his work at the Gnowledge
knowledge labs, the SELF project, OLPC XO children's machine and the
Open Moko Free Runner.

We barely had time to make it the exhibition area, most of the stall
had already cleared when we reached there. I spent the next few hours
talking to new breed of free software advocates who took over the
reins of the free software activities in Bangalore. Meanwhile I missed
the Plenary session in the due course.

The first day of the conference ended with the cultural program.
Watching the graceful performances I wished I could stay back but my
day isn't over till I blog about it :)

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-- 
Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free
Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs.
Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.

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