FOSS.IN/2005: Day 1, Morning Session

Updates from FOSS.IN/2005:

We started late (ok, so no one is perfect), but things are more or less on schedule now.

The network team worked overnight and things are slowly falling into place. Wifi is up and running and people are connecting all over the place – making this the first time in 5 years that our event has proper Internet connectivity. Not something to be proud of, but hey – it works for us! :)

The morning session was amazing. All halls were packed, and people are going around saying how thrilled they were to just be here, nevermind the tons of knowledge they were exposed to.

Alan Cox showed just why he deserves respect not just as a kernel hacker, but as an overall FOSS supporter. He clearly listed out the reasons why people should get involved in FOSS, and how to go about doing it. He also rammed home the point that it isn’t just developers who contribute to FOSS, but also people who document, who test, who train, who support, etc.

Danese Cooper, often called “The Diva of Open Source” blew her audience away with her talk on how India could benefit and get involved with FOSS. She got tons of questions, always a sign of a well received talk.

Lunch was a different experience, but it shows just how you can never satisfy people. Last year, we had packed lunch for everyone, and people complained about lack of choices. This year, we have multiple food vendors, and you can pick and choose, and people are complaining about that taking too much time, and how much better last year’s system was! Argh! :)

Met up with tons of FOSS Gurus. Alan Cox is a great guy, not at all the “superstar” that he really is. Very human, fantastically approachable, he hangs around with groups of people all over the venue, answering questions, getting into discussions, etc. Some day, when I grow up, I want to be just like him. :)

Jon Corbet, of LWN.NET and James Morris, Red Hat’s SELinux kernel maintainer, say that our event is “beyond expectations”, and they too are mingling and mixing, and say that they are having fun.

More news as I get a chance to write – I think I have to give the next talk…