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Over the past year or more, I have repeatedly dropped hints about changes that I intend to make in my life. Or more precisely - my professional life.
The time has now come to implement those changes. This is a lengthy post, so I apologise to my RSS-based readers who are forced to visit my site to read it all. :)
Since the mid-1980s, I have been involved with a variety of technology directions, starting with datacommunication and networking, Internet technologies, mobile computing and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
Of these, FOSS has probably been my most visible area of involvement. I have been publicly pushing and prodding FOSS and the FOSS community in India along for many years. March 2006 will mark a decade since I got PCQuest to publish the first ever Linux distro on a magazine cover CD in India in 1996 as a launch of the PCQuest Linux Initiative that I drove for 6 years.
In 1999, I formed Exocore Consulting to allow me to work professionally in this field, largely because in 1999, no FOSS-oriented companies existed in India.
In the years since then, Exocore has provided me the platform for many of my achievements in the FOSS field. Despite our laidback approach to marketing ourselves, we have seen the company become one of the best known FOSS-oriented organisations in India, providing consulting and implementation services to clients.
Exocore has also been instrumental in my being able to enable the FOSS community in India by organising India's biggest FOSS events - Linux Bangalore and more recently FOSS.IN. None of these would have happened had it not been with the solid support, facilities and financial guarantees of Exocore behind me.
Of course today there are plenty of corporate champions for FOSS out there - the IBMs, HPs, Intels, AMDs, Suns, RedHats, Novells and even Apples of the world. And so Exocore does not "scratch an itch" for me anymore, and it is therefore time that this chapter of my life comes to an end, to allow me to take up new opportunities and challenges.
Exocore has been a tremendous experience for me, and apart from the ability to work professionally in the FOSS field, it has also brought me into contact with an amazing assortment of smart and talented people, many of whom I continue to interact with even outside the scope of the company. People like Gopi Garge, Jessica Prabhakar, Avinash Shenoy, Shanker "Shanu" Balan, Vaibhav Sharma, Sony Philip, Sushy, Rashmi, Ramakrishna, Biju Chacko, Shyam Mani and our amazing interns - people like Kalyan Varma, Madhu Kurup, Mrinal Kalakrishnan, Nikhil Datta, Shilpa and Sheela Sequeira. All of them have contributed to interesting times at Exocore, and I hope that we will continue to stay in touch and working together in the future.
So where do I go from here?
I'd like to try something new.
Over the years, I have often been courted by companies interested in my profile, and I am now considering offers for permanent employment that let me explore my interests better and develop new markets.
I have been in discussion with several organisations over the past few weeks, and will probably talk to more over the coming weeks.
While I have largely been seen in my role as a FOSS promoter, and while my passion for FOSS continues unabated, I would like to expand my horizons by catering to my other core interests - networks, datacommunication, the Internet, entertainment technologies, mobile computing, etc.
Mobile computing, in particular, with everything associated with it (wireless networking, PDAs, mobile applications, IPv6, etc.) is what I am most interested in. I believe that the next few years will see rapid movement from the traditional, desk-bound "PC-style" of computing to a more consumer-oriented, mobile form of computing and access to information, communication and entertainment. I have been involved with these technologies since the late 90s, and my facination for them has only grown over the years.
So how will this affect my involvement with FOSS?
Simply put - not at all.
I have no intention of pulling a disappearing act on the FOSS community, since I want to continue to nurture the community and promote FOSS, especially at student, government and of course industry levels.
However, working in a new position *may* limit my ability to directly organise large events like FOSS.IN in the future. This will depend completely on the policies of my future employer. I would, of course, prefer working for a company that would support my organising such events, but I understand that this may or may not be possible.
Should it happen that I cannot directly organise FOSS.IN in the future, I will set up a framework that will allow others to do so. This may require some changes in the format and scope of the event - not everyone is comfortable with organising an event as large and complex as FOSS.IN. But no one needs to fear that India's most important FOSS event will disappear off the world's radar.
So what's the bottomline?
I understand that this post of mine is bound to create mild controversy in some quarters, with detractors having a field day whipping up conspiracy theories. This is understandable - despite the fact that we FOSS guys swear by choice and change, everyone gets a bit uncomfortable when the change actually happens.
I know that this change in itself will be a challenge for me. Despite my 20 years of industry experience, I have really never worked as an employee (though I have plenty of teamwork experience), so the change is bound to be an interesting experience, and I look forward to it.
While I cannot give out any details yet, I can honestly say that I am excited about some of the opportunities that I have been shown so far, and hope to report good news on this front soon.
I look forward to working with new people and new technologies. It's been years since I been able to dig my teeth into new challenges, and if you know me, you know that there is nothing that I enjoy more.
Wish me luck!
The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change
-- "Wind of Change" by the Scorpions
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