The Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung did an interview with me back in September 2006, while I was at the Wizards of OS conference in Berlin.

This interview has now been published (in both English and in German).

There have been a number of reports about my talk at the Chaos Communication Congress, including one that I am especially proud of – a report by the Tagesschau, Germany’s most respected News program (and one that I have been watching since my childhood). Yes, it is in German, but I am sure that the numerous tools offered by Google and Altavista (the latter is probably better for this) will help you get the gist of it.

And if you’d like to *hear* me do an interview in German, Netzpolitik.org has you covered. And yes, I needed a haircut (and finally had one today).

And finally, my talk at the CCC is now also available online as a 144 MEGABYTES MPEG4 video file. It was not one of my better talks – I was tired, the talk was at 8:30pm in the night, and I really should have prepared more for the kind of audience I was going to face. But it went down well, and triggered off many discussions that lasted the next three days of the conference, and still gets me a lot of mail.

My Germany trip this time was exhausting – landed on the 22nd of December, left on the 2nd of January, and I was hardly at home.

And I didn’t get to see the inside of a single shop!

The only thing I got myself was a new Palm Treo 680 Smartphone – thanks to Amazon.com delivering even in the Christmas period. And yes, *this* is a smartphone, unlike a device recently announced that does not allow the installation of third party applications.

More about this beast in another post.

Hello from Berlin, Germany, where I am for Christmas with the family (yeah, wife and kid are with me on this trip).

But of course the primary reason is to attend the Chaos Computer Club‘s annual Chaos Communication Congress, where I will be speaking on the 27th of December (at 8:30pm!).

For those who came in late – the Chaos Computer Club is the world’s largest hacker organization. While they do a lot of good stuff all year round, their annual gig (which is *always* on Dec 27-30) is known to be one the best organized techno-events in the world, and gets people pouring in from all over the world. Tim Pritlove (the “Atul Chitnis” of the Chaos Communication Congress :p – i.e. the project lead) was our closing keynote speaker, and really got people all enthu!

I will be meeting a lot of old friends there (including Harald and Milosch, who are both active CCC members), plus a lot of new ones. Joi Ito, the new Creative Commons chairman, is there again this year (and he will also be in Mumbai as well, for the Creative Commons India launch). I hope to meet Nils Magnus of LinuxTag (the European equivalent of FOSS.IN) as well. And a lot of people whom I have never met face to face, but have interacted with for years, pinged me to say that they will be there. This is going to be fun.

This evening, the 24th of December, is Christmas for us here in Germany, and after 6 years, I am again in my birthplace for the occasion, with family. Mom has roast duck goose ready for dinner, the *real* pine tree is decorated by Anjali, and all lit up, music is pouring in from all over the house, and there are chocolate cookies and other goodies all over the place. *This* is how Christmas should be.

I will have more to write about over the next few days, but until then…

A Merry Christmas to everyone around the world!

Currently, a thread raging on the FOSS.IN mailing list asks the question:

“What is stopping Indian FOSS Contributors?”

Lots of theories, lots of finger-pointing.

In all that, the answer is actually quite simple:

What’s stopping Indian FOSS Contributors is the number of advocates, who just talk, and don’t contribute a single line of code.

Everyone, from a young guy just out of college (or still in it) to an old guy like me – everyone just talks, advocates, makes wise speeches and doles out big dollops of advice on how to do things.

But not a single line of code to be seen.

Just lots of talk.

This is the true malady that faces the Indian FOSS world – too many wannabe RMSs, to few actual developers contributing.

On the other hand, look at the few FOSS contributors we *do* have in India (including FOSS.IN/2006′s opening keynote speaker, Suparna Bhattacharya, Anjuta’s Naba Kumar, KDE’s Sirtaj Singh and Pradeepto Bhattacharya, etc.). You will never see them on mailing lists acting wise by preaching the holy word of FOSS. They just quietly contribute, work with all the FOSS developers around the world, and earn their respect not by preaching, but by doing.

My excuse is that I am no longer a developer (I stopped writing code in 1994), but I do contribute with action and facilitation. Or, as I often say with tongue in cheek – “I don’t write code, I write people”.

But young people in (or just out of) college have no such excuse.

So guys, how about stopping the RMS emulation, and firing up your text editors and writing some code instead?

As I said during FOSS.IN/2006 – in the end, it is “Free and Open Source SOFTWARE“, and someone needs to *write* that software. Waxing eloquently about freedom and how to do FOSS is *not* a functional replacement to actually writing and contributing code.

So guys, stop talking.

Show us (and the world) the code.

FOSS.IN/2006 is finally done, and what an event it was!

You simply must forgive me if I take a few days to do a proper writeup – I returned from the event to find myself without Internet connectivity for two days, and there is so much post event housekeeping that needs to be done.

I have seen so much, and experienced so much – there is no way I can do this in a single post.

Last night, I was chatting with someone on IM about FOSS.IN/2006, and she remarked “This is your high! Imagine if you couldn’t plan this every year!”, and she was right.

We are two days away from the event, and I sit at home twiddling my thumbs. And I am pleased as punch about it.

Team FOSS.IN is humming with activity. They are all over town, pulling pieces together, making sure that speakers are picked up and dropped off at the speaker accommodation, coordinating with printers, tent people, mug makers, equipment manufacturers, network people, caterers, sponsors, and more.

On Sunday we had a meeting with the volunteers, and we were really thrilled to see a lot of familiar faces there. Some where missing, but that is OK – we shanghai’d them and they will all be at work from Thursday onwards, bringing the event to life. This is 1999 all over again – you can feel the spirit of cooperation flow through the corridors of FOSS.IN.

And I have nothing to do but sit at home and twiddle my thumbs. After all, as someone said – “Atul doesn’t really do anything”. Which is correct, I don’t – the event has always been a team effort.

What’s really scary (in a good way) is that when I look at the team sprawled across my living room, discussing stuff, I think back to October 1999, and realise that many of the people in the current team were also in the team that brought the community presence at Bangalore IT.COM 1999 to life (Photos). When I think of how long we have been doing this (this is our 7th year at it), and how good this team has become, and seeing all the new faces that we have “assimilated” over the years – it makes me feel really good about the fact that I have nothing to do.

I love Team FOSS.IN – they are the best part of doing this event every year. All you people who just attend the talks have no clue what you are missing.

If you get a chance during the event, watch them in action. And when you look at them, remember this – this is a bunch of friends who do this event year after year for no other reward other than the joy of it, and knowing that if they do it right (as they do every year), this will be yet another event that the world will talk about. And they are doing it for what we all believe in – FOSS, and the spirit of the community.

That is what makes FOSS.IN so special – this isn’t one of those commercial, “pay a bomb and get sales talk” events, run by professionals. Everyone who comes to the event – as a speaker, delegate or volunteer – is part of a shared experience. When you walk through the doors of the venue, you enter a world where everyone cooperates and everyone works together – exactly the way the FOSS world develops technologies and solutions. No barriers, no commercial or political or geographical boundaries.

Revel in that feeling. It is so hard to find in these cynical times.

The journey is the reward.

We have just released the FOSS.IN/2006 talks schedule, go have a look it:

http://foss.in/2006/schedules

There are a few intentional gaps in there which will be filled out in the next day.

This schedule also reveals our opening keynote speaker – the only person we have had in mind for this slot for the past year.

Suparna Bhattacharya is one of India’s most respected Linux kernel developers, and she is an Indian, working in India, contributing to the FOSS world. She is everything FOSS.IN stands for, and we are proud to have her giving the opening keynote address of FOSS.IN/2006. No one on earth is better qualified.

When she stands up to give her talk, remember that not only is she everything that FOSS.IN wants to achieve (FOSS contributors from India), but that by standing there, she proves that it can be done.

Oh, and if you want to be a volunteer for FOSS.IN, then you have to be at the volunteer meet on the 19th November (Sunday). Details here.

Few days left for the event – I am sure you have registered as a delegate by now. You have, right?

Announcing the Almighty FIM!

’nuff said – click the link!

My Pride and Joy

Floating free as a bird
Sixty foot leaps it’s so absurd
From up here you should see the view
Such a lot of space for me and you

Oh you’d like it
Gliding around, get your feet off the ground
Oh you’d like it
Do as you please with so much ease

Now I know how it feels
To have wings on my heels
To take a stroll among the stars
Get a close look at planet Mars

Oh you’d like it
Gliding around, get your feet off the ground
Oh you’d like it
Do as you please with so much ease

Bouncing about on the moon
Guess you’ll all be up here soon
The candy stores they’ll be brand new
And you’ll buy a rock with the moon right through

Oh you’d like it
Gliding around, get your feet off the ground
Oh you’d like it
Do as you please with so much ease

Come fly…
Come fly…
Come fly…

Floating — The Moody Blues
Thanks to my brother Arun