After much to and fro, the official Call for Participation has been released on the FOSS.IN website.

This is it, folks. If you want to be a speaker at India’s biggest and most awaited Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) event, then it is time to move your Gluteus Maximus and submit your talk/workshop/tutorial/BoF/etc. proposal.

This year, the event (which is the successor to the enormously successful Linux Bangalore conferences) is bigger than ever, at a new venue (the Bangalore Palace), with a wider scope (all of FOSS, not just Linux), a new approach (topics, not tracks) and plenty of big-name speakers from all over the world.

But never mind the big-name speakers – the stars of the show will be the people from the Indian FOSS community. This is your chance to show the world what India is capable of on the FOSS development front.

If you are a student, especially if you are part of the VTU that has, in it’s infinite wisdom, scrapped projects from the curriculum, then you should pay special attention here. We believe that the future of FOSS lies in the hands of young people who are not yet jaded by the brutal demands of professional life. Nothing exemplifies this more than the origins of Linux itself – Linus Torvalds was a student at the University of Helsinki when he created Linux.

FOSS.IN/2005 is going to be the biggest technical event you will have ever seen, but it isn’t just technical stuff you will see there. Some of the topics you will see discussed are the FOSS community, effective advocacy, FOSS in Education, copyrights and patents, FOSS in culture, etc.

And if you are technically inclined, you can learn how to hack the kernel from actual kernel developers, tune up Linux and BSD servers and secure your networks, learn to hack Gnome and KDE to create mind-blowingly productive desktops, translate applications and OSs into your native languages, develop and optimise innovative next-generation systems and applications – all from the masters (who may not actually be much older than you!).

Get interested. Get involved. Change the world.

Because with Free & Open Source Software, you can.

And you will.

I recently answered a set of questions which were meant for an article. However, the publication decided, in the last moment, to change its focus, and yanked the original article. Since it is unlikely that they will use this material in the future, I thought I’d publish my answers here (the ones they didn’t use).

And so the BLUG met on Thursday, for the first time since early 2004.

And I loved every moment of it. I would have written about it yesterday, but something came up (which I shall write about later).

Here’s my report on the meet:

Read the rest of this entry…

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! I *am* on gtalk. It is a jabber server, and most of us geeks have been using jabber for longer than we can remember – both on the intranet as well as on the internet. Heck, Mrinal gave a talk about jabber at LB/2003, remember?

And no, I am not using the google client – I use Gaim, like any sane person would. Who wants to run multiple IM clients, when Gaim lets you do it all in one place?

Now could you quit asking me?

Thank you!

Update: Here are the Gaim instructions.

Well well well, it looks like the BLUG is meeting up in meatspace again!

I recently cribbed about missing the good old BLUG meets, and there we have one.

Goodie – I look forward to meeting old friends.

It warms the heart when one sees someone making this kind of effort:

FOSS.IN/2005 Logos

These are sample logos for FOSS.IN/2005, created by Hari Krishnan. He also made a fabulous set of logos for LB/2004 last year.

This guy rocks my world – I can’t wait to see what the final logo will look like.

Discussions are on in the mailing list.

Over this long weekend, a number of people have told me about their plans to participate at FOSS.IN/2005 by giving talks, holding mini-confs and discussion/meetings, workshops, etc. This is great, because that’s what the event will be all about.

Unfortunately it isn’t going to be much fun if you are the only one who comes to your party.

The big idea about FOSS.IN is not individual components like talks, but groups of activities centred around a topic. If you have been on the FOSS.IN mailing list, you of course know about this, but if you are new to the concept, here’s a quick primer:

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Quite a few people asked me (in mail, IRC, etc.) how we settled on the name FOSS.IN for the event.

Well, to begin with, you need to read this entry, which explains some of the background. This was about eight months ago.

Go on, read it, I’ll be right here waiting for you.

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Dear FOSS Community,

My apologies for taking so long, but some things just needed to fall into place.

On behalf of Linux Bangalore, it is my pleasure to announce this year’s event.

As announced last year, the name, venue and scope of the event will change from this year.

To stress its focus on Free & Open Source Software (FOSS), the event, conducted by Linux Bangalore, will be called

FOSS.IN

and hence this year’s event will be called

FOSS.IN/2005

My apologies to all those who fell for my earlier red herrings, and that should teach you not to place bets.

I know that I promised you Palace Grounds last year, but we found that to be just too drab and “conventiony”.

Bangalore is a beautiful city, and it would be a shame to have an event, that will see participation by people from all over India and the rest of the world, in a location that doesn’t present our city in its best light.

Therefore, FOSS.IN/2005 will be held at the Bangalore Palace, from Tuesday, the 29th of November, to Friday, the 2nd of December.

Yes, that means that the event is now four days long.

And yes, that is *the* Bangalore Palace that we are talking about.

There, now you know it all.

Or do you?

Nope, that’s just the start of things.

A number of things have already fallen in place, some are about to, and some are still under discussion on the mailing list and in the IRC channel, and you can see some of the things whiteboarded on the event wiki.

There is already a series of pretty exciting announcements waiting in the pipeline. Starting from August 15th, 2005 (if you are not from India – that’s India’s Independence Day), the website will, every day, carry more information about the event, leading up to successive milestones.

Our first milestone will be the release of the Call for Participation, scheduled for the end of next week.

I look forward to all the discussions that will start on the mailing lists. A link to both the mailing list and the event wiki can be found on the website.

You *have* figured out the website’s URL by now, right?

For now, I wish you all an enjoyable extended weekend.

Step 1: Tightly control your country’s top level domain (TLD) for years, making it near-impossible to register a reasonable domain name.

Step 2: Start a “meaningful” and “thoughtful” discussion about how your country should have a bigger Internet presence. Make press statements like the following (take a deep breath before reading the first sentence out loud): “The number of .IN Domain Names so far registered does not truly represent the penetration of information technology in India when seen in conjunction with the dimension and vibrancy of the Indian economy and the number of companies and public institutions operating in the area of Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS). “

Step 3: Change the rules, allowing people to register domains like “example.in”.

Step 4: DON’T put in any regulations in place, limiting domain registrations under your country’s TLD to peope/organisations who have a provable presence in your country (the way other countries do).

Step 5: Announce a meaningless “sunrise period” without public debate, then let anyone in the world register any .IN domain that they want to, including porn sites in the USA, spammers in Asia, domain squatters and extortionists in Europe…

Step 6: Sit back and watch as your country’s “internet identity” becomes diluted, eroded and turned into a laughing stock, while at the same time not benefitting India at all, as famous names and words are used to attract traffic to sites that have nothing to do with India.

Step 7: On days that you need some entertainment, read the press release again, especially the part that says “A proactive policy for .IN Domain proliferation can help establish .IN as a globally recognized symbol of India’s growth in the area of IT.” Compare this statement with what you actually managed to achieve.

There – it’s so simple.