The “mad month” has started – over the next four weeks, we bring India’s biggest Free & Open Source Software event to life. Linux Bangalore/2004 happens on December 1/2/3, with the Business and Enterprise tracks happening on November 29 and 30.

In these four weeks, the managers of the event and I will work late nights every day, making sure that every single issue is uncovered and addressed, that the food menu is perfect, that the talks are selected and scheduled correctly, that T-Shirts are ordered and received, that the places are networked and wifi’d, that the thousands of expected delegates get to see and hear quality stuff, that the speakers from across India and the rest of the world are comfortable and here in time, etc.

This year is even more complicated, given that we don’t just have technical tracks (that happen at the J.N.Tata Auditorium), but also Business and Enterprise Tracks that happen at a five-star hotel, catering to corporate audiences. That’s a completely different ball of wool!

In short, we are going to be very, very busy.

We have to be. We don’t have professional help to do this – everything is volunteer driven, planned and executed.

To make this all happen, we need help.

We need people to spread the word. While we do advertise, we realise that there really is not better medium than word of mouth. That, and the electronic medium (your blogs, your websites, your mailing lists).

And we need help with the running around, talk to (and convince) sponsors, help with setting up systems, networks, etc.

Speaking of sponsors – we still haven’t found an ISP/network sponsor to feed the venues with internet bandwidth worthy of such a huge tech event. Everyone wants to sponsor the event or a track.

Could someone out there PLEASE talk to the Airtels, VSNLs, BSNLs, Reliances, Tatas, and other big-name ISPs and tell them that they are missing a chance at strutting their stuff?

And unlike at IT.COM, they don’t have to pay anything (LB/2004 is *not* a commercially oriented event) – just bring in huge bandwidth, set up wired/wireless networks at the venue, put up your shingles (“Internet connectivity sponsored by…”), and sit back and watch people say “if these guys can handle Linux Bangalore, they can handle my organisation’s requirements”.

If you know a competent ISP who thinks he can handle this, ask them to contact us.

BTW – Registration for the event has already started, and the huge number of people registering is *FRIGHTENING*!

I’ll be posting more about developments leading up to the event – so you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed.

I just returned from a checkup at St.John’s Hospital, off Hosur Road.

When I left for the place, it took me a little less than 45 minutes to get there.

And it took me almost 2.5 hours to get back, more than 3/4 of that time was spent crawling at 1 metre a minute on Hosur Road, with Darius@Radiocity crowing over the radio that “time does not move on Hosur Road”.

Things weren’t much better in other parts of the city, either. I am not quite sure what the problem was, but if this is the Bangalore I have to live in, I think it is time to consider moving to Mysore.

On the plus side, I figured out that Airtel is doing GPRS at 600 bucks a month, no limits. That’s still stiff, but if I offset it against my Reliance bill (about 650 a month, with only 300 minutes connect time), I should come out tops. Downer is that people are reporting slow speeds.

I use GPRS in Europe, where speeds are quite decent. In India, I have been using a Reliance phone (yes, I know they have a PCMCIA card, but it costs 14K, and doesnt work under Linux), which gives me about 128 kbps, albeit with serious latency.

The Airtel offer makes sense to me financially, as well as the fact that I can use Bluetooth to connect to my phone using my notebook, and more importantly using my PDA (Reliance does not offer any BT-enabled phones). However, if the speeds are as horrendously slow as I am being warned about (slower than a 28.8K connect modem), then it may not work out. IAC, I’ll give it a try for a month.

Ironically, Airtel is another company (like the HDFC bank) that “does not get it”.

I can change my rateplan via SMS, enable and disable services, even do financial transactions. But I cannot have GPRS enabled on the phone or via SMS – I need to fill a paper form for that, and wait at least 48 hours.

HDFC is another offender in this department – I can actually transfer thousands of Rupees around, drive myself bankrupt, and do what I want – but if I want to get pay my phone bills via netbanking, I have to submit a paper form to HDFC (use photocopies of the form for multiple phone lines).

When are these IT-enabled superstars of technology going to learn to actually eat their own dogfood?

Today would have been my uncle, Lutz Barthel‘s 63rd birthday.

Every year, on this day, I would make sure that I was near a phone so that I could call him, and wish him.

Today, I have to go to a place of prayer instead.

Onkel Lutzi, I miss you.

Today is also a day of decisions – the day when the citizens of the United States of America will decide whether they support the continued “War of Terror” (and disruption of world peace) by their administration, or whether they would rather be part of our world’s family, and live in peace and without fear, and with respect and dignity.

Please , people, make the right decision.

For everyone’s sake.

So I was in Pune over the last weekend, and I had a good time there.

I gave a talk on the Business of Open Source, which will hopefully have drilled into the SCIT students that there is real money to be made in this field, and that it isn’t only about freedom. I showed them a few successful Open Source business models, and also spent time explaining how they work and who is using them.

The next day (Sunday) I participated in a panel discussion about India v/s China in terms of IT and related stuff. This was fun – I got to talk about some of my pet peeves about people being more worried about competitors than about their own prowess and abilities. The “what if the Chinese learn English?” bogey surfaced several times, and my “so what? live and let live!” response got less applause than my comment about us struglling for 200 years to gain freedom from the British, only to make their language our USP! Ah well….

The event was remarkably well arranged – completely by students. Everything ran smooth as silk – the travel, the accommodation, the talks. Very impressive. I hope I get called again.

However, the highlight, for me was spending time with my brother, Arun, who is a writer in Pune. We get to see each other rarely, and this particular trip, unsullied by family pressures or interference, gave us a chance to sit down and talk about all sorts of things that we otherwise never have time (or inclination) for.

It was good to spend time with him, and I am really impressed how he has managed to leave all his problems behind him, and his sanguine way of going about things these days. When we parted at the airport, it was like the brothers we are, rather than two people from different worlds.

I look forward to doing this more often.

I am in Pune Friday evening through Monday morning, speaking at the SCIT, at their National Seminar on State of IT 2004. I will be speaking on Saturday just after lunch on “The Business of Open Source”, where I will be looking at business models in Open Source software development, and again on Sunday evening at 5:00pm as part of a panel discussion on “Growth prospects and Strategies of India and China as future IT Superpowers of the World”.

It’s been a while since I have been to Pune, so I really look forward to this.

I thought this news item was fairly hilarious.

Another one of those “fantastic” news items that have a headline that is completely unrelated to the body.

Guardian Digital has a great product called EnGarde Secure Linux, and ISRO decided to use it.

But of course the news item has to have a headline that says:

“Indian government outsources Linux security to New Jersey firm”

ISRO is certainly not the Indian government, and it hasn’t outsourced anything at all – it has just acquired a product that works for them!

Only in America, friends. Only in America!

Christopher Reeve, the actor who became the living image of the fictional Superman, died on Sunday.

After being paralysed years ago, he fought back to life, and gave new hope to people like him across the world.

Goodbye, Chris.

You played the part of Superman as a role in a film, and then went on to become him in real life.

This *has* to be a gold mine of quick crib notes for future Web entrepreneurs – Jeremy Zawodny‘s electronic scribbles from the Web 2.0 conference.

You want to know where things are going? Don’t have time to go to conferences?

Read.

Now.

Look for all topics with “Web 2.0″ in the subject.

Jeremy – would be nice if you could set up a Web 2.0 topic in the blog instead of generically including it in linuxmag topic, so that these notes can remain a permanent web asset instead of scrolling off as you add more stuff to the linuxmag topic.

UPDATE: Thanks, Jeremy! You rock my planet!

When Linus Torvalds has something to say, he rarely does it in an ignorable fashion.

Such is the case in his latest “mega-post”, which (I think, and despite his disclaimers) is something *everyone* should read – whether you are into Linux or not, whether you are a technical person or not, whether you are a manager or not.

It may read like a laugh, but I have dealt with some of the very same issues he describes (including to those that would apply to me!), and I can guarantee that you will find yourself there as well.

Therefore, and without much ado, please READ THIS NOW!

I guarantee a good time, and (if you are honest to yourself) some introspection.

This may seem like a strange post to you, and may even seem like I am banging my own drum. I am not – please read the whole thing, and try and understand what I am trying to say, and why you may be the biggest beneficiary if you do.

[Updated]

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