The Wind of Change – Part IV

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Image Credit: Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.netLong time readers of my diary will know that the title of this post is usually associated with my professional activities. And this one is no different.

I left  my 4 year old position as Chief Products Officer and Senior VP at Geodesic Limited several months ago – April 30th 2010 was my last working day at Geodesic.

I chose not to make that public till now because I wanted to have a few months free of distractions while I went through the massive exercise of completing the construction of my house, and moving there. This is now complete, and I am writing this from my office in my new home. (More on home related matters in a separate post).

Continue reading…

And the blog is back…

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And the blog is back – duly WordPress‘ed. There are still a bunch of things I need to port across, but that’s what I am working on right now. Things should stabilise over the weekend.

For now, I am using the default TwentyTen theme that comes with WordPress, but that should change soon. Also, until I stabilise the setup, I am keeping comments disabled – use the Contact Form to send me a message if needed.

Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die

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Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die

The old Rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end — drank his ale too light.
Death’s head belt buckle — yesterday’s dreams —
the transport caf’ prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams
in his post-war-babe gloom.

Now he’s too old to Rock’n'Roll but he’s too young to die.

He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville.
Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs
and prays that he always will.
But he’s the last of the blue blood greaser boys
all of his mates are doing time:
married with three kids up by the ring road
sold their souls straight down the line.
And some of them own little sports cars
and meet at the tennis club do’s.
For drinks on a Sunday — work on Monday.
They’ve thrown away their blue suede shoes.

Now they’re too old to Rock’n'Roll and they’re too young to die.

So the old Rocker gets out his bike
to make a ton before he takes his leave.
Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner
just like it used to be.
And as he flies — tears in his eyes —
his wind-whipped words echo the final take
and he hits the trunk road doing around 120
with no room left to brake.

And he was too old to Rock’n'Roll but he was too young to die.
No, you’re never too old to Rock’n'Roll if you’re too young to die.

Upcoming Changes

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When I stood on the stage during the closing of FOSS.IN/2009, I announced that I was stepping down as Project Lead of FOSS.IN, and would not be involved in the organisation of future FOSS.IN events

I promised a journal entry about this, clarifying things, but a number of things got in the way, and I really wanted to take a calls on a few more things as well before posting. Some of these things are now being carved in stone, others will too, soon.

One change that will be visible over the next few days will be that this site will be complete revamped – which means that I am basically abandoning my 8 year old code base for this site, and switching to a standard CMS – WordPress.

Once all that is done, I will have more freedom and flexibility, and will return to writing, as promised.

Thanks for being patient, and I promise that it will be worth the wait.

FOSS.IN/2009 Speaker registration closes Mon 26/Oct 23:59 IST

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If you plan to be anything more than a delegate at FOSS.IN/2009, you better hurry – registrations close on Monday, October 26th, at 23:59 GMT+0530.

So if you want to be part of the largest and most important Free & Open Source Software event in this part of the world, and stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the biggest FOSS contributors and hackers in the world, then you need to head to

http://foss.in/news/fossincfp-2009.html

right now, read about the event and what is new this year (including my own take on things), then go to

http://foss.in/register/speaker-registration-2009

and put in your proposal. If you have questions, feel free to ask on the mailing list or (if you are shy :P ) via the contact system.

The closure of the CFP will also signal the opening of delegate registration this week, as well as the Call for Sponsorship.

Team FOSS.IN will meet Monday night in Bangalore to start going through all the submissions, discuss plans and actions, and take decisions. You should start hearing the first few announcements by Tuesday.

So are you going to be sitting there on your hands, mutely watching the giants on stage, OR BE ONE OF THEM?

For those of you who haven’t yet realised it: this year the Indian FOSS community completes TEN YEARS of organising FOSS community-oriented events – the first one happened in 1999. I’ll be writing more about this over the next few days.

FOSS.IN/2009 Speaker Registration

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Please note that the FOSS.IN/2009 Speaker registration is open, and a number of submissions have already been received.

Read the CfP at

http://foss.in/news/fossincfp-2009.html

and then head to

http://foss.in/register/speaker-registration-2009

And submit your talk/workout/workshop/bof/hacker-session/project-of-the-day proposal.

It’s best NOT to do what most people do every year – procrastinate till the last moment, especially since talk evaluation is happening as they are received, and we are interacting with proposers to fine-tune things. After the 26th, you will not have the benefit of this interaction.

Also, don’t restrict yourself to submitting just one item – feel free to submit as many as possible – you never know what we will find most appropriate/interesting!

And please spread the word in your offices, colleges, mailing lists, twitter, facebooks, etc.

Remember – all content at FOSS.IN comes from the FOSS community!

Now go, Go, GO!!!!!

FOSS.IN/2009 Call for Participation

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And here we go – FOSS.IN/2009′s Call for Participation. Apologies for the delays, things are very different for us this year, with a new venue, new team members, and all sorts of aches and pains we don’t want to talk about :)

http://foss.in/news/fossincfp-2009.html

The registration system for speakers is open NOW – head there as soon as you finish reading this message.

Please repost/retweet/sms/email/whatever this message as far and wide as possible. Thanks!

FOSS.IN: The Calm before the Storm

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You should read this first:

FOSS.IN: The Wind of Change

With that post, I made it clear where FOSS.IN is going – it will no longer be a conference that navel-gazes, and focuses only on itself, but will reach out to the technology world, and become the inclusive hacker event that I have wanted it to be since 1999.

While the focus on FOSS and contribution will never be lost, and while we will never have talks about optimizing Windows 7, I have never been in the FOSS community because I wanted to be a politician or messiah of free software. While I believe in all things community, I don’t want to see people excluding themselves, believing themselves to be something “different” and hence not part of the world in general.

My love for technology of all sorts is why I am in the FOSS community, because this is where I can get the widest exposure to technologies. And I want everyone to be able to share this experience. That is why I set up my BBS in 1989, and that is why I am expanding FOSS.IN to be a hacker conference where my community can reach out and interact with the real world, become part of it, and finally bury the stigma that the world has attached to us that we are some strange sort of aliens, not mainstream.

Over the past decade, I have had to deal with a lot of stuff I frankly could do without. I know that I am not a people manager, or a rockstar, or someone everyone likes. I have my priorities, too, my desires and my dreams. And for 10 years, I have had to lock them up in a closet while I fought an endless battle with people who didn’t understand what I was doing, who tried to tell me what to do, who wanted to tag along when the going was good, spit at me when it wasn’t, and hate me when I succeeded.

That’s OK, I don’t really care anymore. I have catered to people like you, who really just cared about being seen as something you aren’t (“leaders”) while not actually doing anything to help people enjoy what they do. I am sick and tired of the fanatics, who are really just poseurs who want people to follow them and their strange, unreal ideologies – often because they saw profit in doing so.

I have but one objective – I want to see more people interested in technology. Interested not because it gets them jobs, but being passionate about it, being creative, being artists with compilers and editors instead of paintbrushes. I want to see more people like that because that is the company I seek – in my personal life, and at work.

People who do not share this vision of mine are welcome to move on and find a soapbox to stand on to wave their flags. It’s a big world, plenty of room for everyone. Just don’t expect me to build you a soapbox, and lift you on it, gather you an audience and then have you prattle on.

If FOSS.IN succeeds in all these things, it will show. I want people to enjoy themselves, mingle, exchange information, understand and be understood – but at a technological level, NOT a political or religious level. Earlier, some people were undecided about what we were doing, and decided to stay away, but many of you came anyway – and had the time of your lives. This year, I expect to see many more of you come to the event, based on what you heard from others last year.

And I will not allow individuals, companies or organizations to decide for me what is good for me or the event. If I say “no low hanging fruit – reach higher, you can do better than this”, I mean it. If I say “no, you cannot use the event for your corporate/political agenda”, then I mean it. And if I say “be part of what I am doing, else feel free to move on” I mean that too – even if that makes me sound like George Bush.

I don’t want people to form exclusive “clubs” with secret passwords and rules that lock out everyone else. I will not be part of a process of exclusion, or segregation. FOSS.IN is for and about the FOSS community, but effective this year, it is also about reaching out, recognising the fact that FOSS is mainstream and that it is a methodology, NOT a religion.

I am Atul Chitnis. I stand for technology, for the joy of discovery, the creativity and the belonging.

I love FOSS because it is about all these things.

If you are an individual, a company or an organization that cares about the things that I do, then see you at FOSS.IN.