Free Software

I had planned a bit earlier that I will go for foss.in 2009, but was disappointed when I asked my classmates whether they are attending foss.in. All replied me that they are not coming; but I took the decision that even if I am alone, I will be attending foss.in 2009. May be they were busy with some other works, but I have to tell my classmates that they missed something valuable!.

I planned my journey such that I will reach Bangalore on 30th Nov. 2009, so that I can reach the venue on 1st December early. I tried for a tatkal ticket for 30th, but resulted in waiting list 8 which made me unhappy. But status on 29th Nov. told me that my ticket is confirm, and I am allotted seat 22 in S1 coach!!

I reached Bangalore at 1930 hrs. on 30th Nov, thanks to Sujith H for giving me a nice accomodation in his house, he really helped me a lot in the busy Bangalore city; thanks once again to my dear Sujithettan.  Now read on.., how this foss.in is unforgettable in my life.

Day 1 : 1 December 2009, Tuesday

Around 1100 hrs, me and sujith reached NIMHANS, where the event was scheduled. We saw a big queue in front of the registration counter. Little later, we got the information that Sujith is registered as a speaker, so he can directly go to counter and collect his card, so he did. Around 12oo hrs, I registered as delegate for my first foss.in . We met 5 students from College of Engineering, Trivandrum (Hats off to Dhananjay that he managed to get 5 people from there! ) and 2 from my college, Sruthidevi and Vinaya. After some chit chats, we headed towards Auditorium 1 where Atul Chitnis was delivering his talk on foss.in We were provided with wireless internet connection at venue!.

Foss.in/2009, Nimhans Convention Center

Snap of the Auditorium 1, taken after the talk by Chitnis

For the first time in my life, I saw a different way of inauguration of an event; Chitnis called 5 people from the audience, 4 from different parts of India and 1 from outside India to Inaugurate FOSS.IN/2009. I don’t remember all of  them, but I was much excited to see Mr. Pradeepto, the man behind KDE-INDIA and Mr. Karthik. After the inaugural session I dialed Pradeepto and we met at KDE Booth. There I met Nikhil Marathe (KWin developer), Shantanu Thushar ( Plasma Developer), Madhusudan C S ( KDE Hacker),  and more!. But the person I am searching for was not there – Akarsh Simha. Pradeepto told me that he would be coming only on 2nd Dec. I spent that day attending some talk sessions and all.

In the evening, I met Gopal, member of FOSS.IN team while being there in KDE Booth. Pradeepto and Gopal asked me to present a talk on Scribus, showing them XPress Tags import filter and all. I tried to escape from it, but I was trapped by Gopal and Pradeepto saying ” If you don’t present a talk, we will kick Sujith on his back!. You know that he is not well”. I told I am ready. Gopal asked me to just demonstrate what Scribus is, and all the KDE team were sitting patiently to see my mock session. In the midst, I was asked to show the feature “Text flow around image”, but I had no idea!. Gopal told me that he will be adding my session into schedule, so come prepared for the delegate talk on 2nd Dec. 2009.

We had dinner from a restaurant near Forum, Bangalore and reached Sujith’s house by 10.30 pm. I did some homeworks on the Scribus as an end user and discovered it power for the first time.:D. I realized that I am a Scribus Contributor who don’t know how to use it . I spent little time over Scribus using it, Christoph helped me giving the link to do the text flow around image frame!.

Day 2: 02 December 2009, Wednesday

We reached NIMHANS at 1015hrs, which was a bit early, and spent the whole day at KDE Booth, working on Scribus. At about 1115 hrs ( Don’t remember the time exactly), the KDE team from IIT-Madras reached NIMHANS, and I met Akarsh Simha (Kstars Maintainer), Prakash Mohan(Kstars Developer), Kashyap Puranik (Kalzium Developer). Another wonderful person I met there was Santhosh G Vattom (IRC Nick dr_house).  Due to some issues in the schedule, FOSS.IN team told me that delegate talks have been shifted to the next day, and my session is scheduled at 1800 hrs, on 3rd Dec. Since 3rd Dec. was the KDE Project of the Day, we had a small discussion at the KDE Booth on plans for the next day!.

Planning the KDE PotD

Day 3: 03 December 2009, Thursday

A much awaited day for the KDE Team, Project of the Day!. The team looked nice in the Hoodies/sweat shirts, all set ready for the bang. Nothing much to write about it, it was just wonderful. I think it was the only PotD for which almost all the seats were filled!. You may read more on KDE PotD here . I went through the schedule and found that my talk scheduled at 1900 hrs at Auditorium 3.  I will write about it in the next post.

Although I left Bangalore on 3rd Dec , Foss.in/2009 took me to another world were almost all people are developers/contributors of some software, so the exposure I got from this event was something great!

Jain