INDIA'S BIGGEST 'OPEN SOURCE' MEET GETS UNDERWAY DEC 2 IN BANGALORE
FROM FREDERICK NORONHA
In a country of vast numbers, figures sometimes cease to surprise. But
organisers were themselves thrilled on roping in 2000 registered delegates
for a major open source conference over 72 hours before the meet's start on
December 2.
"A little while ago, we breached the 2000 registered delegates barrier, and
are heading for the stars. We are going to need tin openers and shoe-horns
to get everyone in," said a tongue-in-cheek announcement from Atul Chitnis,
one of the main organisers of the Linux Bangalore 2003.
India's southern garden-city of Bangalore considers itself the 'Silicon
Valley of India' and this will be the third year running it has been hosting
the largest-so far open source conference in this country of a thousand
million.
At 2000 registered participants, the number crossed the official seating
capacity of the conference.
But, organisers said: "This does not necessarily mean that you wont get to
participate, since not everyone who registers actually shows up, and some
people will attend on some days, and miss others. However it does mean that
we are going to be seeing a full house again this year."
Online-registration costs Rs 300, while those who sign-up at the venue, the
prestigious Indian Institute of Sciences, would have to pay Rs 500. In
dollar terms, this is just approx US$ 6 and US$ 11 respectively. But for
Indian participants, this obviously means more than its dollar-equivalent
suggests. Food comes included for this three-day event.
Hewlett Packard, Novell Inc which recently bought over Ximian and Suse, and
local Bangalore firm Exocore Consulting are sponsors for the event. India's
federal government, which has earned some flak for appearing unsure of its
support to Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), has also come in
with sponsorship, as in the past year.
Organisers went ahead to call this "India's biggest annual Open Source
event". Till now, they've had no competition in either size or ambitions.
But in 2004, the country's first exclusively-FLOSS magazine called 'Linux
For You' has announced plans for a national meet in Delhi.
It is not clear still what size and shape that meet would take on.
Said the Bangalore organisers: "What differentiates this event from
commercial events (that are typically driven by vendors) is that this event
is completely conceived, organised and driven by the Open Source community,
focussing on technology talks and a technology expo."
It is seen as being built on a "low-cost" model, where Rs 300 to 500 brings
in access to "all talks and sub-events".
This year, over the three days, this event promises nearly 100 talks.
Speakers pulled in from across the globe include Miguel de Icaza
(Mono/Ximian), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP), Nat Friedman (Ximian), Jeremy Zawodny
(MySQL/Yahoo), Bdale Garbee (Debian), Harald Welte (iptables) and others.
Local big names from across India's open source movement would also be
present, though those in the Free Software camp -- with its nucleus around
the also South India-based Free Software Foundation (India) -- are known to
sometimes keep off this event due to differences in approaches.
Some of those from India taking part would include KDE-developer of Indian
origin Sirtaj Singh Kang, Anjuta-developer Naba Kumar, one of the
co-founders of the Linux India movement Sudhakar 'Thaths' Chandrasekharan
and others.
Organizers have planned the screening of a movie ('Revolution OS'), a music
concert by the fusion group Laya Taranga, and a rock concert by the group
Phenom.
"Bangalore, already the IT capital of India, is quickly becoming a hothouse
for Open Source development, with companies like Ximian/Novell, IBM, HP and
others setting up development centres there," said the event's organisers.
More details about the event at
http://linux-bangalore.org/2003
Avik Sengupta <avik.sengupta(a)itellix.com> discussed the possibility of
holding a PGP Key Signing Party at the conference. He explained: "Unlike
SSL/SMIME certificates (where trust flows from a single authority), PGP
operates on a 'web of trust', generated through identifying and signing each
other's keys." (ENDS)
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Frederick Noronha (FN) |
http://www.fredericknoronha.net
Freelance Journalist |
http://www.bytesforall.org
http://goalinks.pitas.com |
http://joingoanet.shorturl.com
http://linuxinindia.pitas.com |
http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks
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