take it seriously ? i will try to give my best in my free time .. but

please

dont try to do it just coz someone else is doing it ....

there has to be a justified reason , purpose and need for it to happen

...

not just like a fun fair .... i mean AGENDA... what do u want to

showcase /

address some problems... can u really showcase or address that issue ...

happy computing harsh

Here are my reasons for having such an event in Mumbai.

1) There is very little awareness about GNU/Linux in Mumbai. Only a _few_ students learning computer science know about it. How many of them actually use it I dont know. So there is a majority who dont know about Linux. These people are using pirated softwares primarily. As RMS says towards building a better society, we need to spread Linux awareness.

2) There are companies which use Properietery software for their needs which can easily be fulfilled by FLOSS software. This will help these companies reduce their operational costs and increase profits or reduce price for their product. In any way economy is benifitted. I dont want to start a flame war here over TCO. I belive that Linux has lower TCO than properitery softwares.

3) FLOSS offers a lot of learning opportunities in the technology. a generation strong in the technical field will fetch more work to India than just BPO work. And when I say technology, that includes Microsoft technologies like .NET for which one can start developing applications on Linux platform using MONO or DotGNU. (I just came from Bangalore Linux 2003 where I saw a few demonstrations of how Mono can be used to code in C#)

In my opinion the agenda should be to make more and more people aware about the viable alternative out there. Let this event get good media coverage, let it be known in all the colleges in Mumbai. And not just Engineering one, but all the Arts/Commerce/Science colleges.

In my opinion such events should be arranged in all major cities. Since we stay in Mumbai, we should take responsibility to conduct such an event.

The problem I see is how many volenteers we have? how many of us has time to devote? Can we handle an event at such a volume?

Regards Aseem