Dear All,

GNU/Linux users group, Trivandrum (www.ilug-tvm.org) and Zyxware Technologies are conducting a 5 day install fest at Technopark,Trivandrum, primarily targeting the IT professionals working at Technopark.This 5 day mega install fest is being conducted at Park Center, Technopark, Trivandrum from September 1-5. With this event we at GNU/Linux users group, Trivandrum, hope to carry the message of Free Software aggressively to one of the largest IT parks in the country.

We have also released India's first Freedom Toaster during the inauguration of this Install fest. This Freedomtoaster was designed and developed by Zyxware Technologies and is being jointly promoted with GNU/Linux Users Group Trivandrum. You can read more about it and check out available resources and photos at www.freedomtoaster.in.

The whole concept was based on the original Freedomtoaster developed by the Shuttleworth Foundation. A Freedom Toaster is basically a self contained kiosk that will burn any one of the free software distributions onto user supplied optical media. The freedom toaster serves as an easy way to distribute free software(mainly GNU/Linux distributions). Such a dispensing mechanism is highly relevant in a country like India where unlimited broadband internet is not exactly cheap, whereas the chief source of free software remains the internet. The freedom toaster intends to bridge that gap and thus make free and open source software easily accessible to the public, minimal human intervention being an added advantage.

Along with the install fest we are also conducting a technical seminar series on various Free Software topics. Also visitors will have the opportunity to try out different GNU/Linux distributions and also many software including popular Free Software games. There will also be opportunities for visitors to get their questions regarding free software applications answered by experts. Kerala State IT Mission, SPACE Kerala and FSF India are the other partner organizations who are behind this and BSNL is sponsoring the event. Together, we have been successful in organizing similar events in the city this year.

We hope that, the event and our freedom toaster initiative will get support from all like minded people all over the country and hopefully this will become an inspiration for other people to take the initiative and further strengthen the free software movement in our country. You can read more about the install fest at www.ilug-tvm.org. We also welcome you to join our mailing list - ilug-tvm@googlegroups.com - and help us out with the increasing support requests

Cheers Anoop