Foss.in

Bangalore

4-8 December

The seventh chapter of Foss.in, focused on development of free and open source software (Foss) in India, will be held from 4-8 December in Bangalore. The five-day event is aimed at attracting greater contribution to projects from the Indian open source community, to change the image of India as a Foss consumer rather than contributor.

This year, the event will steer clear of broad-based discussions on the benefits and uses of open source, focusing instead on live projects and technology implementation.

In addition to the main conference, Foss.in 2007 will feature Project Days for the first time—the first two days will feature day-long discussions, tutorials and hands-on sessions on eight major ongoing Foss projects, including Mozilla, Gnome and IndLinux. These sessions are aimed at students and professionals interested in getting started with open source projects.

“It is not just for techies, but anyone interested in open source, be it with documentation, artwork, coding or testing,” said Shreyas Srinivasan, organizer, Foss.in.

The main conference will also have additional features—a Hack Centre, where participants can try their hand at projects on these platforms, and Birds of a Feather sessions, which are impromptu discussions on topics of common interest.

Last year, Foss.in was a two-day event that attracted close to 2,000 people. More are expected this year. The speaker list for the conference will be announced this week. Registrations are open for participants on the event website. Delegate fee is Rs750 for the entire event. More details at foss.in/2007.