FOSSMeet '16 talks, thoughts.

[Jaseem Abid]

Hello everyone, 

What kind of talks actually fit into the event, and add most value to an

audience composed of mostly students?

I can think of 6 tracks.

1. Advocacy

Introduction to free software philosophy and why freedom matters. Keynotes are a

good place to do this. It is important to have at least 2 talks focused on this.

2. Introducing a popular FOSS tool

A git or a python workshop fits into this category. I am on the edge when it

comes to talks like this. You needs some of them, but not too many.

3. Using only FOSS tools to do everyday talks

Students must be made aware that they don't need to reinvent the tools all the

time. Talks introducing ideas like

    - Setting up your own social network with Diaspora

    - Secure messaging system with XMPP or IRC

    - Setup tor to stay secure on the web

4.  Learn to use Linux as the primary OS

Going back to grassroots, teach attendees how to move away from Windows. This

might sound like another linux install fest, but we need to move on past that

step. What do you do after you install the OS?

5. Community efforts

The community is an integral part of FOSS. The work of SMC, Mozilla, Linux

Foundation etc are laudable. These communities also act as welcoming hubs for

new people to join the discussions and build things. Experience reports, talks

on getting started with FOSS etc belong here.

6. Talks that teach solid computer science

        ****

The kind of talks I don't want to see are,

1. Build a Rails/Django blog in 1 hour. Preferably no talks introducing a

   specific framework or library. Using one of these libraries to explain the

   underlying principles are ok.

2. Setup an OpenStack cluster: These talks are very specific and add little

   value to the general audience.

3. Write a wordpress plugin to show pretty menus

4. Caputure the flag, because that is what computer science is all about

5. A talk that is almost the readme.txt of a project

Thoughts and comments?

--

Regards, 

Jaseem Abid
github.com/jaseemabid

[Kartik Singhal]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and initiating a good discussion
thread here Jaseem.

I think it's about time that FOSSMeet moves away from being a
philosophy-oriented conference to a practice-oriented one.

Some comments inline below:

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Jaseem Abid <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> What kind of talks actually fit into the event, and add most value to an
> audience composed of mostly students?
>
> I can think of 6 tracks.
>
> 1. Advocacy
>
> Introduction to free software philosophy and why freedom matters. Keynotes
> are a
> good place to do this. It is important to have at least 2 talks focused on
> this.

An opening keynote about the importance of freedom in one's choice of
software is a good idea indeed. It will also set the tone for the rest
of the conference. I wouldn't ask for two such talks unless the second
talk presents a sufficiently different (or contrasting) view of the
open source world compared to the first.

> 2. Introducing a popular FOSS tool
>
> A git or a python workshop fits into this category. I am on the edge when it
> comes to talks like this. You needs some of them, but not too many.

We have been doing git/python workshops for ages now. Also, there is
enough good quality material online for learning these. I would rather
see hands on workshops on newer technologies like Rust, Go, Swift,
Docker, etc with some focus on how to make use of them in your
projects and/or contribute back to them.

> 3. Using only FOSS tools to do everyday talks
>
> Students must be made aware that they don't need to reinvent the tools all
> the
> time. Talks introducing ideas like
>
> - Setting up your own social network with Diaspora
> - Secure messaging system with XMPP or IRC
> - Setup tor to stay secure on the web

Here, I feel the focus should probably be on learning how to
communicate well on the Internet especially with developer
communities.

> 4. Learn to use Linux as the primary OS
>
> Going back to grassroots, teach attendees how to move away from Windows.
> This
> might sound like another linux install fest, but we need to move on past
> that
> step. What do you do after you install the OS?

I don't think focus of a conference should be this, that too in the
latter half of the academic year. What are student groups like
FOSSCell, CSEA for? These basics should be covered early in the
academic year and AFAIK they are being covered already and the student
groups are doing a great job of that.

> 5. Community efforts
>
> The community is an integral part of FOSS. The work of SMC, Mozilla, Linux
> Foundation etc are laudable. These communities also act as welcoming hubs
> for
> new people to join the discussions and build things. Experience reports,
> talks
> on getting started with FOSS etc belong here.

Good point. I would love to see a well prepared how to submit your
very first (but non-trivial) patch to a project style talk/workshop in
this category.

> 6. Talks that teach solid computer science

Too broad, but yes, looking at past distributions of attendance in
FOSSMeets and the CS syllabus being taught in college, how can one
apply the technical skills they just learnt from courses in the real
world (read: open source projects).

> The kind of talks I don't want to see are,
>
> 1. Build a Rails/Django blog in 1 hour. Preferably no talks introducing a
> specific framework or library. Using one of these libraries to explain
> the
> underlying principles are ok.
>
> 2. Setup an OpenStack cluster: These talks are very specific and add little
> value to the general audience.
>
> 3. Write a wordpress plugin to show pretty menus
>
> 4. Caputure the flag, because that is what computer science is all about
>
> 5. A talk that is almost the readme.txt of a project

+1


> Thoughts and comments?

Here are some more issues I would like to see being covered with
talks, discussions, etc:

1. Diversity in open source circles. The problems minorities like
women face while getting involved, how to effectively tackle them and
how open source communities can be more welcoming to contributors. I
recall from other mailing lists that there exist groups like PyLadies
in Bangalore & Pune, it would be a good idea to have representatives
from such groups at the conference.

2. Speaking of city-based communities, it's a good idea to introduce
various open source communities that exist in different cities of
India. Often times, students graduate, go on to join IT workforce but
aren't even aware of existence of technical open source communities in
their vicinity and how they operate.

3. Indian startup scene is hot and how is it enabled by open source
software and how are some of these startups giving back by
contributing to upstream or open sourcing their internal software.
This can also serve as a networking venue for both startups seeking
new grads and students looking for non-corporate and learning-oriented
jobs.

4. A demo stage for students to show off their open source projects,
be it academic projects or something they worked on in their free
time. If the projects are long term, students will have opportunity to
meet new contributors or get involved with projects they would like to
work on. In the months leading to the conference a competition can
also be organized to be concluded at the conference.



--
Kartik

[Jaseem Abid]

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:31 PM, Kartik Singhal <kartik...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and initiating a good discussion
thread here Jaseem.

I think it's about time that FOSSMeet moves away from being a
philosophy-oriented conference to a practice-oriented one.

This is hard problem and an important decision. It alters the direction and tone of the entire conference. 

Some comments inline below:

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Jaseem Abid <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> What kind of talks actually fit into the event, and add most value to an
> audience composed of mostly students?
>
> I can think of 6 tracks.
>
> 1. Advocacy
>
> Introduction to free software philosophy and why freedom matters. Keynotes
> are a
> good place to do this. It is important to have at least 2 talks focused on
> this.

An opening keynote about the importance of freedom in one's choice of
software is a good idea indeed. It will also set the tone for the rest
of the conference. I wouldn't ask for two such talks unless the second
talk presents a sufficiently different (or contrasting) view of the
open source world compared to the first.

2 if we have great talks. 1 otherwise.

> 2. Introducing a popular FOSS tool
>
> A git or a python workshop fits into this category. I am on the edge when it
> comes to talks like this. You needs some of them, but not too many.

We have been doing git/python workshops for ages now. Also, there is
enough good quality material online for learning these. I would rather
see hands on workshops on newer technologies like Rust, Go, Swift,
Docker, etc with some focus on how to make use of them in your
projects and/or contribute back to them.

Truth be told, I'm sick of git and python workshops now. Python is so mainstream that it's almost the most popular language after Java and C. If the insane popularity of github didn't convince someone to try git yet, he is probably not very interested in computers. Its big time we move away from it. 

 

> 3. Using only FOSS tools to do everyday talks
>
> Students must be made aware that they don't need to reinvent the tools all
> the
> time. Talks introducing ideas like
>
>     - Setting up your own social network with Diaspora
>     - Secure messaging system with XMPP or IRC
>     - Setup tor to stay secure on the web

Here, I feel the focus should probably be on learning how to
communicate well on the Internet especially with developer
communities.

You misunderstood me. I was picking communication as a mere example. The idea is to send a message that its possible to get work done without proprietary tools. 

> 4.  Learn to use Linux as the primary OS
>
> Going back to grassroots, teach attendees how to move away from Windows.
> This
> might sound like another linux install fest, but we need to move on past
> that
> step. What do you do after you install the OS?

I don't think focus of a conference should be this, that too in the
latter half of the academic year. What are student groups like
FOSSCell, CSEA for? These basics should be covered early in the
academic year and AFAIK they are being covered already and the student
groups are doing a great job of that.

Even among CS students, there were a lot stuck with windows. You are probably overestimating the skills of students there.  I might be wrong. 

 

> 5. Community efforts
>
> The community is an integral part of FOSS. The work of SMC, Mozilla, Linux
> Foundation etc are laudable. These communities also act as welcoming hubs
> for
> new people to join the discussions and build things. Experience reports,
> talks
> on getting started with FOSS etc belong here.

Good point. I would love to see a well prepared how to submit your
very first (but non-trivial) patch to a project style talk/workshop in
this category.

We can get someone from SMC/Mozilla to talk. 

This is a controversial thing to say, but the way to contribute code to a foss tool is to learn to program well. Learn enough programming to be able to get into an unknown codebase and fix that one thing that annoys you. I think the inability to code is the fundamental problem that is preventing most from not sending a pull request, not git or github or sending a patch in a mailing list.  They are all secondary issues.

> Thoughts and comments?

Here are some more issues I would like to see being covered with
talks, discussions, etc:

1. Diversity in open source circles. The problems minorities like
women face while getting involved, how to effectively tackle them and
how open source communities can be more welcoming to contributors. I
recall from other mailing lists that there exist groups like PyLadies
in Bangalore & Pune, it would be a good idea to have representatives
from such groups at the conference.

I can talk to Nandaja (CC) and see if I can get her to talk to again. 

2. Speaking of city-based communities, it's a good idea to introduce
various open source communities that exist in different cities of
India. Often times, students graduate, go on to join IT workforce but
aren't even aware of existence of technical open source communities in
their vicinity and how they operate.

Practically there is nothing in Calicut. Not sure how we can help. 

 

3. Indian startup scene is hot and how is it enabled by open source
software and how are some of these startups giving back by
contributing to upstream or open sourcing their internal software.
This can also serve as a networking venue for both startups seeking
new grads and students looking for non-corporate and learning-oriented
jobs.

This is important. I could talk about  getting work done in a startup, how to prepare yourself for such a job etc.  

 

4. A demo stage for students to show off their open source projects,
be it academic projects or something they worked on in their free
time. If the projects are long term, students will have opportunity to
meet new contributors or get involved with projects they would like to
work on. In the months leading to the conference a competition can
also be organized to be concluded at the conference.

Brilliant idea! +1 

My toy simple projects taught me a lot and a stage to showcase them is a good thing. It might connect people to work together on something interesting. I cannot emphasise the importance of personal projects in learning to program. 

We need more discussion in this area. 

Thanks for the pointers K. 

[Kartik Singhal]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Jaseem Abid <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think it's about time that FOSSMeet moves away from being a
>> philosophy-oriented conference to a practice-oriented one.
>
>
> This is hard problem and an important decision. It alters the direction and
> tone of the entire conference.

Indeed. We need to be seeking solutions to such hard problems that
plague us for so long. What better time for that than now. just before
another edition of FOSSMeet?

I would love to hear the perspective of current students and/or the
organizing team about this.

[...]

>> We have been doing git/python workshops for ages now. Also, there is
>> enough good quality material online for learning these. I would rather
>> see hands on workshops on newer technologies like Rust, Go, Swift,
>> Docker, etc with some focus on how to make use of them in your
>> projects and/or contribute back to them.
>
>
> Truth be told, I'm sick of git and python workshops now. Python is so
> mainstream that it's almost the most popular language after Java and C. If
> the insane popularity of github didn't convince someone to try git yet, he
> is probably not very interested in computers. Its big time we move away from
> it.
>

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Noufal Ibrahim <nou...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One problem that an educator has to inoculate himself or herself against
> is the tendency to forget his or her own early days.
>
> I'm generally against workshops for popular tools for larger
> tech. events where the expected audience mostly has some level of
> experience but for a largely student audience, a practical workshop on
> a, these days, indispensable tool like git or a language like Python
> makes a lot of sense.

I have been advocating this for quite a few years now that basic skill
transfer should occur at a regular basis from seniors to juniors all
year round; a singular yearly event is the not the best time and venue
for that. A lengthy reminiscence about 4-years of FOSSMeets is at
http://techglider.in/post/2013/04/14/of-fossmeets-at-nit-calicut/
(search for "regular meetups/sessions" for relevant para). Basic
purpose of a conference should be to meet people, learn new things
happening outside of college, gain perspective of how exciting and
large the technical (and of course open) world is.

>> > 3. Using only FOSS tools to do everyday talks
>> >
>> > Students must be made aware that they don't need to reinvent the tools
>> > all
>> > the
>> > time. Talks introducing ideas like
>> >
>> > - Setting up your own social network with Diaspora
>> > - Secure messaging system with XMPP or IRC
>> > - Setup tor to stay secure on the web
>>
>> Here, I feel the focus should probably be on learning how to
>> communicate well on the Internet especially with developer
>> communities.
>
>
> You misunderstood me. I was picking communication as a mere example. The
> idea is to send a message that its possible to get work done without
> proprietary tools.

I am sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant the focus should be on
how to become a open source developer than just a user.

>> > 4. Learn to use Linux as the primary OS
>> >
>> > Going back to grassroots, teach attendees how to move away from Windows.
>> > This
>> > might sound like another linux install fest, but we need to move on past
>> > that
>> > step. What do you do after you install the OS?
>>
>> I don't think focus of a conference should be this, that too in the
>> latter half of the academic year. What are student groups like
>> FOSSCell, CSEA for? These basics should be covered early in the
>> academic year and AFAIK they are being covered already and the student
>> groups are doing a great job of that.
>
>
> Even among CS students, there were a lot stuck with windows. You are
> probably overestimating the skills of students there. I might be wrong.

About using proprietary tools and Windows, we risk sounding
hypocritical when we suggest students use only free tools, when we
ourselves tend to use Macbooks for work. (Self confession: I am
switching back to using a Linux workstation for most of my day after
solely depending on a Macbook for past 6 months, but I digress.)
Picking the right tool for the job is some skill to learn.

We should be able to demonstrate and convince the audience that a
developer is most productive on a software setup that is build around
open source ecosystem and leave the choice to them. There is no point
(anymore) trying to pull users away from Windows, now that even
Microsoft understands the value of open source and is busy attracting
OSS developers by open sourcing their tool chain (which BTW, also runs
on Linux) and building its cloud platform on Linux technologies (see:
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/microsoft-built-linux-everyone-else/).

I am probably overestimating, but in general I feel over the years we
have been grossly underestimating what the audience wants. I will let
someone at the institute chip in about the current scenario. If there
is no/insufficient data, it should not be difficult to organize an
anonymous web survey of current students.

[...]

>> Good point. I would love to see a well prepared how to submit your
>> very first (but non-trivial) patch to a project style talk/workshop in
>> this category.
>
>
> We can get someone from SMC/Mozilla to talk.
>
> This is a controversial thing to say, but the way to contribute code to a
> foss tool is to learn to program well. Learn enough programming to be able
> to get into an unknown codebase and fix that one thing that annoys you. I
> think the inability to code is the fundamental problem that is preventing
> most from not sending a pull request, not git or github or sending a patch
> in a mailing list. They are all secondary issues.

I completely agree. But we also need to realize that within the
framework of a two-day conference it is impossible to teach
programming skills. That's the job best left to the dept. faculty,
their TAs and student tech groups.

The focus in the conference should rather be on how to apply those
hard learned programming skills to large open source projects which
are totally unlike the small projects that students generally work on
during courses/labs. There is a huge leap in the mental model of
software development life cycle when we compare what we traditionally
learn in college and how open source projects like Linux or Docker
operate and it is certainly intimidating at first.


[...]

>> 2. Speaking of city-based communities, it's a good idea to introduce
>> various open source communities that exist in different cities of
>> India. Often times, students graduate, go on to join IT workforce but
>> aren't even aware of existence of technical open source communities in
>> their vicinity and how they operate.
>
>
> Practically there is nothing in Calicut. Not sure how we can help.

I was referring to communities in cities like Bangalore, Hyd, Pune,
Delhi where majority of students will go to work.

>> 3. Indian startup scene is hot and how is it enabled by open source
>> software and how are some of these startups giving back by
>> contributing to upstream or open sourcing their internal software.
>> This can also serve as a networking venue for both startups seeking
>> new grads and students looking for non-corporate and learning-oriented
>> jobs.
>
>
> This is important. I could talk about getting work done in a startup, how
> to prepare yourself for such a job etc.

That's awesome. I think your practical insights will be really useful
for students. It will be good to bring in more people who have taken
different paths to jobs at startups/large organizations (think RedHat)
focused on open source and share their stories about how they feel
about working on open source projects.

>> 4. A demo stage for students to show off their open source projects,
>> be it academic projects or something they worked on in their free
>> time. If the projects are long term, students will have opportunity to
>> meet new contributors or get involved with projects they would like to
>> work on. In the months leading to the conference a competition can
>> also be organized to be concluded at the conference.
>
>
> Brilliant idea! +1
>
> My toy simple projects taught me a lot and a stage to showcase them is a
> good thing. It might connect people to work together on something
> interesting. I cannot emphasise the importance of personal projects in
> learning to program.
>
> We need more discussion in this area.

Absolutely. Looking at peers/seniors building cool open source
projects might be a motivating factor for other students as well.


--
Kartik

[Noufal Ibrahim]

On Mon, Dec 14 2015, Jaseem Abid wrote:


[...]

> Truth be told, I'm sick of git and python workshops now. Python is so
> mainstream that it's almost the most popular language after Java and
> C. If the insane popularity of github didn't convince someone to try
> git yet, he is probably not very interested in computers. Its big time
> we move away from it.

[...]

One problem that an educator has to inoculate himself or herself against
is the tendency to forget his or her own early days.

I'm generally against workshops for popular tools for larger
tech. events where the expected audience mostly has some level of
experience but for a largely student audience, a practical workshop on
a, these days, indispensable tool like git or a language like Python
makes a lot of sense.

--
Cordially,
Noufal
http://nibrahim.net.in

[Jaseem Abid]

I learned git at a workshop by you at fossmeet 2012, so I'll take your advice. If you think there is value in it, I'm alright with it. 

What tools do you think fits in right?

I'm ok with git, but not really so with Python. Less popular languages which teach other interesting aspects must be more welcome. Rust for ownership (can you talk Noufal?), Erlang for process model (I can talk about distributed systems 101), ML (part of coursework) or Haskell (too difficult to teach students in a talk or workshop) for type systems and FP, Julia (I can talks to folks at Julia) for data analytics/statistics. 

[Jaseem Abid]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:29 AM, Kartik Singhal <kartik...@gmail.com> wrote: 

>> 3. Indian startup scene is hot and how is it enabled by open source
>> software and how are some of these startups giving back by
>> contributing to upstream or open sourcing their internal software.
>> This can also serve as a networking venue for both startups seeking
>> new grads and students looking for non-corporate and learning-oriented
>> jobs.
>
>
> This is important. I could talk about  getting work done in a startup, how
> to prepare yourself for such a job etc.

That's awesome. I think your practical insights will be really useful
for students. It will be good to bring in more people who have taken
different paths to jobs at startups/large organizations (think RedHat)
focused on open source and share their stories about how they feel
about working on open source projects.

The companies I've worked for so far, most of them ran almost entirely on foss tools. I can't remember any important proprietary software at Healthlucid, Ideadevice (Except VMWare Fusion) or Fybr.  Have to see if there is enough material here for a talk though. 

 

>> 4. A demo stage for students to show off their open source projects,
>> be it academic projects or something they worked on in their free
>> time. If the projects are long term, students will have opportunity to
>> meet new contributors or get involved with projects they would like to
>> work on. In the months leading to the conference a competition can
>> also be organized to be concluded at the conference.
>
>
> Brilliant idea! +1
>
> My toy simple projects taught me a lot and a stage to showcase them is a
> good thing. It might connect people to work together on something
> interesting. I cannot emphasise the importance of personal projects in
> learning to program.
>
> We need more discussion in this area.

Absolutely. Looking at peers/seniors building cool open source
projects might be a motivating factor for other students as well.

I think this can be made into a key track of the conf. A student might find other collaborators to work on the project from his own class or dept by demoing it once on stage. I can think of numerous possibilities. 

[Jaseem Abid]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 9:16 PM, Nachi Vpn <nach...@gmail.com> wrote:

If there plans for a hackathon at FOSSMeet, it could be aimed at encouraging collaborative efforts using similar approaches.

We could have a hackathon on student projects.  Ask folks to bring whatever little things they have and everyone can work on such little projects, send a few pull requests and show collaboratively we can build better tools. 

A demo where everyone shows things, and a hackathon afterwards where students can join their favorite demo sounds like something with potential. 

Where are the organizers by the way? None of them said anything here. It's a bunch of us _vetranrans_ ;) I'll see if I can arrange for some talks. Do you guys need sponsorship?

 

Can you make it this year Nachi? Still in Malaysia I believe?

[Nachi Vpn]

Regards,

Nachi

nachivpn.me

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 11:46 PM, Jaseem Abid <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 9:16 PM, Nachi Vpn <nach...@gmail.com> wrote:

If there plans for a hackathon at FOSSMeet, it could be aimed at encouraging collaborative efforts using similar approaches.

We could have a hackathon on student projects.  Ask folks to bring whatever little things they have and everyone can work on such little projects, send a few pull requests and show collaboratively we can build better tools. 

A demo where everyone shows things, and a hackathon afterwards where students can join their favorite demo sounds like something with potential. 

Where are the organizers by the way? None of them said anything here. It's a bunch of us _vetranrans_ ;) I'll see if I can arrange for some talks. Do you guys need sponsorship?

​Organizers, please say hello!​ Looping in some folks I know.

 

 

Can you make it this year Nachi? Still in Malaysia I believe?

​Yes. I plan on attending this year. In India, will be at Bangalore soon. Would love to contribute!
​

 

--

Regards, 

Jaseem Abid
github.com/jaseemabid

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[Jaseem Abid]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 9:19 PM, Sreevasthavan K C <sreeva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes this is where we people at Calicut have a small disadvantage. We miss out

important and experienced personalities who can bring in some quality material
into the meet. We would love to collaborate and bring in people from different
communities from cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad or even from abroad
(if the budget allows us :P). We really need help in this. 

Nachi is your international speaker ;)  Macha, talk something! 

Jaseem Abid
github.com/jaseemabid

[Jaseem Abid]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 9:19 PM, Sreevasthavan K C <sreeva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some other issues and ideas

[...]

2. Very few students participate in events like GSOC from our college. We were

thinking to get people from SMC and other organisations who can come and guide the

participants on these.

Vipin did GSOC for Debian once. I can convince him to give a motivational talk ;)

3 We also have not come up with any sponsorship. We would like to get relevant contacts and info on this. 

What is the estimated budget? Do you have any marketing material you can show? I'll talk to some folks I know.

Thank you all for such overwhelming support. Looking forward for the discussion. 

Me, Kartik, Nachi and Vipin know how hard it is to conduct FOSSMeet. We've been there, done that and got the tshirt. So, happy to help. 

[Jaseem Abid]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 9:19 PM, Sreevasthavan K C <sreeva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes we also have been thinking of a similar event. One idea was, an event where we can ask
the participants to submit their present projects as "Your best code" where they can
showcase their projects. In two categories

    1. Most recent project maybe 6 months old.

    2. Something they have created during FOSSMeet.

We would require experts who can analyse and judge them.

I'd say loosen that criteria. What we need is a flash talk sort of stage, where someone can practically show anything. You get 5 minutes on the stage empty to empty, where you can pitch an idea and you should convince someone else to work with you. 

If we make this too formal, students might not exhibit anything. Its alright to have a few bad presentations than nothing at all. I can show one of my own tiny projects like game of life in emacs to set the stage. We hopefully will see a bunch of interesting things.

[Sudev Ambadi]

Hi, 

1. Can we do a meetup @ Bangalore to discuss all the above points and help our juniors to organize FOSSMeet better ? I have been talking  to Hari CM about the same and he might be able to get us some support from Hasgeek for speakers and space for the meetup. If we can do this before Jan and help juniors find the right combination of talks/workshops for this edition it will much better, this will also help them in understanding what is really happening in FOSS. 

Again this will be helpful only if our juniors can also attend the meetup (Say at least 5 from each year). 

@Juniors,
1. Don't worry about your accommodation, you have enough seniors like us in Bangalore we can accommodate some of you in our apartments during the meetup.

2. I assume that it's winter break @ nitc, we can make this happen ASAP, let us know when you guys can come here. 
3. Anyone (Other college students / Calicut Free software groups /  * ) who is interested to join the meetup please come.

Thanks 

Sudev Ambadi 

sudev.github.io

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Regards,

Sudev Ambadi

B Tech CSE, NIT Calicut
sudev.github.com

[Nachi Vpn]

Regards,
Nachi
http://nachivpn.me

~Sent from my phone
On Dec 16, 2015 9:20 PM, "Sreevasthavan K C" <sreeva...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> First of all thank you for kick starting such a relevant thread. :)

>
>
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:29 AM, Kartik Singhal <kartik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>

>> On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Jaseem Abid <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> I think it's about time that FOSSMeet moves away from being a
>> >> philosophy-oriented conference to a practice-oriented one.
>> >
>> >
>> > This is hard problem and an important decision. It alters the direction and
>> > tone of the entire conference.
>>
>> Indeed. We need to be seeking solutions to such hard problems that
>> plague us for so long. What better time for that than now. just before
>> another edition of FOSSMeet?
>>
>> I would love to hear the perspective of current students and/or the
>> organizing team about this.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >> We have been doing git/python workshops for ages now. Also, there is
>> >> enough good quality material online for learning these. I would rather
>> >> see hands on workshops on newer technologies like Rust, Go, Swift,
>> >> Docker, etc with some focus on how to make use of them in your
>> >> projects and/or contribute back to them.
>
>  

> Yes absolutely we also have been thinking the same thing. We have our talk proposals
> funnel up. We would love to see proposals on similar topics. And please spread
> the word.

>  
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Noufal Ibrahim <nou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > One problem that an educator has to inoculate himself or herself against
>> > is the tendency to forget his or her own early days.
>> >
>> > I'm generally against workshops for popular tools for larger
>> > tech. events where the expected audience mostly has some level of
>> > experience but for a largely student audience, a practical workshop on
>> > a, these days, indispensable tool like git or a language like Python
>> > makes a lot of sense.
>>

>> I am probably overestimating, but in general I feel over the years we
>> have been grossly underestimating what the audience wants. I will let
>> someone at the institute chip in about the current scenario. If there
>> is no/insufficient data, it should not be difficult to organize an
>> anonymous web survey of current students.
>>
>

> Yes, We will surely look into that. 

>
>> [...]
>>
>> >> 2. Speaking of city-based communities, it's a good idea to introduce
>> >> various open source communities that exist in different cities of
>> >> India. Often times, students graduate, go on to join IT workforce but
>> >> aren't even aware of existence of technical open source communities in
>> >> their vicinity and how they operate.
>> >
>> >
>> > Practically there is nothing in Calicut. Not sure how we can help.
>>
>> I was referring to communities in cities like Bangalore, Hyd, Pune,
>> Delhi where majority of students will go to work.
>>

> Yes this is where we people at Calicut have a small disadvantage. We miss out
> important and experienced personalities who can bring in some quality material
> into the meet. We would love to collaborate and bring in people from different
> communities from cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad or even from abroad
> (if the budget allows us :P). We really need help in this. 
>>

>> >> 3. Indian startup scene is hot and how is it enabled by open source
>> >> software and how are some of these startups giving back by
>> >> contributing to upstream or open sourcing their internal software.
>> >> This can also serve as a networking venue for both startups seeking
>> >> new grads and students looking for non-corporate and learning-oriented
>> >> jobs.
>> >
>> >
>> > This is important. I could talk about  getting work done in a startup, how
>> > to prepare yourself for such a job etc.
>>
>> That's awesome. I think your practical insights will be really useful
>> for students. It will be good to bring in more people who have taken

>> different paths to jobs at start-ups/large organizations (think RedHat)

>>
>> focused on open source and share their stories about how they feel
>> about working on open source projects.
>>

> Brilliant idea! We can have an event for the entrepreneurs, and different people from
> different start-ups incubated at TBI NIT Calicut, UL Cyber Park Calicut, Or even
> Start-up village come and attend, where we can introduce them to FOSS technologies
> that they can use. We would love to get people who can talk on interesting topics
> for the present start-up scene and the for budding entrepreneurs. 

>>
>>
>> >> 4. A demo stage for students to show off their open source projects,
>> >> be it academic projects or something they worked on in their free
>> >> time. If the projects are long term, students will have opportunity to
>> >> meet new contributors or get involved with projects they would like to
>> >> work on. In the months leading to the conference a competition can
>> >> also be organized to be concluded at the conference.
>

> Yes we also have been thinking of a similar event. One idea was, an event where we can ask
> the participants to submit their present projects as "Your best code" where they can
> showcase their projects. In two categories
>     1. Most recent project maybe 6 months old.
>     2. Something they have created during FOSSMeet.
> We would require experts who can analyse and judge them.
>
>

> Some other issues and ideas

> 1. We have already started getting responses on the funnel. Please spread the word.

> 2. Very few students participate in events like GSOC from our college. We were
> thinking to get people from SMC and other organisations who can come and guide the
> participants on these.

> 3 We also have not come up with any sponsorship. We would like to get relevant contacts
> and info on this.
>

You are bound to face these and similar  issues - these issues have been faced every year. You can save time and effort by using past experiences. It would be fruitful to talk to speaker and marketing teams of FOSSMeet'14 and 13 team as they would be more accessible to you.

From '14: Sudev, Abhijith KP & John Joseph will have a very good idea. Do get in touch with these guys.

> Thank you all for such overwhelming support. Looking forward for the discussion.
>

> Regards,
> K C Sreevasthavan
> FOSSMeet '16 Team

>
> --
> --
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> FOSSCell, NIT Calicut Mailing List
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[Jaseem Abid]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 11:44 PM, Nachi Vpn <nach...@gmail.com> wrote:

You are bound to face these and similar  issues - these issues have been faced every year. You can save time and effort by using past experiences. It would be fruitful to talk to speaker and marketing teams of FOSSMeet'14 and 13 team as they would be more accessible to you.

From '14: Sudev, Abhijith KP & John Joseph will have a very good idea. Do get in touch with these guys.

This is critical. Hasgeek must have run like a 100 events now and I'm sure Kiran or Zainab would help. They probably know almost every decent conference speaker in India. Hari (ex FOSSMeet sec if I remember right) works there and will surely be of help.

Govind, Kartik, Jerrin, Sudev etc will have a lot of practical tips to share. Please get in touch with them and talk!  You can also talk to very old members of the community like Praveen A, Baiju M etc. Sajjad (@geohacker), Noufal etc used to be active faces. A lot more people I've never met and known. A lot of people I've worked with but can't remember now. You have the resources. Just need to look for them! 

[Ershad Kunnakkadan]

Adding Cherry. He's a NetBSD developer, might be able to help with
talks/thoughts.

--
Ershad Kunnakkadan
ershadk.com / @ershus

[Prasad Krishnan k]

Extremely happy to see discussions going on :) .

On 15 Dec 2015 23:47, "Jaseem Abid" <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 9:16 PM, Nachi Vpn <nach...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If there plans for a hackathon at FOSSMeet, it could be aimed at encouraging collaborative efforts using similar approaches.
>
>
> We could have a hackathon on student projects.  Ask folks to bring whatever little things they have and everyone can work on such little projects, send a few pull requests and show collaboratively we can build better tools. 
>
> A demo where everyone shows things, and a hackathon afterwards where students can join their favorite demo sounds like something with potential. 

A demo on student projects followed by a hackathon where others can build upon them surely serves the purpose of such a conference. We need more discussions regarding the event like the criteria for selecting the student projects for demo. Just to give a thought before planning the event, if we are conducting it during FOSSMeet , won't the participants of hackathon lose out on other sessions?

> Where are the organizers by the way? None of them said anything here. It's a bunch of us _vetranrans_ ;) I'll see if I can arrange for some talks. Do you guys need sponsorship?

We have got a few proposals in our funnel. We expect all of you interested, to propose a talk/session in the funnel. :) . And please do spread the word.

Regarding sponsorships, we have not had much success. It would be very useful for us if you could specify the details of the companies that we have to target.

Looking forward to further discussions/suggestions.

Regards,
K Prasad Krishnan

> Can you make it this year Nachi? Still in Malaysia I believe?
>
>
> --
> Regards, 
>
> Jaseem Abid
> github.com/jaseemabid
>

> --
> More details at fossmeet.in

> ---

> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FOSSMeet at NITC" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fossmeetnitc...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to fossme...@googlegroups.com.

[Sreevasthavan K C]

Hi,

First of all thank you for kick starting such a relevant thread. :)

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:29 AM, Kartik Singhal <kartik...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Jaseem Abid <jasee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think it's about time that FOSSMeet moves away from being a
>> philosophy-oriented conference to a practice-oriented one.
>
>
> This is hard problem and an important decision. It alters the direction and
> tone of the entire conference.

Indeed. We need to be seeking solutions to such hard problems that
plague us for so long. What better time for that than now. just before
another edition of FOSSMeet?

I would love to hear the perspective of current students and/or the
organizing team about this.

[...]

>> We have been doing git/python workshops for ages now. Also, there is
>> enough good quality material online for learning these. I would rather
>> see hands on workshops on newer technologies like Rust, Go, Swift,
>> Docker, etc with some focus on how to make use of them in your
>> projects and/or contribute back to them.

 

Yes absolutely we also have been thinking the same thing. We have our talk proposals
funnel up. We would love to see proposals on similar topics. And please spread

the word.
 

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Noufal Ibrahim <nou...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One problem that an educator has to inoculate himself or herself against
> is the tendency to forget his or her own early days.
>
> I'm generally against workshops for popular tools for larger
> tech. events where the expected audience mostly has some level of
> experience but for a largely student audience, a practical workshop on
> a, these days, indispensable tool like git or a language like Python
> makes a lot of sense.

I am probably overestimating, but in general I feel over the years we
have been grossly underestimating what the audience wants. I will let
someone at the institute chip in about the current scenario. If there
is no/insufficient data, it should not be difficult to organize an
anonymous web survey of current students.

Yes, We will surely look into that. 

[...]

>> 2. Speaking of city-based communities, it's a good idea to introduce
>> various open source communities that exist in different cities of
>> India. Often times, students graduate, go on to join IT workforce but
>> aren't even aware of existence of technical open source communities in
>> their vicinity and how they operate.
>
>
> Practically there is nothing in Calicut. Not sure how we can help.

I was referring to communities in cities like Bangalore, Hyd, Pune,
Delhi where majority of students will go to work.

Yes this is where we people at Calicut have a small disadvantage. We miss out

important and experienced personalities who can bring in some quality material
into the meet. We would love to collaborate and bring in people from different
communities from cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad or even from abroad
(if the budget allows us :P). We really need help in this. 

>> 3. Indian startup scene is hot and how is it enabled by open source

>> software and how are some of these startups giving back by
>> contributing to upstream or open sourcing their internal software.
>> This can also serve as a networking venue for both startups seeking
>> new grads and students looking for non-corporate and learning-oriented
>> jobs.
>
>
> This is important. I could talk about  getting work done in a startup, how
> to prepare yourself for such a job etc.

That's awesome. I think your practical insights will be really useful
for students. It will be good to bring in more people who have taken

different paths to jobs at start-ups/large organizations (think RedHat)

focused on open source and share their stories about how they feel
about working on open source projects.

Brilliant idea! We can have an event for the entrepreneurs, and different people from

different start-ups incubated at TBI NIT Calicut, UL Cyber Park Calicut, Or even

Start-up village come and attend, where we can introduce them to FOSS technologies
that they can use. We would love to get people who can talk on interesting topics
for the present start-up scene and the for budding entrepreneurs. 

>> 4. A demo stage for students to show off their open source projects,
>> be it academic projects or something they worked on in their free
>> time. If the projects are long term, students will have opportunity to
>> meet new contributors or get involved with projects they would like to
>> work on. In the months leading to the conference a competition can
>> also be organized to be concluded at the conference.

Yes we also have been thinking of a similar event. One idea was, an event where we can ask
the participants to submit their present projects as "Your best code" where they can
showcase their projects. In two categories

    1. Most recent project maybe 6 months old.

    2. Something they have created during FOSSMeet.

We would require experts who can analyse and judge them.

Some other issues and ideas

1. We have already started getting responses on the funnel. Please spread the word.

2. Very few students participate in events like GSOC from our college. We were

thinking to get people from SMC and other organisations who can come and guide the

participants on these.

3 We also have not come up with any sponsorship. We would like to get relevant contacts

and info on this.

[Sreevasthavan K C]

We would love to come. We are trying to get a appropriate date. Will inform asap. Thank you.

Regards
Vasthav

[Jaseem Abid]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 9:54 PM, Sreevasthavan K C <sreeva...@gmail.com> wrote:

We would love to come. We are trying to get a appropriate date. Will inform asap. Thank you.

Any word? 

[Prasad Krishnan k]

For the meetup in Bangalore, will Jan 9-10 be convenient for you all? 

Thank you,

Regards,

K Prasad Krishnan

 

[Hari C M]

Hi,

Sorry folks. Was busy with one conference. It just got over. 

Jan 9-10 sounds good. You can host this Bangalore meet up at HasGeek House. 

Who is FOSSMeet student co-ordinator this time? 

If you guys give me a confirmation, I can spread this information using HasGeek social media accounts.

Cheers,

Hari

855-3333-985

--

Hari Chakkattumukkil

[Prasad Krishnan k]

Hi,

I'm one of the student coordinators for FOSSMeet '16. 

We will confirm the dates within 2 days, hopefully by today itself. After that we will come up with an agenda for the meetup from our side :). 

Thanks,

Regards,

Prasad

 

[Prasad Krishnan k]

Hi,

We are very sorry that we might need to shift the dates for the meetup by 1 week.
We do not have train tickets available for Jan 9-10 and a few of us are interested in attending ThinkFOSS 2.0 conference conducted by Amrita, Kollam which happens to be on the same dates. If you all are fine with Jan 16-17, I think we can confirm the same. We'll lose one week, but I feel this is the best option available.

Thanks

Regards,
Prasad

[Jaseem Abid]

On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Prasad Krishnan k <prasa...@gmail.com> wrote:

We are very sorry that we might need to shift the dates for the meetup by 1 week. We do not have train tickets available for Jan 9-10

Kannur - Yeswantpur express is a perpetually booked train. Tatkal is your only option on almost any day. 

If you all are fine with Jan 16-17, I think we can confirm the same.

Too late, but...

[Aashish Satyajith]

Hi,

My name is Aashish Satyajith, and I'm one of the executives from third year. I'll be accompanying Prasad and other seniors on their trip to Bangalore.

This is the agenda that we’ve come up with so far for our trip:

• Explore the possibilities of obtaining sponsorship from startups in Bangalore involved in promoting and using FOSS tools (we’ll need help identifying these, plus contacts)
• Help getting quality speakers / speakers we can get in touch with in Bangalore directly
  
• Help regarding identifying places for obtaining sponsorship in general
  
• Suggestions on whom to approach for the inaugural talk. Talks from eminent people can attract participants.
  
• Ideas on special events (e.g. “Your Best Code” as mentioned above) / themes / something new apart from workshops, talks etc.
  
• Selecting sessions from Funnel

Apart from all this, we’d like to hear very much about your vision for a grand FOSSMeet ’16 so that we can make it good enough to be called a comeback. We’d also like to learn from what you did, what your mistakes were and how to ensure that it doesn’t happen again this year.

Thanks and Regards,

Aashish.

[Deepak Sirone]

Hello,

        Apart from the stuff mentioned above, I think it would be great if we had a CTF for FOSSMeet. As it would be hard to host a fully fledged online competition(like InCTF) owing to time constraints, we can have it as a substitute for hacknights this time. Hopefully it will be entertaining for our guests :). Setting questions can be a load of fun too :D.

Thanks and regards,
Deepak

[Kartik Singhal]

Unless someone is really interested in organizing it *well*, I would
say this is quite orthogonal to the goals of FOSSMeet.

If there is sufficient interest among college students, competitions
like CTFs or those on competitive programming can be organized
separately in any weekend over the academic year. They generally don't
need/benefit with having speakers from outside the college, an
opportunity that a conference presents.

--
Kartik

[Singh]

Hi Team,

I will be happy to meet you guys. Hopefully I will be in Bangalore during 14th week.
Most of you guys may not be knowing me. I was leading FossMeet 2nd and 3rd Edition, when it became big because of strong team efforts. We will be happy to share our vision and thoughts.

Regards, Amarjit

[Jaseem Abid]

On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 6:05 PM, Deepak Sirone <deepaks...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

        Apart from the stuff mentioned above, I think it would be great if we had a CTF for FOSSMeet. As it would be hard to host a fully fledged online competition(like InCTF) owing to time constraints, we can have it as a substitute for hacknights this time. Hopefully it will be entertaining for our guests :). Setting questions can be a load of fun too :D.

My personal vote: No. 

If I may be a bit rude and straightforward,

There is a lot more to computer science than sorting numbers in a 1000 ways (read topcoder, codechef) and looking for silly clues to capture flags. Those domains are saturated with competitions and websites. Please don't make FM one of those. 

I see a lot more value in building real systems, and showing that rather than some code filled with micro optimizations and tricks that nobody other than the author can understand and won't pass code review for any major project. It is a rabbit hole a fresh grad goes into and sadly I see lot of people still stuck with it. A hackathon is a way for people to learn from others, get feedback on what they have done and understand how large systems are build together. 

The ability to look for silly clues in CTFs is not what you should learn from fossmeet. Building tools which you wouldn't have been able to do alone is. 

[Jaseem Abid]

On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Prasad Krishnan k <prasa...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you all are fine with Jan 16-17, I think we can confirm the same. We'll lose one week, but I feel this is the best option available.

Can we confirm this to be the final date and prepare accordingly? 

[Prasad Krishnan k]

Hi,

We have booked tickets for the dates Jan 15-17. We will be reaching Bangalore on 16th morning.

Regards,

Prasad

[Prasad Krishnan k]

Hi all,

Thank you everyone who could stop by HasGeek house(thanks Hari CM) in Bangalore for the meetup.
We could learn a lot from the meetup. We are sure that the meetup will help us organise FOSSMeet '16
in a better way and also the future editions too.

Regards,

Prasad

 

 

Regards,

Prasad

[Sreevasthavan K C]

Hi,
We the FOSSMeet '16 team had absolutely great time at Bangalore. We are

really grateful to everyone who came for the Meet-Up. Special thanks to

Hari and Abhimanyu chettan. As Prasad said all the suggestion and guidelines

mentioned during the Meet-Up will be taken care of. Thanks again. :)

Regards

Sreevasthavan