kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

I am leaving for Chandigarh today. To attend OSScamp Chandigarh October 2009 – a culmination of a month’s work. A platform to promote open source in the state of Punjab. The first of its kind in the state. Exhiliration, Relief, Worries, Issues. I feel all of this. And a lot more.

In recent times, in the aftermath of the September camp at Delhi – a couple of individuals stood up, who did not agree with the way OSScamps was being done. They were worried about it all being a psuedo-marketing effort by my company. They were worried about lack of ownership and transparency in the organisation of events. Most of all, they were worried about the lack of open source software in the camp. And that having a camp was, apparently,  important than open source. Or the fact that ‘dont focus on open source, talk about free software‘. And a lot of smearing, as well.

I respect people who have an opinion, and who stand up for it. Most of the criticism was welcome. What was unnerving was the way it was put. The ‘my way or highway‘ way of speaking never went well with me. Constructive criticism takes us all forward, but negative criticism doesnt do much good. I see it around me. Always.

I do not understand this sub-culture amongst the FOSS pseudo-elites in India (as far as I have encountered) – the ego tussle of being worshipped and treated like god. Their words and wishes be held fast as if some writing on the stone. Never quite understood: why people expect that, why other appease them. In my simple existence, I only understand man’s effort and his proving his worth with that.

For the last 3 years, I have been working with FOSS – contributing, being a part of it, pushing it with all my personal might, making attempts and efforts of organising camps. It has involved a lot of pushing around. Running around. It was not easy, it was not simple. And I did all I could. In retrospect, now, I see a shift as more people take up the mantle as well. I see friends and acquaintances, who stand up and begin new efforts. OSScamps, in my opinion, has done well as a platform. The effort that was put by me, my colleagues and friends, so many people in the community – everyone’s efforts, gave OSScamp a direction and a focus; and it always stayed true to that.

There has been another shift – from developers to students. Students will drive FOSS forward. Developers have a vested interest in technology; Students, apart from wanting good placements, have a lot of spare time, passion and enthusiasm. I see their enthusiasm in all FOSS events I have participated at. They are the main drivers of FOSS today and an even bigger catalyst tomorrow. They form a major chunk of all efforts required by a community initiative. They lead. They work. They play.

When the said negative cirticism took place, I got the opportunity to gauge the community – the concerns and issues. I used the opportunity to evaluate, where we stand today and where we are headed. No one had agreed with the individuals who were disgruntled with OSScamps. Everyone came forward to protect the way of the community – we are different, we don’t deny it. The plain fact is that we dont do, nor do we want to do that, which everyone does. We have a faith and a belief and we work on it. Aspirations and Dreams. We try to achieve. I feel a lot of people in the community will agree with what I speak. I hope.

I am leaving for Chandigarh today. To attend OSScamp Chandigarh October 2009 – a culmination of a month’s work. A platform to promote open source in the state of Punjab. The first of its kind in the state. Exhiliration, Relief, Worries, Issues. I feel all of this. I know that the community in India encourages OSScamps as a platform to promote FOSS. I understand that the community wants to make the best of the event, take a step forward. The aftermath of OSScamp Delhi September 2009 was a good opportunity to disprove some myths and clear away a lot of confusion about the events and the community. Now we walk with a clearer focus. Knowing that, where I am going today, I will be accepted and encouraged as one of the brothers in arms. Amen.

OSScamp Delhi March 2009 is finally over. All doubts and concerns about the various experiments have now been resolved. How have my experiments fared? Not good. Not bad, either. So what happened at this OSScamp ?

Participation has fallen to almost 50% of OSScamp Delhi September 2008. I do not understand this completely. The registrations were decent enough – 287, but the turnout was only 76. There must be a reason to it. One reason I can think of is that the number of registered sessions on the website was only 8. That could have been one deterrent to people coming to the camp – their doubts on lack of quality at the camp. This is why I do not appreciate a sessions-oriented unconference. People need to understand that unconferences are successful and have good quality only when people join. So what if only 8 talks have been registered on the site, 1 out of every 20 guys (being very pessimistic) volunteers to give a talk at the camp. so if a 160 people participate, we get a total of 16 talks now. Plus, the informal discussions improve manifold. But then people have the habit of putting themselves before everyone else. Especially in Delhi. Countless people who had been promising pure-awesomeness at the camp but didn’t even participate have been making this excuse to me – we were busy! Yes, that’s an excuse. But never mind you, you coming to the camp would have been a waste in any case.

Next, since the participation was low and camps were thinly spread, I got a plenty of opportunity to test out my social sandbox concept. I have come up with a lot of inputs and challenges for the concept of Social Sandboxes, will be discussing them in detail here soon. Next OSScamp Delhi will see a more focused effort at creating a Social Sandbox though. Long gone are the days of a talk-oriented unconference.

The demographics for the camp was also pretty interesting. Look at the images below:

I am not going to talk about the sessions that took place at the camp, as a lot of other blogs have already covered them. I will simply share the pictures of the camp and my talk.

Pictures from the camp:

My Ignite talk on Social Sandbox at the Camp:

OSScamps are organized on the lines of bar camps and serves as a dais for Tech professionals, geeks and geeks-to-be to discuss, debate, comment and share their knowledge through demos, presentations and interactions among the campers. It’s an endeavor to gather and collaborate on open source technologies and tools.

The OSScamp Pantnagar community, initiated at OSScamp Delhi September 2008, has announced their maiden unconferece at Pantnagar (Nainital) area. The unconference is scheduled for January 31st – February 1st 2009 in the scenic views of  GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, at the Department of Computer Engineering, College of Technology.

For more details:
event:  osscamp.in/event/osscamp-pantnagar-february-2009
talks: osscamp.in/category/talk-camp/osscamp-pantnagar-february-2009
regsiter: osscamp.in/node/103/signup

0626 Hrs. Get a call from home. Rise and shine sleepyhead. Thomas is coming over too. He is a fellow camper from chennai; he needs a place to keep his luggage and to take a bath. I need some company; I invite him over.

He is there by 8AM, by the time I was fresh and ready. We start at 8:20 for the venue. I am the organizer for chrissake! I have to be there early, get things arranged and organized. But first – Breakfast!

Me and Thomas head over to the Kabini Canteen for a quick breakfast while discussing FOSS. It feels so great to be talking like you really know what you are talking about, even if you don’t. Post breakfast, Thomas and I start on our mission to find and reach the venue. I was to experience the vastness of the IISc campus, now. 40 minutes and 15 guides later, we reach the CEDT Building. Welcome to OSScamp Bengaluru!

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The first thing to do is to call back home and tell them I am hale and hearty in Bangalore. I do so. Next, I walk out of the airport. There is a line of EasyCabs and I take one. I need to go to the Indian Institute of Science. Which Indian Institute of Science? There are many in Bangalore! Thankfully, I had read the ICCBN guidelines for reaching the venue. See, I don’t know much about Bangalore. The place is called Indian Institute of Science and is also known as Tata Institute. Its near Yeshwanthpur. Oh That One! The taxi speeds away.

The journey was kinda comfortable. The driver is Prasanna, who is a friendly guy. He is a local, lives with his family, earns a salary of 8K as an EasyCabs driver, has no girlfriend and loves to hang out with friends.

By the way, Hills are called Betta in Kannada compared to Malaya in Tamil. You say Solpe Solpe Kannada Paratha for ‘I understand a little Kannada’ as opposed to Kunjum Kunjum Tamil Terio for the same about Tamil. The scripts are very different and yet the languages are claimed to be very similar having originated from the Dravidian family. For one: the word to show respect or to refer to as an elder brother in both languages is Anna.

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