Linux Asia 2006

February 8, 2006The first day at Linux Asia 2006. We gathered at IHC (Indian Habitat Center). We were almost 35 combining 2nd & 3rd year students. First we got ourselves registered at the registration counter and were provided with the pass and a carry bag containing some advertisements papers, LFY and some other miscellaneous objects then we were directed towards the Auditorium were the event was started with lighting of lamp and Saraswati Vandana. Then Inaugural keynote was given by Dr. Deepak Pathak (Chair Professor, KReSIT, IIT Bombay). Full of his visionary thoughts and India of his dream where India is a IT force and millions of Indians are using Open Source Software and contributing towards it. Then was a keynote on Oracle and HP by their respective representatives. Though both the keynotes were full of information but a bit boring we should admit. After that there was a tea break. Then there was Google & Summer of Code by Zaheda Bhorat (Manager, Open Source Programs, Google). I must say that this was the best information for students and young programmers who are in the process to make their mark in Open Source Development. Her matter of contents was full of knowledge no doubt but this can’t take the credit away from her that she was one of the most charming personality of the fest and her presentation was fabulous. And after that it was the turn of Bebo White (from Stanford University) to enlighten us on Web Browser 2.0 & Open Source. After that he also had a photo session with us. And then of course there was lunch. Now it was the time for Eric D’Angelo (manager, solution marketing group, Dell Asia Pacific & Japan) to give a keynote on DELL. These all were happening in the Technology forum in downstairs Auditorium which ended with a lecture on secure communication with the help of GPG by B C Sekar (project manager, HCL technologies) quite informative for us. Industry Sessions, Desktop Forum & Linux Developer Camps were also going on along with technology forum on different venues simultaneously. In between all these happening there was Mark Shuttleworth (Cosmonaut & Founder, Ubuntu), himself gave a keynote covering a wide range of areas under Open Source just after lunch which was common in all the forums. And we also wandered when we were getting bored with the lectures and keynotes on different stalls especially the stall of Red Hat as they were organizing a dart game and were awarding free caps, mouse pads and calendars. And thus ended the first day, as most of us were back by this time except a few who attended the party in the night.

February 9, 2006The excitement was over and over one-third of students were absent. But still our strength was sufficient. On that day there was four different sessions going on namely- Industry Sessions, E-Govergance Forum, Technology Forum & Fedora Day. Most of us decided to be faithful with Fedora on that day but were not. For us the day started with Javed Tapia’s (President, Red Hat Indian Sub Continent) keynote and sharing many sort of knowledge with us. Especially the problem they faced while providing a base to LINUX. Then we attended keynote by Dr. S. Sadagopan (Director, IIIT Banglore).After that we devoted ourselves towards Fedora until Lunch where we had knowledge on many things from how to contribute to Fedora to Fedora desktop Roadmap and obviously All about Fedora (these are the names of events) were the speakers were Christopher

Blizzard (Manager, Desktop Group, Red Hat), Greg DeKoenigsberg (Community Relations Manager, Red Hat) and Satish Mohan (Head of engineering, Red Hat India). After lunch it was the time to hear the enlighting thoughts of Klaus Knopper (Creator Knoppix). He started with his predictions for next 100 years in the field of Computers & Technology. Then he continued to tell us what are the possible measures to overcome his predictions which were somehow quiet frightening. Now it was the time to get divided. Many of our friends visited the auditorium to attend lectures on Fedora but some of us were in Technology Forum to attend lectures on WiFi in Linux, Introduction to AJAX & Rico by Kushal Das (Cordinator, LUG, Durgapur), Network Monitoring using Snort by Lakshmi Narayan Narasimhan (Lead Engineer, HCL Technologies) and finally on embedded Linux by Pratanjali Somayaji (CEO, Codito Technologies). By this time only five of us from our group were left in the IHC. We had some sort of Photo Sessions with Klaus Knopper, Christopher Blizzard, Greg DeKoenigsberg and other members of Fedora Team. We also had their autograph. Those who collected Fedora’s DVD or T-Shirts during the day got it signed in evening. Then it was the time for Penguin Party in which we were not allowed, so we waited outside near the various stalls for the dinner trying our hands on each stall to get something or the other from them.

February 10, 2006

On last day has somewhat very lukewarm response from the students gallery but the excitement was as evergreen as ever from the organizers side. On that day also there were four sessions going on side by side namely- special Sessions, India Education Forum, Technology Forum, Technology Forum, Linux Developer Camp. We attended keynote by David Axmark (Co-founder MySQL) and then headed towards India Education forum. Where the session was started by Welcome & Agenda. Followed by many Educationists from India & Abroad including Zaheda Bhorat. We could not stay there until the end of the session because of salat-e-juma but were back by lunch and attended the keynote by Apache Guru Brian Behledorf (Founder, CollabNet, Director, Mozilla Foundation) after that. We again shifted towards Technology forum to attend the Tutorial: Ajax Made Easy With Ruby on Rails. It was evening now and was time to bid goodbye to this three day event on open Source Software as no one was willing to stay there to attend the program Meet The Gurus.

Throughout the fest in IHC is over but still we recall it every now and then. First time in my life I wanted to divide myself into four parts so that I could have attended all the four forums simultaneously. It was a delighting experience especially for me as I was not able to attend Friddle-2005, for which I had regreted later, but was happy this time. I am also looking personally towards next Linux Asia Meet to attend it and am very sure that everybody in our group will be thinking so.

Contributed By—Md. Faisal DilawarB. Tech (Comp) II