Software Freedom Day Activity Report

FSUG-Kochi Software Freedom Day Celebrations 2005 Activity Report

As planned the Software Freedom Day Celebrations of FSUG-Kochi was
held at the Girinagar Ladies Club Hall on Saturday Sep 10th, 2005.The
event was attended by Githin,Arun,Sumod,myself and few new faces from
the College of Engineering Chengannur. There were also a couple of
students from College of Engineering Palakkad who attented the event.

The heavy rains and traffic block on the day of the event did not
dampen our true hacker spirit we were determined to celebrate
Software Freedom Day come what may.

When i reached the venue at about 2.15 P.M, i could see Arun and
Githin standing in the rain with nothing more than an umbrella to
protect them. Lesser mortals would have found the downpour an excuse
to elope from the responsibility but they stood thier ground. Kudos
to you folks.

I entrusted the job of arranging the hall and setting up the public
addressal system to both of them and took Ramakrishana Reddy home for
Lunch. When i returned i found the hall absolutely ready and Githin had
even arranged a projector for Ramakrishana to present his slides.

The event was informal as usual. I introduced Ramakrishana Reddy to
the group and also spoke on the 4 Freedoms of Software that our
community stands for. I also briefly explained the history of the
Free Software Movement and the role of the Free Software Foundation
in upholding the cause of Software Freedom.

Ramakrishna took over from where i left, and he spoke for (would you
believe it) 3 hours at a streach!!!!!!. His presentation was so
lively that we lost count of time. He presented a few slides on PHP Functions,
classes,objects and exceptions. He also spoke on portal
development; maybe as a prelude to his presentation on the same topic
at FreeDel.

An intresting topic that came up for discussion after his presentation
was securing a LAMP installation and Ramakrishana's experience
working as a consultant for TCS helped here.

One amusing observation from his talk was that TCS still uses a
PDP 10 computer at it's Hyderabad unit. He said it consumed as much
space as the Girinagar Ladies Club ;), and power that could light up
the entire Girinagar Colony. Lucky that TCS has its own CCP (Captive
Power Plant) at the campus.

In case PDP 10 doesn't light a blub, it's the behemoth around which
RMS and his Software Sharing community at MIT evolved in the 1970s
using the ITS (Intercompatible Timesharing System) operating system
that the staff hackers had designed, till the wicked Digital
discontinued the PDP 10 series and Symblolics started leeching away
all the staff hackers around the early 1980s.

The reason why TCS still uses the PDP-10 system is because the coats
out there are so cozy with what they have that they never felt the
need to change over to a newer model all these years.

Ramakrisha's talk was followed by an Install Fest where we gave a
demo of a GNU/Linux installation. The newbies were very
intrested as asked us a lot of questions. Ramakrishna patiently
explained to them the GNU/Linux file structure and the different
services that were getting installed. One of the newbies from CEC was
particularly curious about GNU/Linux security and we were able to
convince him about it. Ramakrishna Reddy's zeal and energy was simply
infectious and he succeeded in rubbing it onto every one present
there :-)

After the installfest Githin gave a "on demand" demo of gnusim8085,
a Graphical Intel 8085 simulator, assembler and debugger. The 8085
and 8086 Micro Processor Theory and Labs are still part of the
engineering syllabus for E&C and E&E in most engineering colleges.
I even had 8085 Theory and labs in my mechanical engineering
syllabus. Wish i knew about Free Software when i was in college.

We had planned a live demo of Blender, a GNU/Linux 3D
modeller/renderer and also Koha, a Free library management
application but we could not demo it because of lack of time.

The event finally got over at around 7.30 PM and Githin dropped
Ramakrisha at my residence, while i was left with juggling my system
on a short trip in an auto on the notoriously smooth roads of
Girinagar.

When i look back at the event i cannot but make a few observations:-

First, inspite of people who discouraged us; many said it was Onam
season and that no one would turn up and that we should postpone the
event we went ahead with it and celebrated it on schedule albeit some
frills.

Secondly, we never got the Software Freedom Day CDs on the day of the
event,Thanks to the Customs and Excise Department who consider me a
smuggler for trying to share Free Software. Sumod deserves special
praise here as he donated 100 Ubuntu CDs that he had ordered for his
college and we could distribute a CD set each to every person who
attented the event. Sumod even agreed to donate his brand new IBM
Thinkpad for use during the event.

Finally, i think the area we lacked this time was informing the press
about the event and also distributing the event notice in educational
institutions. Next time around we hope to rectify this lapse.

I am grateful to all the members of the community who cooperated with
me in making this event a success.

-- 
Vivek Varghese Cherian
Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>