I did not want to go open about my thoughts until I saw the closing post by Atul. As with any event, there are both good and bad things about FOSS.in, some specific to the “new format” and some about the way the event was organized. I attended FOSS.in for the forth time and the good thing is that it introduced me to most of free software developers I know today.
One extremely bad thing about FOSS.in/2008 was that all the attendees and speakers were given a CD that contained proprietary software from VMWare. A friend of mine did try to show his discontent by returning the CD at the kit distribution desk, but the organizer/volunteer at the desk seemed completely ignorant of what he really meant by returning the CD. I did something that was equally useless by dumping the CD in the trash can at the VMWare stall.
This year’s FOSS.in had a new format that was introduced through the not-so-friendly “omelette post“. The focus of the event looked overly bent towards the geeky side and it also became the cause for the lower turnout from the newbies. I felt that there was a lower turnout from the developer community too, but the organisers would not agree with me here 
The event also turned out to be far more India focused than its predecessors. It is good to highlight Indian contributions to free software, but there should also be a stage where selected projects can speak and find new developers in India. Anyone who can motivate new developers to contribute code to Kernel, Mozilla or GNOME is much better than an Indian who gets on to the stage showing some code that few in the audience understand.
One other thing that the omelette post mentioned are the “low hanging fruits”. These low hanging fruits are the way most of today’s developers get introduced to contributing to free software. I do agree that it’s difficult to name more than ten Indian free software developers that the world knows, but I do not see how ignoring the low hanging fruits can contribute to it.
The workouts are a good idea - apart from getting a few bugs fixed they also help new developers to contribute code under the guidance of an existing developer. They make it easier for the contributors to jump a little closer to the “core” of a project. The results also seem encouraging and I only hope that the participation would increase in future.
It is extremely difficult to organize an event of this scale and the FOSS.in team has done a great job with it. There definitely has been an extremely high amount of planning that went into the changed format and the way things were organized.
Overall, it’s another FOSS.in, another huge effort by the team and a bold step towards the new format - the results of which will only be known over some time.
I am Prasad Sunkari,
co-founder of