Thursday, August 12, 2010:
Open source is growing and being accepted more widely than ever before. Now we have an open source social network, Diaspora and open source forum, Open Up. Linux For You magazine and EFY Group are also part of an open source event called OSI Days, scheduled to be organised by the Forum for Open Source Initiatives in India (FOSII), from 19 to 21 September 2010. But before OSI Days gets underway, a three-day camp on free and open source software called “FOSSilize” will be held at IIT Guwahati's campus between 3 and 5 September 2010.
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The event is being organised with the goal to increase the awareness, integration and adoption of free and open source software tools among the students. A few days back, we had reported that companies are investing on open source and those who are not, want to do so in the future. But the only problem which was cited by 40 per cent of the companies was the lack of open source training. With events like FOSSilize, this problem will be slowly eradicated.
The event emphasises on building the capacity of the students to use FOSS. The event hopes to bring together students from both the technical and non-technical colleges in the region. This event and its subsequent activities will be used as an opportunity to broaden expertise, forge new ideas and connections, and encourage the creative use of FOSS within the different projects and initiatives in the region.
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mahiti and Foundation for People Empowerment are responsible for helping organise this event.
More events of this nature need to be organised to increase awareness about open source software. There is a misconception that people adopt open source only to save cost. But that is not the case. The complexity, usability and flexibility of open source software needs to be brought up through such events. Students from all over the country are invited to participate in the event.
What are your views about such events? Do share them in the comments section.
Shabbir Akhtar, EFYTIMES News Network
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