FOSSMeet 2019

FOSSMeet is an annual event at NIT Calicut that brings together the Free and Open Source Community from around the country.

FOSSMeet is the annual Free and Open source software meet at NIT Calicut. We are inviting proposals for talks and workshops at FOSSMeet 2019.

What we are looking for

At FOSSMeet, we allow the attendees(mostly students) to delve into the field of development and free software. We’re inviting proposals for lectures, demos, tutorials, workshops, discussions, and panels for FOSSMeet’19. Separate proposals will be taken for one-hour sessions by professionals and thirty-minute talks by students. This year, however, upvotes will not be considered in the selection procedure.

Fair warning - if the contents of your session is the ‘I am feeling lucky’ result of a Google search, there is little probability of it being accepted. Same applies to proposals titled ‘The absolute beginner introduction to X’ and others of the like. On the other hand, if your talk is on some obscure, albeit important, free software project that will go over the heads of most students, this might not be the best platform to deliver your talk. There are always exceptions and we leave that to your judgement.

However, we welcome and celebrate every single proposal we receive. Do treat the above as guidelines rather than rules. Looking forward to your suggestions and seeing you folks at FOSSMeet’19!

Audience

Your audience (mostly) comprises of smart, above average, GNU/Linux aware students.

Important dates

Call for proposals opens: Dec 4, 2018
Proposal submission deadline: Jan 18, 2019
Proposal acceptance: Jan 24, 2019
Presentation upload: Feb 3, 2019

Contact Us:

For more information about speaking and proposals, contact speakers@fossmeet.in.

Hosted by

FOSSMeet is an annual event on Free and Open Source Software, conducted at National Institute of Technology, Calicut. The funnel is a space for proposals and voting on events. more

Abhijit A.M. (abhijit13)

@abhijitam1303

Why is Free Software losing against Open Source?

Submitted Dec 27, 2018

A critical review of the Free Software philosophy by someone who is an ardent supporter of Free Knowledge. The recent upsurge in the use of permissive licenses, adoption of Open Source model by most corporate world, dominance of corporates in FOSS world clearly indicates that the grassroot movement ideal of the Free Software movement has not progressed. The programmers might have got some freedom, but the software and IT industry remains largely dominated by corporate control. Most of the FOSS development today is driven by the corporate world. The idealist nature of the Free Software philosophy, which misses the real worldly contradictions of the software world, does not provide a realistic framework of livelihood for people. The talk argues that both Free Software and Open Source movements are capitalism, and Open Source wins because it is better at capitalism.

Outline

What is FS/OS and the debate, Growth in use of permissive licenses, corporate dominance in FOSS, indications that FS loses against OS, Nature of knowledge vs other commodities, The limits of FS philosophy, Why FS joins hands with OS, Why OS wins, What should FS community do to sustain and grow

Requirements

Just the grey cells.

Speaker bio

Abhijit is an activist and a Free Software enthusiast. He has been promoting Free Software and organizing FOSS events for almost a decade now. He is the main developer for the Free Software Taasika timetable project on gitlab. He engages with the Moodle, Debian and Wordpress communities as well.

Comments

{{ gettext('Login to leave a comment') }}

{{ gettext('Post a comment…') }}
{{ gettext('New comment') }}
{{ formTitle }}

{{ errorMsg }}

{{ gettext('No comments posted yet') }}

Hosted by

FOSSMeet is an annual event on Free and Open Source Software, conducted at National Institute of Technology, Calicut. The funnel is a space for proposals and voting on events. more