Wednesday Mar 26, 2008
Two great talks wrapped up the mela today:
- "Digital Colonization and Open Source Technologies" by Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya
- "Why free and open source software?" by Prof. Andrew Lynn
Both the talks offered a whole new perspective to think about free and open source software. The talks focused on using open source software to reach out to more people. Dr. Jaijit's talk covered patents and intellectual property with lot of interesting anecdotes. Prof. Andrew talked about why open source is just great. These presentations generated a lot of audience questions too.
This was followed by Open Source TV and "lucky-dip". Two lucky winners walked away with iPod Shuffle. Enjoy the closing moments of open source mela right here:
Tuesday Mar 25, 2008
If you have been wondering who got so creative with the open source mela posters and e-mails, meet the creative engineers of IEC - Pallavi Madhusudhan & Manu Samuel. It's not an easy task to design these posters or come up with e-mails soliciting participation. These posters have to convey the essence of open source, and at the same time must be catchy too. They had to fit this task in between their regular work and deliver them at short notice. Thank you so much, Pallavi and Manu!
Take a look at one of the posters they designed. This poster invites contributions for the mad-ads contest.
Tuesday Mar 25, 2008
The second half of Day 1 is currently underway. Usually, enthusiasm dies down post-lunch. But just the opposite seems to be happening in IEC. Highlights from the second half of the day:
- Gamers queueing up to play Quake III Arena
- Big crowd to learn more about Sun SPOT
- Sessions filled up with just standing space for late-comers
- High level of participation in contests and quizzes
It's a packed schedule on both the days for IEC engineers.
Tuesday Mar 25, 2008
The fun part of the open source mela is gaming. See this video of IEC engineers enjoying the multi-player Quake III Arena.
Tuesday Mar 25, 2008
Bhavna Singh is providing in-house process expertise for open source.
When a product is planning to go open source, there are a lot of things to take care of. License restrictions and infringements are just two of them. How would you like if somone provides the required help to walk you through the whole process? Bhavna Singh provides this much needed expertise for IEC product teams. Hear Bhavna talk about open source review process.
Open source is the ideal development and business model for today's massively connected Participation Age economy. Why? Because it offers freedom to every user and developer by encouraging genuinely collaborative innovation. Open source software can lower customer barriers to: access, switching costs, and greater value achieved in an environment that allows for increased participation and competition. Companies gain compensation for their innovations by building on the contributions of others. Click here for more information.
Monday Mar 24, 2008
Seen in the IEC lobby:
A poster inviting Sun engineers to attend open source mela!
Open source projects are primarily community driven, although companies may make commercial products from these projects. Open source projects encourage everyone in the community to contribute their knowledge and expertise and, in turn, everyone in the community benefits. For example, when the community contributes enhancement requests or submits bug reports, fixes or enhancements are implemented to improve the tools, and everyone benefits. Example: Because NetBeans is open source, you can influence what happens to the IDE and the direction for NetBeans' future growth. Click here for more information.
Monday Mar 24, 2008
Zoram Thanga has been with Sun for seven years, and is currently an engineer in the Solaris Cluster Development Group. Zoram has a master's degree in Physics from IIT Kanpur and a master's degree in CS from IIT Kharagpur. He likes to play instrumental rock guitar in his spare time.
Hear Zoram talk about Open High Availability Cluster (OHAC), the open-source code base of Solaris Cluster. Solaris Cluster includes the core clustering framework, a suite of HA agents for various applications, an automated test framework, and a disaster recovery extension. Zoram will talk on:
- Introduction to OpenHA cluster
- How to get involved in OHAC?
- Online resources for more information
Monday Mar 24, 2008
A
logo/caption contest was organized as part of the open source mela.
Nivedita Kamat ran the contest on behalf of IEC. A good number of
entries were received, but it was extremely difficult to finalize the
best entry. There were a lot of responses a day before the contest close date. The name of the winner along with the list of captions will
be published soon. Watch this space for updates.
The contest announcement:
It's the perfect time for you to get those gray cells working! The IEC Open Source Mela 2008 is looking for it's very own Brand Guru!!! We bring to you the Caption and Logo competition! All you need to do is envisage a logo OR design a caption for the IEC Open Source Mela 2008. What we expect is not the run of the mill ideas but beyond the obvious and the known. So send in your ideas for the Caption and Logo competition and the best ones will be recognized and rewarded.
Monday Mar 24, 2008
The open source mela is not just about talks, presentations, and demos. It's about fun and games too. Imagine playing the multi-player Quake 3 game with four other colleagues from your OpenSolaris desktop. Isn't it fun? Sun engineer Gopalakrishnan Sankaran has been working hard to set up this game on OpenSolaris for the IEC open source mela.
What is Quake 3 all about? As per wikipedia: "As with most multiplayer first-person shooters, the aim of Q3A is to move throughout the arena fragging (killing) enemy players and scoring points based on the objective of the game mode. When a player's health points reach zero, the avatar of that player is fragged; soon after the player can then respawn and continue playing with health points restored, but without any weapons or power-ups previously gathered. The game ends when a player or team reaches a specified score, or when the time limit has been reached." Click here for more information about Quake 3 and how to play the game.
Thursday Mar 20, 2008
Meet Tirthankar Das, the man behind IEC Open Source Mela. He sports an extra dash of color on the eve of Holi. Of course, he looks cool but organizing an event of this magnitude calls for a lot of talent and patience. The main objective of the mela is to generate awareness, participation, and contribution from the IEC community on open source technologies. The whole event is coordinated by the open source initiative team comprising: Suvendu Ray, Joe George, Kesari Mandyam, Swathi Devulapalli, Srinivasan Rengarajan, Veena Damodaran, Bhuvaneswari Panchapakesan, and KNR.
Thursday Mar 20, 2008
Meet the IEC HR team.
Did you think only software groups are gearing up for the open source mela? Well, HR is getting ready for the mela too. But why? In fact, HR is setting up stalls to talk to IEC engineers about hiring, internal job transfers, job statisfaction and so many other things that are closely related to working at Sun. It is an effort from HR to reach out to the ever busy techies. Only an event that is as powerful as the open source mela can bring the IEC geeks from their desks to the mela venue. So, HR is cashing in on the opportunity to reach out to the employees.
Thursday Mar 20, 2008
An interesting aspect to coding that most of us don't think of. Can there be a legal aspect for coding? Certainly yes, says SaiSatish Vedam. Here is more on the topic, in his own words:
It
is now imperative for us software engineers to understand that
the lines between the tech code we write and the "legal code"
(Intellectual Property) is blurred. Architectures created by the code
we write embeds certain fundamental principles and values.
Increasingly intrusive changes in the "legal code" and vice-versa
are undermining these fundamental principles and changing the
basic characteristic of architectures. The talk aims to provide
this understanding using some real life stories. The talk attempts to
make a case for open source software being a key factor in a
present world where "code is law".
Thursday Mar 20, 2008
The IEC open source committee is organizing a series of contests for Sun's enthusiastic geeks. The banners and e-mails inviting contest entries are already out. IEC engineers are busy trying their hands at these contests. The passion for open source in IEC needs to be seen to be believed.
The following contests are being organized:
- Mad-ads
- Open source poster/logo/caption
- Acrostic puzzle
- Open source gaming
At the end of the day, contests are an opportunity to learn and get better at things. To quote Geoffrey Gaberino:
"The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.”
Wednesday Mar 19, 2008
Bangalore, the land of hundreds of eateries (or sagar hotels) is now proud to have Open Sagar, a place where open source is served on a platter. The menu card is open and today's technologies are served hot (and possibly free). Open Sagar is hosting a two day open source mela next week.
OpenSPARC OpenPortal OpenJDK OpenSolaris
OpenESB OHAC NetBeans MySQL Indiana
OSDB JavaFX Virtualization OpenOffice DTrace xVM
We have adequate direction signs planted. So you can't lose your way.
Tuesday Mar 18, 2008
What is Open Source? Why Open Source? Sun and Open Source?
Everything you always wanted to know about open source...
All your questions are answered at the IEC Open Source Mela 2008!
Learn at the Tech Talks, Lightning Talks, and Demos
Compete at the Open Source Gaming Arcade
Chill out at the Fun Events
Head to the Tryout Booths
There's something for everyone!
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Awesome!!!!!!