As some of you might have observed (or even if you didn't observe), my site now isn't hosted with Webfaction anymore. I have moved to Gandi's VPS service. The VPS service by Gandi is quite cheap and reliable. I have been using it ever since the beta stage and recommend it.
For people wondering the motive behind my move, here are a few advantages and disadvantages of a VPS over shared hosting.
I was with webfaction for more than 1.5 years and enjoyed every single day with them. They have the easiest and most intuitive control panel that helps you host your apps within a few minutes of signing up and their customer service rocks!!! The saddest part is the memory limit they impose on the long-running processes (servers and other software if you have). And the pain taken to install other custom software (if they don't have it) is not worth it.
Bye bye webfaction, I will miss you. But the day you open a VPS (I hope you do)... I will be back!!!
A lot has been said and written about Foss.in:2008. I don't have much to add because these folks have already written quite a few convincing things. I really appreciate their views though some of them are very radical and personal.
I would support any initiative that tries to inspire people to start contributing to free software but would discourage if there is discrimination based on the type of contribution.
All the different contributors to free software are indispensable. They help a project survive and flourish.
Only when all the four categories work together with developers do you get that beautiful free software.
I have no problems with Foss.in being a specialized conference, but the justifications given are wrong.
Probably, the event requires a relook. Since the organizers project it as a pan-India conference, there needs to be a committee that should compromise people from every aspect of the Free Software movement and from every part of the country. Let there be democracy and more transparency in the event management and have the venue changed every year, so that more people get a chance to be part of it.
My concluding words:
In it's current avatar, I am not going to attend FOSS.in.
Went to Chennai to attend my second FOSS conference. Though Fossconf 08 did not live up to my expectations, it was a perfect conference for first time speakers and absolute newbies who had no idea of what Foss was. I was really impressed by the project showcase. 10 engineering colleges from all over Tamil Nadu showcased their projects.
One thing that I could observe was that the ILUGC members worked perfectly hand in hand with NRCFOSS folks and did a beautiful job. I haven't seen such a wonderful community anywhere. I guess the ILUGHyd folks need to learn from them.
On the whole I would give the conference a 3/5 rating. The next year I am sure Fossconf will be better organized and the common man will still not be disappointed.
On thursday, my previous semester results were out. I logged on to the site and checked out my result. My result was anything but surprising. Then I thought to myself, "Why not give people the freedom to compare their marks with their peers'".
This idea excited me and I wrote a python script that used BeautifulSoup to soup everyone's marks and then create an HTML table that would use YUI for the ajaxy effect.
Thanks to Python's ultra simplicity and sheer power, my script was done in one and half hour after the results were out.
Check out the results at http://puthraya.webfactional.com/results.html and http://puthraya.webfactional.com/consolidated_results.html
I was quite excited to be attending my first free software conference. The excitement doubled when I heard a lot about Foss.in from previous attendees. Though the hype this time was low, I expected it to hold a lot for newbies like me.
The organizers left not just me but a lot of others disappointed. This time Foss.in adopted the theme "How to contribute to Foss projects". Sadly they did not realize that there are so few users of Foss software in India and it did not make sense to theme it. I would agree that contributors are very important but dedicating a whole conference for contributors at the cost of users is insane.
When awareness is created about free software and people start using it, a small percentage of them might contribute to the movement. If a user is hell-bent on contributing, he will go to any ends to satsify that craving.
By expecting newbies (most of whom have not used or sparingly used free software) to sit through such talks will only boomerang.
I am sure there will be detractors to my previous statement. I challenge them to show data that shows newbies contributing after attending such events.
Most talks were centered around l10n or i18n. Again I have to agree with the organizers that l10n and i18n are crucial for wider adoption of free software but having so many (very similar) talks can really be painful.
Well I guess I had enough of ranting on the cons of Foss.in. But there were a couple of pros (which still couldn't overshadow the cons).
Ignoring newbies is not a good sign. It gives a feeling of "casteism" when you cater only to a certain section of people.
My 2 cents: If this is the way Foss.in will be conducted in the future then the organizers should consider naming the conference "Farce.in".