Geek Meetup on 11Jun

Yesterday i happen to attend the Geek Meetup in the JNU campus jointly organized by JNU's LUG, Python NCR and the IITD-LUG thanks to some great planning, efforts and teamwork of the core members.
The general idea was like the other meet-ups, to start off the discussion with the Agenda as agreed upon on the IITD-LUG wiki.

The meet started with the introduction of students who have been selected this year for the GSoC. There were 6 students from all over the India who are working on their projects this year. It was a great experience to have a direct interaction with the students who have made it all the way to international level.

Then there was a discussion with all the members, to promote FOSS and organize regular Meet-up in North India, to make the community more active and powerful.

Then, there was a open talk session, where the coders working on HTML5, Python and other open technologies presented their work.
There was a demo of a HTML5 based game using java-script. Then Narendra Sir, presented a part of his Project EDUVID slidecasting on which i have been working under his supervision.

The meeting concluded with a general discussion of all the members on what FOSS is all about. What Freedom is all about, when it comes to Computers. The freedom in the world of computers must be the same as we enjoy in the real world with real objects(just like a Table or a Fan). The Freedom has been defined into four levels by Richard Stallman.
1) The freedom to use (the software code).
2) To know the operating mechanism for the research program, and modify it according to the needs of the user without anyone's approval.
3) Redistribute copies so that others can share free software and use it.
4) To improve the process, in order to benefit others and distributed it free.

Since, The meeting was attended by many users of closed source technologies who up-till now, loved to use the Cracked versions of their favorite softwares and didn't mind being called as Pirates, but were interested in exploring this fascinating world of Free and Open-Source. This was the time, when they shared their open views and their fears of switching to something like Ubuntu/Fedora or other Distros. But it turned out that their views about Linux were more of ignorance of facts. The discussion unfolded a series of Myths and Misconceptions about the Linux distros, main being the support and free and very easy availability of softwares for different purposes. Narendra Sir also showed a video where young minds (8-14 year old) gave their feedbacks,learnings and views after 10 hours of training session.
Discussion went into more technical terms that involved the ICANN and the influence of US and other Giants. Privacy issues with Google and Facebook were an eye-opener for the most of us.(more on that later)

Overall, it was yet another awesome experience at Geek-Meetup. Learning while having Fun...