[PLUG] Report/Minutes of PLUG meet held on 9/06/08

[shirish]

Hi all,
     First of all I hope everybody is enjoying the rains. After a long
long time I felt like going to the PLUG meeting and there were quite a
few things on the agenda. This is from personal perspective if
somebody feels otherwise feel free to add or modify things as feel
fit.

1. The first session was taken by Oasis Technologies. Its a firm based
in Pune, they work on embedded platform and distributed CD's of the
software. They proposed a workshop for PLUG (free of cost) if some
people want to hack or see how people develop for embedded platform.
There was some discussions on why not use the PC as the target
platform as well as views on using emulators or not.

2. Second up on the agenda were opening in KPITCummins
www.kpitcummins.com . Apparently these guys have been working on a
combination of GNU/Linux and Java and have a product which they have
selling and supporting to Fortune 500 companies. They have multiple
open positions for Support Engineers and Lead having between 1.5 -3.5
years in GNU/Linux administration, shell scripting and stuff and
having B.Sc. or B.Tech as background, B.Coms and such would not be
entertained . One can find the details if interested on the site
given.

3. The third thing on the agenda was about a science institution based
in Talegaon . They are doing a project and have produced both Hardware
and Software for those purposes. Now they were confused about which
license to put the hardware, the software as well as the
documentation. Quite a few of the licenses were debated about, on the
hardware front it was suggested to use the OHL (Open Hardware License)
which is very explicit as far as giving specifications if distributing
the product , while dunno the part if somebody modifies something then
like the GPL he has to or not, (this needs investigation) . The other
part is software which again was debated between using the GPL or BSD
license with each having its pros and cons.

With GPL an argument was made that commercial organizations may not
like it as the organizations would have to contribute back any
modifications they make to the software while in BSD there is no such
compulsion.

It would be interesting which license/way the institution goes . Of
course they are looking for some kind souls if they would take care of
designing and hosting the site if possible.

4. The last item on the agenda is PLUG's attempt to highlight FOSS
contributors from Pune.  There were questions as to what is to be
called as contribution and an attempt was made to better define
contribution. Should people who had lived in Pune and worked on some
FOSS project and since then have moved elsewhere should have space on
the list or not. Opinions were sought on the same where people had no
strong feelings on the same. What roused the community was when
educational institutions should be in the list because they are
teaching FOSS technologies. There was a healthy debate on the same.
Some felt the institutions are teaching FOSS tools as they are the
flavor of he day and not because they either understand or want to
impart the FOSS impart, the philosophy or the community way or working
together so they should be kept out of the list altogether.  There
were other views that we need to engage with the institutions and
attempts should be made by the community on the same so would be nice
to have them on the list.  A consensus was that there should be a
simple line saying that all colleges are believed to be FOSS
contributors. If they want their name specifically on the list then
they need to give a link/URL and details of project or projects where
the college has been investing its energies.

It does make sense to have such a list so people having requisite
skills could find firms who need these skills and vice-versa. Good for
networking as well as knowing what people are passionate about.

5. Query time :- To round off the last 30 odd minutes were spent in
putting up and solving queries of various people. While somebody had
an issue with getting Ubuntu installed on a laptop, somebody wanted to
know how he can have a community happening in his college.

All and all it was a fruitful session.

Side Note :- It was pleasant to see that Alolita Sharma, an OSI board
member had come to PLUG meet. Apart from her official tag, she does
have her own opinions on things and it was enriching as well as
fascinating to see the various opinions being formed.

So I bid adieu till another PLUG meet/event.
-- 
 Regards,
 Shirish Agarwal
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