Warm Greetings To The FOSS Community, The Meeting for the month of June (22/06/2008) was conducted successfully. The were "40" people who attended the meeting, which was the highest turnout in several years. There were people from all walks of life who attended the meeting.
The venue was turned into a vibrant zone, with presentations and discussions in full swing. Indeed it was really awesome to see such a wonderful gathering. And it also shows how the concept of Swathanthra Software has spread around. Some brief snapshots from the meeting. Date: 22-06-2008 Time: 2pm - 5.30pm Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building, Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam The meeting started at 2:15 pm, with the special programme, screening of the "The Big Buck Bunny" Open Movie. The concept of the Open movie was explained and the audience were enlightened of the fact that the movie was meant to promote the use of Free Software for Animation and Modeling. Indeed the short movie was definitely enjoyed by the audience. After the Peach project Movie, the First Open Movie called "Elephants Dream" was also screened. The audience were encouraged to try their hands at Blender and other Free Software tools. The speaker told the audience that the Production files and the movie was available at the meeting. Since the discussion room was incapable of accommodating all the attendees, they were split into two groups. One group began discussions about the agenda "Localization and Free Software" and the other group which mainly consisted of new users, who wanted to know more about Free Software, discussed on the concept of Free Software and how they can get started. The agenda discussion was very much interactive and the audience were convinced of the fact that Malayalam computing was very important and that they really needed to get into contributing to projects like Swathanthra Malayalam Computing. After the discussions the audience moved on to have tea and snacks. The technical presentation had a small delay in starting due to a few hiccups in configuration. But the attendees were patient enough. The two presentations on using Malayalam with Open Office and Latex were accepted well by the audience. Finally it was time for winding up for the day, and everyone assembled for the concluding session. Although there was supposed to be a small presentation on Firefox 3 it was canceled due to lack of time ( as well as the Q&A session ). But the speaker talked a few things about Firefox 3. Majority of the people from the audience were already using Firefox and hence needed no introduction to the powerful Browser. Everyone was requested to try their hands on Blender and to contribute to projects like SMC. They were also asked to contribute towards the activities of the group.The speaker thanked all attendees for coming. The session was wound up by 5:35 pm We thank all the attendees for coming and request all to put in their feedback for the meeting on the Mailing List or my email so we can improve future meetings. The following are some people who need to be given a vote of thanks for making the meeting a big success I B Manoj, ArunKumar, Sreenadh, Venkat, Kurian, Shibin, Raju, Sanjay, Binny, Ajith, Mahesh, Further details of the meeting and photos will be available on the website in a few days. And hope the next meeting is bigger and better :-) Attendees Rathin R Cyriac Thomas Vivek R Cijo George Aparna V Sathosh Subin V Sivadas M Jayadev Elwin K Charly Manu S Madhav Mohamed Shakir P EM George Ajeya Anand I B Manoj Kumar Manhal A Basheer Ajith C Kurien C Anoop A Sanjeev C Vijayan Mahesh Aravind Sanjai KC Raju Ramdas Rajagopal V Hari Raj K Brahu PS Christopher Vijayakumar PN KP Narayanan Deepu Joseph Abin Joseph Alexis Hariraj MR Arun Kumar K.C. Shibin K Reeny Kurian Mathew Thayyil Fr.Thomas V.V. Sreenadh Binny V.A. Jay Jacob G.Venkata Subramahmanian Sameer M Thahir Thank You Regards Sameer Mohamed Thahir Co-ordinator (Indian Linux Users Group - Cochin / Kochi Chapter(ILUG-Cochin)) sameer.thahir at gmail.com Website : www.ilug-cochin.org IRC : #ilugkochi on irc.freenode.net ML : mailinglist at ilug-cochin.org
