---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
shreekant bohra <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 9:39 PM
Subject: [lugj] Story of linux users group bikaner
To:
[email protected],
lugj <
[email protected]>
Hi FOSS Lovers,
Let me start by introducing myself, I am Shree Kant Bohra, final year
IT student at Engineering College Bikaner. The purpose of this email is
to share our experience with establishing a Linux Users Group here in
Bikaner and moving it forward.
So the story goes like this, initially it was three of us, me, Anirudh
and Manu Dixit. We were fascinated by cool world of Open Source in
early year of engineering. I never used linux personally before I heard
about it and decided to give it a try on my compaq laptop, I picked up
fedora 7( which was latest at that time) , tried installing it, after
trying for almost 4 days, ~100 times. I found that this was some bug
with fedora 7 and I can't install it without working out. So first step
failed. Still we loved open source. In our college no one gave damn
shit to linux , there were no linux labs. and no one used them for any
task other than chattring.
After lots of hustle, we managed to get our college labs opened during
nights to work in as we had no internet connection at hostel(we didnt
have campus hostel either) so we used to freak out in nights at college
labs. Keep searching, doing all random stuff, participating in
competitions, gradually people started noticing us, many students
turned up for labs, the movement had started. But we were not aware of
it, we too were struggling finding our way. But it was a good thing.
Then comes the second year, the most of the time we were busy doing
random works, participating in techfests. And I must say FOSS kriti
played a major role in our revolution , we attended FOSS kriti and it
changed everything. I kinda was fascianted with geeks out there and
cool things they displayed, listening to Arun was amazing. I got back
from IIT Kanpur, full of energy. Such events play a key role in turning
students to FOSS, even if 5 students turn to foss from one event, I
think thats huge. But we always forget that how we ourself started, its
our duty to give back. So I am a big supporter of FOSS events and
talks. That year we applied to GSoC , didnt get selected. But learnt
lessons of life time. Summer of Code is the best way to learn the FOSS
philosophy, whether you get selected or not, you are always a winner.
Then came third year of engineering. The movement roared, more people
joined us, the scenario changed completely People started talking about
FOSS and Linux. More learning, more win. We didnt realize that many
students around were inspired by us. While earlier no one used to go to
attend techfests, 100s, literally, students attended techfests outside
college. And revolution started. Presently its getting into culture
here to attend techfests. And I think thats the most important thing,
to get things into culture. Once you do that, you win it. The main
reason for the success of institutions like IIT and IIM is that they
have good things in their culture and environment. Three of us applied
of gsoc, me , anirudh and abhinav, all of us got selected and hence the
final kick to the FOSS movement, as big money and name always attracts
junta. Linux is all there in labs now, we have Linux labs here now.
Finally, last year, we decided to have a FOSS event parallel to college
techfest. We got the idea, but never happened to work upon it
seriously.15 days before the fest we decided we want to do it. and
guess what ? we saw a large team waiting to contribute to the event, we
did exhaustive planning, we used google docs for shared planning, had
meetups and were surprised to see so many students interested in FOSS.
We made different teams,kudos to our design team, we created hack labs,
with all ambience of a hackers den(:P), lightings,posters,banners. And
yeah, mid night hackfests. No one could ever imagine that we can do
that. As we never have events in our college after 5pm, being in outer
area from city, it was a challenge, we fought to the odds, what a FOSS
event without hackest! And to our more surprise, huge junta turned up
for mid night hackfests, and we had to limit them. Imagine a scenario,
while 2 years back we were three of us sitting in labs in midnight, now
it was ~100 people! and all with a cause. I could get emotional :P heh.
We ignited the spark and its now jungle fire. Rome was not built in a
day and I know neither we can do that now.
After effect of the event, we established Linux Users group bikaner!
and got resources for its website, made up agenda, we had lots of
install fest in hostels, I can say ~60% of college now know what Linux
is and have heard about FOSS. I cant expect everyone to go and code or
to use Linux as their preferred distro, but now they have the choice.
No one told us about Linux and FOSS when we were them but we had a
dream that we want to change this, we did it.
Present activity- I will say our lug is naive lug, but right now there
are almost ~40 active linux users who use linux as their first OS. And
many other uses Linux more often. More importantly people have choice
now, the freedom to choose, our lug provides active support to anyone
interested in FOSS and linux. We do meetups, talk about latest stuff,
encourage students to get involved in some project. Personally what I
would like to see is an active community of developers coming out from
LUGB, and it will take some time. may be 1 more year. The thing that
shows that our lug is active is number of people pinging me all the
time with some cool problems with linux( n00bs they are, I love them
all ) People are new to mailing lists, irc and it will take some time
to pick the idea.
I believe that events and fests are very important part of any foss
movement or lug, we are planning more of them.I am happy that the
second generation is picking up and standing tall. Our lug is in safe
hands. The continuation of culture is in place and we have put FOSS in
culture here.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share it with all, I am happy
to share our story. May it inspire others! Ameen
Cheers
--
Shree Kant Bohra
Let the Source be open
www.geekybuddha.org
GPG Key Fingerprint - D2E1 A688 FC61 C3F5 DFE5 F972 4E7F 1243 6E23 5F22
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