Minutes of the Meeting
Date: February 4, 2024
Attendees:: Ansh, @wisharya , @glitchyi , @Vishal_Kashyap , @Viswanatha_Kartha_V , @Soham_Kulkarni , @Het_Joshi , @Tushar_Bansal
Agenda:
- Updates on recent events and initiatives.
- Plans for upcoming activities
- Open discussion on FOSS evangelism, program structure and other queries
Discussion Summary:
Vishal (FOSS Club IIIT Kalyani):
- 2 Weekly meetups conducted in January
- Theme is FOSS alternatives of the week (Penpot, Linux)
- Linux Installation Fest planned in February
- Next alternative of the week (linux) post to soft launch the Linux Fest
- Diversity at meetups is decent.
Advaith (FOSS Club MIT):
- January - Event on developer essentials
- The audience was diverse
- Pointed out that female attendees are more interactive and interested in the event
- Participants were later divided into groups on basis of domain they wanted to work with
- Helped them set up development environment on basis of domain (eg webdev)
- Also showed them how easy it is in Linux
- Talked about general benefits of open source
- Happy with the progress overall, the meetups are after 4:30PM and people are staying back after classes for the same.
- Collaborated with ThoughtWorks for the second event on react fundamentals
- Theory + Hands on
- Yet to document the events,will do so in some time.
- Cybersec event by the end of February.
Het:
- Conclusion of the event in collaboration with IITB Trust Lab.
- Paused the offline activities due to exams, online events are ongoing
- In person session being planned on 22nd.
- The team will be going for FOSSmeet '24
- Happy with the overall progress, the students are being enabled by the community to learn more about FOSS
- Plans to host competitions and monthly contribution sessions.
- Plans to create a USB that contains 6 Linux distros along with projects on Linux
Soham:
- Noted previous restrictions by college on events and efforts to establish the club
- Had to invest 30% of time just for bureaucracy and to get the club established
- Now focusing on contributions and technical initiatives
- Successfully organized an unofficial event on FOSS with positive engagement.
- Team will be contributing to open source projects while the bureaucratic processes continue.
- Linux installation fest is being planned
- Another event need to be conducted to officiate the club from college’s end
Tushar (IIT Bhilai):
- Discussed the ongoing FOSS overflow coding phase
- Conducted sessions on GSOC.
- Participants displayed their journey with proejcts
- Planning a CTF.
- Working on setting up socials and expanding outreach.
Vishwanatha (FOSS Club GEC Palakkad) :
- Had been busy with exams
- Mentioned planning visits to organizations and building team projects.
- Working on a project - a Telegram fork for college students.
- Planning meetups, running a CFP a week before the event
- Session on git/github
- Documentation is pending, will be done in a few weeks
- People are not well versed in coding and need to be mentored
- Planning a session on creating malayalam fonts taking inspiration from SMC.
Open Discussion:
- Het reminded attendees about the significance of creating own projects along with contributing to existing ones.
- Soham and Tushar are interested in the hosting a local edition for FOSS hack.
- I and Vishal shared updates on platform, FOSS Hack, the upcoming internship program, season of commits
- Expanding reach of student programs
- Discussions on changing the structure of FOSS clubs program in the future, and potentially introducing new student programs.
Next Steps:
- Continue organizing regular meetups and events.
- Focus on documentation efforts and outreach initiatives.
- Encourage members to contribute to and create their own FOSS projects.
- Follow up on planned events.
- Document progress and feedback from ongoing activities.
- Explore opportunities for expanding FOSS engagement in different regions and colleges.