Do note that we will still upload the talk recordings (individually) to YouTube in a few weeks after editing is completed.
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The whole streaming thing just reminded me, there’s a SaaS company called “Venueless”, which offers this online conferencing software which I think fits perfectly for IndiaFOSS. I’m seeing it in action for OpenStreetMap Foundation’s State of the Map 2025, and I believe would also work for us.
The only problem is it’s “tiny bit” complicated, “eventually open-source” license. Gotta check how compatible is it really before experimenting with a version hosted by the foundation.
Update: My interpretation is that it’s completely fine if we use it for events exclusively by the foundation, which includes City Conferences and FOSS Clubs. Also, TIL it’s the same license used by the folks at sentry.io.
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I have a very small piece of feedback. This is a thing I noticed in the last year’s IndiaFOSS too - the lack of pictures in the official album. For the last year, it was for workshops. There were no pictures in the album for workshops, even though they were at the same venue, just on the first floor. This year, there are very few pictures for the community booths. Personally, I feel booths are one of the great strengths of IndiaFOSS, and as such they were not covered adequately. The lack of pictures is especially tricky when you have to report the event in a blog/article format.
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Here’s the raw dump which has a lot more pictures. We’ll update it on the website soon.
We have a limited photography budget which only allows us to get 2-4 photographers for the event. And because they need to cover every single talk, the photographers get limited time to visit the first floor. I agree with you that we need to have more pictures of booths and we’ll try to do better next year. We’re also trying to get more volunteers who can help with photography which will be sustainable for the event long term.
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@0ms I appreciate your feedback. Your points deserve a detailed response.
Firstly, Devrooms have been an experimental addition in this IndiaFOSS. The original plan was to have 4 devrooms (see the call for devrooms for complete context), but looking at the enthusiastic response, we extended it to 6.
The original plan was to have devrooms run in the same room (and the workshop room.) Planned seating capacity was the same. Later, we decided to move BoFs out of Audi 3, and then allocated the Audi 3 to 4 devrooms in the order in which they finalized their programme. So, 2 devrooms ended up in the smaller room. The capacity of that room was perhaps a 1/3rd of Devroom 1/Audi 3 BTW, not 1/10th !
We didn’t anticipate the lighting issue actually. We did miss providing a cooler in that room - that was a clear deviation from our plans - would that have made things a bit better ? I am not sure if there was noise coming into that room from the hall area - it was packed when the compiler devroom was running, and no place to go in !
It’s a single reviewer comment - maybe not even from the devroom (probably from someone who accidentally reviewed this talk). Best not to take it very seriously.
Compare that with the main track which typically has some 3-5 reviewer comments on a lot of talks - most selected and many rejected ones too ! We gave a lot of leeway to the devrooms. Devrooms had complete editorial control, and this resulted in wide variance in the comments and selection aspect. I think most accepted talks in the compiler devroom have no comments, same goes for rejected talks. Another devroom actually did voting (after an initial shortlist) to select the final talks. The time slot of the talks was also decided by devrooms, some tweaked it a bit - some spoke to submitters asking them to trim it significantly etc. I’m not saying that one approach was better, or something was worse - but it was fascinating to see the varying approaches taken by devrooms.
I’d say the location of the room was alright. It was right next to a buzzing area - community booths.
3/4 BoFs ran in the buffet hall area (I moderated one). I noticed the attendees didn’t goto that side of the venue much. The all day coffee vendor was farther away and found sales way less than desirable too. Similar thing happened with hardware booths. We thought we had given them a great place on the ground floor, but they had to move a bit in front of Audi 2 to be closer to the feet.
In hindsight, I’m glad we did the devrooms. I thank everyone who participated in this experiment - the devroom organizers and speakers as well. We didn’t get everything right - but we’ve learnt a lot dealing with 6 diverse community groups. I suspect devrooms are here to stay as they help us adequately represent the diversity in FOSS. We’ll roll in our learnings and improve upon things for IndiaFOSS 2026.
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The full Devroom situation was not news to us, in fact we already foresaw this happening long before we decided to introduce devrooms.
While devroom 1 had a larger seating capacity because we were able to use audi 3 fortunately, devroom proposers should understand that a “devroom” talk will most likely happen in a “room” and not an auditorium. Devrooms are meant for a niche topic which fewer people will be interested in by nature of the topic. If you feel your presentation is broad enough for a larger audience, consider applying for the main track (which has a very different criteria of selection - for eg. we select very few talks that are about newer projects). Note that devrooms also had the option to recommend certain talks to the main track, and a few devrooms did move some of their talks because they felt they can appeal to a larger audience.
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Overall, it was a great experience. There’s a long list of things which I loved and thanks for managing it all beautifully.
But one thing which I noticed which should be fixed is:
There was a booth with the big digital screen saying: “Bring 10 stars for each repo & win the goodie of your choice. HURRY UP! LIMITED STOCKS”
There was a huge crowd around that booth, mostly students, who were busy in increasing star counts without understanding whether this is right or wrong.
I have no intentions to name-and-shame the booth publicly, but it’d be great to let them know to avoid such things in future. I’m happy to mail the details to the organising body if they’re interested.
Thanks!
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Hey Prakhar, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Please email us at indiafoss@fossunited.org
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Logistics at IndiaFOSS
The Logistics this year at IndiaFOSS went much smoothly. Though the venue was handed over very late on the day before the conference, the on-ground setup and coordination were handled very efficiently by the logistics team and volunteers. It would still be a good idea to book the venue one extra day in advance next year to give enough time for setup, testing, and fixing any last-minute issues.
Venue & Infra
The overall setup worked well, and the volunteer team managed booths, registration desks, and movement across spaces in a good way. However, one recurring challenge was the internet setup. While the internet connectivity was better compared to last year, there’s still room for improvement. The leased line we took did not make a big difference, considering the cost involved. All the Booths on the ground and first floors functioned using the NIMHANS Wi-Fi - Thanks to Arjun & Immanuel for helping us with that. The leased line was only used for livestream, speakers and volunteers.
Audi 3 remained unreachable for both NIMHANS Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi from the leased line, so improving coverage there should be a focus next time. It would also help to discuss more closely with the NIMHANS Wi-Fi team about the login portal issues faced by users on some Linux distros and macOS devices, so that they can be fixed ahead of time.
The TVs at the Booth did not have remotes, which made it hard for the booth presenters to change the inputs or even turn on the TV.
Food & Vendor Management
The Vendors coordinated well, and the crowd distribution was handled without major delays or confusion. However, the waste management aspect needs improvement. Some vendors threw dry waste into wet bins, and one of the paid coffee stalls was initially using disposable plates, which were corrected immediately after being noticed.
To improve next year, we need clearer vendor communication before the event regarding sustainability expectations and waste handling procedures. Having an active volunteer group to monitor waste stations can also help keep things under control.
Photography, Video, and Livestream
The Livestream this year was fully managed by volunteers, which was an impressive effort. Despite a few small hiccups early on, the team ensured everything ran smoothly. It would be better to connect with AV and video vendors ahead of time to align expectations and technical requirements. Considering the scale of IndiaFOSS, hiring a video production team that has prior experience in tech events might also be worth exploring, as it would ensure more consistent quality. Photography can continue being fully volunteer-run, like in DevRooms, which worked well this time.
Low Waste Report
A detailed report is attached below.
HDI Environmental impact report Foss United.pdf (2.2 MB)
Terrum-Low-Waste Management Report – IndiaFOSS 2025.pdf (1.0 MB)
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Thanks Shree. It all makes sense now.
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I know I’m a little late in sharing my feedback, but better late than never. I couldn’t give this feedback at the end of India FOSS during the feedback session because I was preoccupied with things at the Absurd booth. So, sharing it here instead.
- Booth layout and visibility
From next year onward, it would be great if a map of booth locations could be released before the conference. That way, booth owners and attendees alike can plan ahead and avoid spending time on the day figuring out where everything is.
Additionally, it might help to allow booth owners to request alternate placements (within reason) before the final layout is locked in. This could help avoid some of the placement issues that came up this year.
- Booth placement concerns
This year, the hardware booths (including ours) were placed in a section of the venue that saw very little foot traffic. It took me nearly 30 minutes to even find the area, and I’ve been attending India FOSS since its early days at this location. I understand the intention may have been to place the hardware booths closer to the dev rooms, but that reasoning felt weak. Not everyone attends those sessions, and ideally, booths should be positioned where maximum footfall occurs. The initial placement unintentionally worked against that goal. Fortunately, we were able to move the booths and solve this problem.
However, because the move of the hardware booths was unplanned, we had no choice but to relocate to a part of the venue that still wasn’t ideal and didn’t have enough space for all of us. We somehow made it work, but all the booth owners hardly had any space to even sit. This entire situation could have been avoided if we had been permitted to move to a more suitable area from the start.
- Coordination and point of contact
It would also be helpful to have a dedicated volunteer or coordinator specifically for booth management. This year, it seemed that responsibility was spread across multiple people, which made it hard for booth owners to know who to approach for changes or issues. When several hardware booths wanted to relocate to the main hall, it took quite a while to figure out who to contact.
Eventually, I was able to reach Vishal, and to his credit, he did permit some movement. However, the process could have been smoother if there had been a single designated contact for stall-related matters.
Overall, while the conference itself was great as always, the booth management experience, especially for hardware exhibitors wasn’t ideal this year. I genuinely hope this feedback helps make things smoother and fairer for all booth owners in future editions.
Thanks again to the entire organising team for their hard work, looking forward to seeing how India FOSS continues to evolve next year!
Not exactly. We expected the hardware booths to get more traction and attract a lot of people, so we decided to place them on ground floor instead of first floor like with other booths in the expo. The idea was since these booths will be of interest to a lot of people, placing them in a slightly excluded area will help us divert crowd to that section of the venue easily. Of course, we assumed that it will take some time for people to find that area during the first half, but considering the scale of IndiaFOSS, this is not really a concern. These things naturally flow during the course of the event. Unfortunately things didn’t go as planned 
I personally think we should have waited a bit more before making the decision to relocate, and that relocating the booths to the new area created a potentially troublesome choke point.
Next year, we will try to keep all expo booths on the first floor and utilise ground floor area for other activities.
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