IndiaFOSS 2026 - Feedback

Shree_Kumar · 1 October 2026 00:39

Sadly, there is nothing objective about what you are saying. Objective means based on facts. And what are facts ? Data right ?? I’ve stuck to data and will continue to stick to that when it’s available.

I’ve had one speaker reaching out saying this:

First of all, I would like to thank everyone responsible for hosting such a fabulous event and allowing me to talk independently on stage for the first time ever. It was a great experience!

So here is a suggestion: All the data is available. Analyze it and then make your point. You can download CSVs for talk proposals both for IndiaFOSS and Communi-Con. CSVs won’t include names of proposers, but I’m guessing you can easily get those (an AI example) Please find who applied for communi-con, had they applied also for IndiaFOSS, did they give a talk at both places are not, etc, are they a “popular” speaker, sponsor, etc etc. With data, see which of your fears have actually come true, and which of them are firmly your imagination. And don’t keep that data with yourself, enlighten us too.

Reminds me - I haven’t released the voting data yet. Will do so when I get time. Perhaps tomorrow.

-–

No, the objective of communi-con was not to give a “chance” to people. It is to select interesting topics based on audience interest.

How much time did you spend voting btw ? I’ve been wondering about fair voting - and to be close to fair we could just give 2-5 minutes to the audience to vote on the spot. Maybe even hide speaker names. Least bias, and no external influence.

Did you hear my Communi-Con talk ? GB reflections talk ? Please take 15 minutes and listen to both.

The only way at this point for FOSS United to be more “inclusive” is by getting out of NIMHANS and going to a university. Reasons are venue capacity, and cost of logistics. The facts are simple: FOSS.IN/2005 held 20 years ago had more attendance than IndiaFOSS in 2026 ! The economy has boomed, IT is everywhere, and FOSS is powering 90% of it, but the conference has remained a dwarf in absolute terms

The conference needs more devrooms, more workshops, more BoFs, more Communi-Cons! For that we need way more space - and more important space on demand. Peak demand is close to conference dates

This kind of thinking is the result of not scaling capacity to meet demand - we have hit venue capacity 2 times in a row. We are all playing a zero sum game without understanding that we are doing so. And that’s a problem nobody seems to “get”.

If IndiaFOSS goes to a university, we can scale 2-4x (5k-10k) easily over the next 2 years. The objective of that is to have all of the FOSS world (at-least from India) present physically and finding collaboration opportunities. Yes, that includes more “corpos” too This will give many more perspective, and more opportunities - including impromptu opportunities. Imagine how cool that would be… We can achieve all that for cheap btw - by taking food out of ticket cost, and moving to a university.

I understand your pain, and the only way to fix it is by having a bigger conference. We need more volunteers to get in more of the FOSS world. Here is exactly what we need:

volunteers to find communities that are not represented at IndiaFOSS. Figure out would prevent them from showing up and fix that. We are trying to get more systems tracks - more Linux kernel (0 talks in the general track!), more databases, more (see my slide on areas of FOSS)
volunteers to reach out to people who run smaller communities, meetups. See if they want to run devrooms
volunteers to reach out to “adjacent” communities whose primary identity is not FOSS. The art world, electronic world, mechanical world, civil world.
ask project booths and devrooms to run killer workshops! there’s hardly any real building happening at the conference.

Here are some numbers: 20-32 devrooms. 50 workshops (1 each comes from devroom, and more from others)

The energy a conference generates is immense - and we are throwing it all away at the moment. So, we should kickstart FOSSHack 2027 when IndiaFOSS 2027 *starts*. Then leave it running for a month.

Here is the FOSSHack 2027 pitch for everyone:

Don’t have the skills ? Learn them during the workshops.
Don’t know how to do everything ? Find collaborators at the conference. Build a great team and go on to make the next best thing.
Not getting great ideas? How about getting inspired by looking at everything that India has to offer! Improve any of them and we may get useful contributions.

This way we have more people (“creators”) at the conference, we build build better human networks, and achieve fantastic outcomes. @rahulporuri @Ashutosh_Pandey also tagging you here since you have a passion for this, and @Mohit_P_Tahiliani also for same reasons, as well as being the student champion

rahulporuri · 1 October 2026 03:09

@srihari_thyagarajan put together personal thoughts - IndiaFOSS 2026: a packed room for documentation, a lightning talk, and a busy SciPy India booth | Haleshot - and thoughts from the perspective of a devroom manager (docs and technical writing) - IndiaFOSS 2026: the docs devroom | Write the Docs India

the livestream took longer to get going than we planned, and that ate the slot we’d set aside for an unconference

^ I observed this when tagging the livestreams with timestamps - happened with both Day 1 morning devrooms IIRC.

rahulporuri · 1 October 2026 04:16

Open source has always been about more than code. It’s about people coming together to solve meaningful problems — and that spirit was everywhere at IndiaFOSS.

#indiafoss #opensource #foss #bahmni #openmrs #digitalhealth #techforgood #community | Vishal Karmalkar - from Vishal, ThoughtWorks, at the Bahmni booth

ansh · 1 October 2026 14:20

Created this thread to highlight volunteer experiences/feedback separately -

rahulporuri · 1 October 2026 16:19

We enjoyed meeting people from the law, tech, and policy fields who are working on creative projects. It was great to learn about organizations and their work that we might not have discovered outside this summit.

The energy from the FOSS United community is unmatched. There is nothing quite like being in a room full of people building the future of digital commons and open-source infrastructure.

A completely different perspective on technology

ansh · 2 October 2026 05:02

This was my fourth IndiaFOSS. It is where Bharat Digital took shape, it is where I started to understand the power of communities, and it is where I have started to feel familiar and slightly at home.

https://shitter.thepixora.com/NisarHogaya/status/2105877044454469663#m

Layogtima · 3 October 2026 07:26

Thanks for having us at the conference this year. We genuinely loved the energy in the Devroom - it was packed to capacity, and the quality of the audience looking for actual collaboration was the highest we’ve seen so far. It really validated that there is a massive appetite for the work we’re doing

That said, I need to be transparent about our experience on the ground. We put a huge amount of effort into our participation, but we faced significant operational hurdles that made it incredibly difficult to deliver an ideal experience. Because these same issues persist year over year, I have to be honest: my individual, personal likelihood of looking at IndiaFOSS as a sustainable, long-term venue for open source hardware is much lower now than it was previously.

I’ve summarized some of the pain points our team experienced below:

Booths were a failure: The placement was cramped and congested, creating a “suffocating” atmosphere that made it physically impossible for attendees to engage with us. We effectively lost potential sales and meaningful interactions because the space was simply unusable. We received multiple complaints of people skipping staying in the room, or coming back, because it felt like a hotbox with poor ventilation.

“Invisible” hardware showcase: On the second day, it was incredibly difficult for attendees to even find our booths. We had signage pointing to the location outside Hall 3 with no tables allocated or placed there for either of the days, and the ones we moved on the first day, were moved away on the second day. The fact that day-two signage pointed to booths that didn’t exist - made us feel like an afterthought.

Software-First bias is real: We often felt like the hardware side of the house wasn’t treated with the same priority or logistical support as the rest of the conference. It made us feel disconnected rather than like a core partner. Ironically, the first year was the best, when IndiaFOSS was not trying to help us in a specific way, and treated us as just another booth.

Safety and security: Hardware requires physical security for equipment and overnight storage - some of the participants lost supplies. This was never something that FOSS United promised, but might be something to account for if hardware or physical showcases are something that are being considered for subsequent conferences/events.

Feedback fatigue: To be blunt, many of our team members feel unmotivated to provide detailed feedback this year. We raised these exact concerns after the last conference, and seeing them unaddressed has dampened our enthusiasm to keep flagging them.

We care deeply about the community and what you’re building, but for our hardware efforts to work, we need a venue that treats us with equitable logistical support and clear, proactive communication.

I hope this feedback helps IndiaFOSS improve the experience for everyone next year, as we’d love to see the hardware movement thrive

lakshmi_pathi · 4 October 2026 00:31

Booth and setup was fine, we had support until the last minute to setup display. It was my bad not to book it in advance but everything went fine.
Communication was good too, we can directly reach-out to appropriate member and ask for help or details.
I met quite a few interesting people and received good feedback or suggestion for everything around this project in general.
Couple of improvements I can think: (not sure whether its already exists or not)
After entering the conference block, a clear printout or display about the existing booths and their location (like google-map with markers about booth names) or category-based location map.
I missed a talk while listening to another one, may be simple app to select talks and setup reminders (I saw google calendar style app on someone else mobile - but not-sure about it) about the session we want to attend and get alerts.

As someone who attended this event (or any in-person event) for the first time, overall I had very positive experience. thanks.

Badri_Sunderarajan · 5 October 2026 04:11

Posting feedback about running the XMPP (XSF/XMPP Everywhere) booth at IndiaFOSS 2026. This is my personal experience as I have not consulted with my co-booth-managers; hopefully they’ll comment separately

How was the booth setup and allocation (location, space, power/internet)? This was pretty good, nothing to complain about. It was great that all IndiaFOSS attendees got WiFi this time—at previous booths I’ve helped manage (Prav) we sometimes had to keep our own hotspots running for attendees who wanted to test out features but weren’t getting good connectivity themselves. There was a slight issue when our Raspberry Pi connected to the WiFi network because we realised that the network doesn’t support mDNS connections (to SSH in from another device), but I guess we should’ve thought of that beforehand we ended up using a mobile hotspot just for the SSH bit.
How was communication with us before and during the event? Communication was adequate, despite us being only available on email/phone and not Telegram, so thanks for that!
Did you meet the kind of attendees or contributors you were hoping to? Pretty much. The stall was so popular to start with that we had a whole bunch of people coming through even before we managed to set up the aforementioned Raspberry Pi demo!

Although the main theme of this booth was similar to the theme of other booths I’ve operated (they were all about XMPP), the focus here was on various different clients (all powered by XMPP) whereas the previous one had more focus on Prav specifically and the different aspects like cooperative model, governance, etc. and the crowd who ended up hanging out more at the stall turned out to be different too. So it’s interesting to see how different booths tend to attract different kinds of people, even from within the same space/community/conference!
What worked well, and what would you change? We were in a relatively central place this time. I am not sure if that contributed to more visitors or not, but it might make a difference. The theme-wise organised also worked out well because we could easily direct people to related booths. For example, if someone wanted to try an XMPP client not on the Play Store, we could direct them to the F-droid booth just next to us; similarly if they were curious about the mobile OS on which we were running one of the XMPP apps, the Debian booth was just a few booths away.

In terms of change, I think that as someone else mentioned it would help to have some kind of physical guide to where the booths are, whether a handout or a printout as is done for the devrooms/schedules.

Speaking with my visitor hat on, I think the “different booths on each day” worked out nicely because there was more to discover on the subsequent day. As a booth operator, it might have been nice too to have one free day to attend the rest of the conference. In fact, a few people I met at my booth on the first day were running their own booths on the subsequent day and I could go visit them there as well.

However, there were a few booths that I spotted and didn’t have time to visit, which disappeared the subsequent day. I wonder if it’d help for booth operators sharing the same space to keep contact details or maybe some tokens from the other booth (such as a small stack of stickers/flyers) for people who missed it or people who might be interested in visiting the next day’s booth? This could be an optional extra where operators of both booths using the same physical space (but on different days) are put in touch. (I am not sure if something like this is already happening because it was initially supposed to happen with F-droid but then space got freed up and we ended up each getting to run the booth for both days.)

Booth feedback aside, I think Communi-con was a great idea and I even voted, although I completely forgot about it the next day because I was busy visiting booths

Someone else in this thread mentioned having more places (or time?) just to hang out. The thing about this conference is there are many people with whom I could end up having long conversations, but then we’ve both got to move on to the next talk/booth/person to talk to. But perhaps there’s no real solution to this. I did notice the tea/dining area becoming a kind of hangout area of sorts. I only discovered this late on the last day due to being at the booth, but I suspect that space is not the issue; it’s just something we have to each figure out when so many interesting people gather at the same place at the same time. Unless IndiaFOSS becomes a much longer multiday conference like DebConf or something the best we can do might be to consciously stick around a few extra days (for those travelling from outside Bangalore) to hang out. I suppose the pre-events formed part of that; perhaps we could have “post-events” too?

rinsa_perapadan · 5 October 2026 05:31

How was the booth setup and allocation (location, space, power/internet)?

The booth setup was great. This was our first time exhibiting at the event, and we weren’t sure what to expect. Our students were kept busy throughout, speaking with a steady stream of visitors, and the setup gave them the space to do that comfortably. Thank you to the team for making our first experience so smooth.

How was communication with us before and during the event?

Communication was good overall, and we felt informed and supported. One suggestion is to have two points of contact, or two email addresses on the thread, for exhibitors. Event emails often carry time-sensitive details, and a second address would make sure that nothing important is missed if one inbox is overlooked.

Did you meet the kind of attendees or contributors you were hoping to?

Yes, it exceeded our expectations. For our students, this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They spoke with a wide range of people, explained their work, and gathered more than 80 pieces of feedback. The students are now reading and recording every response and consolidating them to improve their application. The event gave them real-world exposure and a chance to learn directly from people in the field, which is hard to replicate in a classroom.

What worked well, and what would you change?

The event was well curated, and the mix of exhibits, talks, and BoF sessions made for a rich experience. One change we’d suggest is to include the floor along with the room number for all talks and BoFs in the schedule. With multiple sessions running at once, this would help attendees find locations quickly and spend less time searching and more time learning. We’d love to be part of the event again.

Suman_Vijeta · 5 October 2026 05:47

I was genuinely overwhelmed—in the best possible way—by the crowd, the energy, and the overall arrangements at IndiaFOSS 2026! A huge shout-out to the IndiaFOSS team and all the volunteers—you rock!

Organising an event of this scale is no small task, and the effort behind it was clearly visible throughout the two days. It was a fantastic space for learning, networking, meeting the wider FOSS community, and exchanging ideas.

Great going, team, and thank you for making IndiaFOSS 2026 such a memorable experience. Looking forward to IndiaFOSS 2027!

hritik · 5 October 2026 12:55

IndiaFOSS was super fun this year. Following are some feedback from the security devroom:

Space shortage in devrooms - I think this has been raised earlier but we also faced space crunch and many of our audience had to wait outside the hall in a waiting line (I didn’t know there was one!). We would want to make this better, a possible approach could be to collect intent-to-attend from all audience (with tickets) and allocate devrooms capacities according to projected crowd.
CommuniCon - Loved to have this idea accepted and implemented this year so fast! An improvement would be to ease out the voting process & have it at the CFP/talk list page itself. Having 2 pages for voting and talk list is confusing. Until the last moment, I thought the hearts denote my vote.
Food was super tasty and organized this year! I’m sure much work went into this. Next year, we could have more paid vendors & food stalls (like the tea/coffee this year). Food wastage would be lesser with purchased food and people would have more options. Could be even better if the vendors subsidize pricing a little. We could explore food sponsorships too.
Devroom themed stalls - Kudos to hardware team for having a dedicated group of booths together. Entering into the hardware area had a strikingly different vibe. If we could do this for other devrooms (security specially!), we would go somewhat closer to what defcon villages offer.
Pointer/remote - Speakers shorter in height are not very comfortable (& visible) behind the podium. A handheld mic & a slideshow pointer/remote solved this problem for us.
Aesthetics - Water dispensers specially didn’t look very good lying around. We could improve look & feel there (minor suggestion).
ID badges - We usually have the ID stickers fallen here and there across the venue and finally most of them are thrown out. We could invest in either a biodegradable ID badge or a badge that can be re-used across events. Reusable badges would be super cool & have potential to show-off a streak of attending IndiaFOSS regularly. We’d have to find out a way to map tickets to reusable badges somehow. I’ve a few rough ideas, we could pursue this if there’s enough interest.

Shree_Kumar · 5 October 2026 16:22

Great point about the podium. How about having a table by the side to account for such cases. This will also provide flexibility in other ways - such a case anyway happened in the Security devroom with the guys who showed soldering on-stage.

I’d love to see a collectible badge for IF27 btw - IIRC you made this suggestion during a devroom huddle. A printed tough plastic with colorful artwork could be good for a first version, and make for easy implementation.

rahulporuri · 6 October 2026 03:13

rahulporuri · 6 October 2026 04:03

Responses from the SARAL AI booth folks

side note - linkedin is not the open internet, and it’s unfortunate that so many people are sharing updates on this platform instead of a different social network or a personal blog.

rahulporuri · 6 October 2026 04:13

To me, this event felt a lot like Bangalore’s SMVT station. In a world obsessed with over-engineered industry solutions especially at the time of AI boom, FOSS cuts through the noise to focus on the unglamorous social problems that actually matter. Tackling them is slow work, but I appreciate the FOSS community for staying grounded and doing it.

More than just attending, IndiaFOSS gave me the chance to see how I can contribute, learn from the community and get involved in projects that genuinely interest me.

Compared to the previous editions I attended, I personally felt that there were fewer of those “wow, this is really cool” moments and fewer projects or things that caught my attention.

I can’t really put my finger on exactly what felt different this time. Maybe it was just my perspective this year, or maybe I was expecting something different after the previous editions.

But that’s also part of attending events like this — not every edition will feel the same, and sometimes you leave with more questions than answers.

What stayed with me most is how welcoming and collaborative this community is.

What stood out most was how approachable everyone was. Maintainers and contributors took the time to explain how their communities work, how newcomers can get started, and what they look for in contributions. Conversations that began with “what are you building?” often ended with a clear next step to try.

Beyond the talks and booths, what I enjoyed most was simply being around people who were building, contributing, experimenting, and sharing what they knew.
It also made me realize that there’s a lot more to software than the frameworks and tools we work with every day.

As a second-year engineering student, most of my exposure to technology so far has been within the boundaries of college assignments, projects and coding.
IndiaFOSS gave me a glimpse of a much bigger world outside of that.

…

What stood out to me the most was the sheer depth of knowledge people had in their respective domains and at the same time, how willing they were to share that knowledge. Almost every conversation felt like an opportunity to learn something new.

The people were incredibly kind, the talks were genuinely informative and the event itself was so well spread across different fields that there was always something new to discover.

Some conferences give you information. Some give you connections. And then there are conferences that completely shift the way you think. IndiaFOSS 2026 was that experience for me.

Before IndiaFOSS, I equated open source merely with GitHub repositories and pull requests. I left realizing it represents people, public infrastructure, education, governance, and social impact.
The greatest takeaway was pure exposure to unconventional career paths, high impact projects, and welcoming communities. It proved how much exists outside a classroom curriculum.

rahulporuri · 6 October 2026 14:11

What stood out to me was how much of the conversation was about building sustainably, improving accessibility, protecting privacy, and thinking deeply about our future and the role technology plays in shaping it.

Both days were filled with excitement. I got to explore and learn about some amazing projects looking for contributions, understand how technology policies are shaped and implemented, learn how secure applications are built, and think about how to prioritise privacy.

My favourite part of the conference was a panel discussion on how the diffusion of technology and AI can help bridge societal gaps. The panel brought together representatives from different communities who shared how technology had made a tangible difference in their lives. Hearing their experiences was a reminder that technology is most meaningful when it is built with people, not just for people.

flossboxin · 6 October 2026 14:21

The same on my personal blog: https://blog.bakhai.co.in/post/fdroid-indiafoss-2026

I do not click pics or use pics most of the time, especially without consent, hence most of my blogs are text only.

flossboxin · 6 October 2026 14:22

Unfortunately most people in open source are on closed platforms and are proud of it.

At least India wise.

ansh · 6 October 2026 18:55

My limited social battery ran out early on day 2 but had some wonderful conversations with folk on topics ranging from capturing the sounds of nature for science to open water swimming and a long attempt at figuring out what Frappe actually does.

Having attended Open Source India last year which is a corporate ad-filled and enterprise AI driven yapmare, this was actually enjoyable and embraced the community spirit of the open source multiverse.