We’ve been mulling over similar questions for the past three months - what is FOSS United outside IndiaFOSS and FOSS Hack. And the short answer is
- curate and communicate resources for structured CS/Computing education using FOSS. For example, I started the thread Resources for structured Computing/CS education to document some of the resources that I trust, which people from the community have started contributing to. Note that we should document resources that are meant both for beginners and advanced programmers
- incorporate FOSS into the existing college experience. The college experience isn’t going away anytime soon and it isn’t going to get dramatically better for the majority of students within the next 5-10 years either. We want to use the resources (mentioned earlier) to give students hands-on FOSS experience. While we will bring awareness (gyaan sessions) about FOSS projects, we will also push for action sessions e.g. short hackathons, lab migration work for Engg depts (e.g. https://fossee.in/), contributions to Projects within the FOSS United (and the broader FOSS ecosystem), and if possible support them financially to create FOSS
- write and promote case studies of FOSS impact within the industry. These should become the ammunition for students and professionals to push for FOSS within organizations
- support (if possible financially) cross-pollination of speakers from city chapters and student clubs. students should experience how FOSS is used in the real-world and the professionals can get an insight into how the new generation is using/understanding FOSS. This can include awareness (gyaan sessions) but here again, the focus will be on interactive and hands-on sessions
- deep-dive FOSS sessions that are specifically directed towards advanced professionals. Multiple people have mentioned that the community focus has shifted too much to be beginner-friendly but we (and others in the community) also know about a number of the fantastic technical FOSS projects. Beginners will walk away only knowing the names/terminologies from the session but the advanced professionals should be able to get a peek into the technical details, architecture, design decisions, technical direction, etc from the sessions.
- a renewed focus on discovering and financially supporting FOSS projects through Grants
I’ve been working on the longer response (and the overall roadmap for the coming year), which we will post by the weekend.