COMRADES might be a bit confused about using free software, but the city’s IT youth seem to have no ifs or buts about it. For the first time ever, five of the city’s major engineering colleges have come forward to make free software promotion a part of their annual cultural fests. Aagneya ‘09, the techno-cultural fest of Barton Hill Government Engineering College; Crossroads ‘09 of Mar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology (MBCET); Yagna ‘09 of LBS Institute of Technology for Women, Poojappura and Disha ‘09 of Sree Chithira Thirunal College of Engineering (SCT), Pappanamcode will have install fests this time along with their college fests. The FOSS-CET team of College of Engineering (CET), Sreekariyam, is also learnt to be making plans for an install fest for the first time.
It was SCT which for the first time organized a Linux fest last year, announcing its fealty to the concept of open sources. Then happened the Freedom Walk, which changed the destiny of free software movement in Kerala. The campaign-on-foot for the promotion of free software had roused the interest of the IT community like never before.
The Barton Hill Government Engineering College even has a free software cell on the campus, an example of the fast-catching up trend. However, an install fest with the college fest is a first-time affair here.
``Being IT students, we were open to the idea of experimenting with the new concept. Initially, it was the logic of being cost-effective that pulled the college to the idea, but gradually we recognized the big concept behind it. It is more about our thinking than seeing it as just ‘technical’’’, says Maxwell Felix, coordinator of Aagneya ‘09 and an S4 student of IT in the college. Aagneya began on Friday at Kanakakkunnu Palace with the install fest happening at the Institute of Engineers. It will be on till Sunday.
The students of MBCET are, however, taking to the concept afresh. ``We are in the process of forming a Linux users’ group within the college. Though there are students who use it, we don’t have a community in the college. The free software community in the city has offered us all help to conduct an install fest during Crossroads, once we have our own group,’’ says Steven Philip Sam, Technical Coordinator, Crossroads ‘09 and an S6 student of IT.
Crossroads ‘09 will happen from February 19 to February 22 and is a national-level technical/cultural fest, where almost 200 professional as well as arts and science colleges would be participating. The install fests at LBS Institute of Technology for Women and CET will follow soon.
It’s a major shift, agrees the whole of the free software users’ group (fsug-tvm) in Thiruvananthapuram. Probably why fsug members are a delighted lot.
``It’s not a technical shift, it’s about free thinking which the youngsters seem to have adopted. Now that major engineering colleges have taken up the concept, free software has a bright future in the State,’’ says Aashik Salahudeen, one of the pioneers of the concept in the city along with Anoop Thomas (who had taken out the Freedom Walk), and a member of fsug-tvm.
While they had to put in a lot of effort earlier to head every activity linked to the free software movement in the city, Aashik is now happy that newcomers, especially the college youth, have taken up the concept now. ``The like-minded have been connected in the concept in a unique way,’’ he says, adding that a ‘free’ community is on its path to scaling new heights.
Are the comrades listening?
