Shreyas Srinivasan

Guadec 2007

Looks like i got my visa, so looks like i will be attending Guadec this year!

Yay!

Gnome Desktop!

Vote for MunduRadio!

Its not everyday that a product developed by a company based out of India is in the reckoning to be a webware 100 winner in the mobile applications category. And as we all know we are pitted against the very best - We are talking about Google, Yahoo and a host of Silicon Valley companies that have proven themselves over and over again. Here’s our chance to hit the big league be recognized as the only Indian company so far to be a webware winner.

We have in the past, rooted for Indian cricket, English Football, Premier Leagues etc and its time to root for our very own Mundu. And its simple - we just need to log onto http://radio.mundu.com and vote for Mundu by clicking on the webware 100 link. Pave the way and spread the word at will.

Geodesic (company which creates Mundu Radio) have been very supportive of RadioVeRVe all around, and i would be happy if you could take some time off to vote for Mundu Radio!

You can vote for it HERE

Save net radio!

For all those who havent heard about the recent hike in internet radio’s royalty hike. Read this.

p.s: RIAA is the worst four letter word!

Who left the FOSS out?

If i dont remember date, time or year, then you can be rest assured that i am either drunk or foss.in is around the corner. And this time around foss.in is actually around the corner. I would tell you the exact dates if i remembered them, but apparently you can use the magical world of internet to be aware of them, go here!

Are you there yet?

Dissecting buffet intellectual

T3: Your post got me thinking. I mean for starters that book shelf describes mine and practically the book shelves of most of my friends.

A nibble here, a nibble there and not a mouthful anywhere. What is needed is focus and perseverance - not two days’ worth of everything. This is a classic, and i find it like most classics basically good to hear and say. Let me explain, its a common misconception that everything you know should aid towards a better life in some way. If you read 10 books then there needs to be a certain outcome or expertise, if you watch 10 movies there needs to be some awakening, why ?

Why cant things be done for the joy of doing them, why are they connected to the long unwinding road. I constantly make it a point to
do things which seem interesting, this does not necessarily mean i am telling you “I live for the moment” or whatever, what i am trying to say is the concept of estimation of usefullness is by itself flawed. And there is enough time in ones life for stuff to aggregate, 2 books a year for over 25 years is a good 50 books and enough “knowledge” (*cough, dont even get me started on whether books help us gain them) to actually gain perspective.

Why limit the great joy of discovery by something as trivial as usefullness in the large context? Because that view of usefullness is bound to change too…Eg:”I think there is a world market for about five computers” — Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International Business Machines), 1943.

I discovered a long time ago, that matching everything against the eternal scale of usefulness errr… is well not useful(fun).

Do whats fun, I hope one of those fun things will help in the future but if they dont, Hey! Shit happens!

Foss.in/2006

I know you probably already know, but if you are still in the dark, CFP for foss.in/2006 is out and the speaker registration now works too. Go ahead and register your rockin talk!

See you there

Hey, This might just be a good idea

So the last few months have been quite educative and has almost made me a better person, Well i say almost cos i dont really believe in progress cause meanings constantly change which eventually means the two steps we took forward sometime ago might actually turn out to be two steps backward in the present context. Erm…Ok, enough of useless rant. Lets me get on with the idea.

My recent experiences have conclusively proved that there is a market out there for people who are experts in FOSS software (doh, like thats not known) but anyway, the problem is the market is uncertain and one cannot survive easily as a freelancer. Lets for once forget all the companies hiring foss developers (see how i did not use hacker), this is not about that. This is for individuals who work on foss related stuff or non foss stuff for a living and contribute on someother project in their spare time.

Ummm… so you say? My point is, if someone in this world is willing to pay for their work then why not use it?

Erm… they have day jobs, they cant work for money. Fair enough, so lets look at it some other way, Lets start an organization of foss developers who work on projects but dont get paid money!!!

Woah, you numb skull they dont want cattle, you say ?

Well no, I mean why not use that money to travel to conferences, i mean i didnt go to guadec this time cos i did not have enough money and having been in Novell for most part of last year, i did not feel good enough about asking for funds from gnome.

So here is the idea (phew)

A group of developers who work in their spare time on foss projects which customers want and the money which we get in return goes to a travel fund. The travel fund is then used by developers to attend conferences and so, Ofcourse there is this small problem of deciding who gets to go, when etc etc etc. We can work that out, use your expertise to go to conferences.

Ofcourse if someone is open to the idea of “nobody has any problems if i make money (i am a freelancer), then i have no issues. The structure is whats important. We need a organisation with well stated expertise and we should be well known. If you cant use money then you can travel with it”

What say lazy web?

Brand new hotness!!!

Tor released evolution on windows. Go ahead and get this brand new hotness

The Value of Free Software

I did some feature work for a client and he just wrote a small article on how its been working with an independent open source developer to develop something they need. He posted the article onto lxer you can read it
here

p.s: His article is titled “The Value of Free Software”, i couldnt think of anything else for this one.