Open Source India Week - Bangalore - Day One
This is Venu reporting about the opening day of Open Source India Week from Bangalore with no camera person :)

Woke up at 5:30am and got ready by 7am. Did not want to miss any part of the event. And did not want to underestimate Bangalore traffic. Got into a Celcab at 7:10am. Reached JRD Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science by 8am.

They were sweeping the floors. I stand corrected. They were preparing to sweep the floors. The early morning sun was trying hard to squeeze into the dense trees found in the campus.

Never had the brains to get into IISc the student way. So I thought I would take a leisurely walk around the campus. The campus was beautiful. There is a marked difference between organized lawn/garden management (a la Infosys) and the forest like atmosphere found in IISc. I instantly fell in love with the surroundings. If only I could trade my cubicle for a desk under one of those trees... Sigh! I should have studied harder in B-Tech and got into an MS program here. Damn! Realization comes in ten years late.

The canteen was yet to open for the day. So I went back to the Audi.

Note to self: No Coffee! WTF!

It was around 9:15am by the time I completed the registration. I thought I would go to the Audi early and catch some nice seat. I was the first person to enter the premises. Three more followed suit driven by my courageous act of entering the deserted auditorium.

9:30am- Total strength: 8 members. No activity yet. The session by Klaus Knopper was supposed to start at 9:30am.

9:42am- Total strength: 15 members. Still no signs of starting the show.

9:48am- Total strength: 10 members. Somebody comes in and boots the laptop. The overhead projector comes alive and we are all treated to a nice looking WINDOWS start page.

9:54am- The Knopper couple is in. The fiasco with Windows XP was resolved and a more agreeable Mandriva session is projected on the screen. Well and good. Looks like someone is testing the Microphones too. Wow - I believe something's gonna start pretty soon.

10:00am- Klaus steps on to the stage; apologizes profusely as he fumbles with the connections to his laptop. Couldn't this have been taken care of by the organizers?

Note to Self: Klaus has an Ubuntu laptop!

Alas! The projector won't budge; won't work with Klaus. It flatly refuses to show what Klaus has on his laptop. No one has a clue. All are standing on the stage white faced.

Klaus then perfectly rises to the occasion; ditches his presentation; walks to the middle of the stage and talks eloquently about Open Source. He doesn't require a presentation and has a mesmerizing speech up his sleeve. The topic? "Why Use Proprietary Software?"

He rattles off quite a few reasons but only the following two stuck with me.

1. Everybody is using it. Hence every other body wants to use it. (Windows)
2. Unavailability of Games!

And I thought he would tell me something really serious! His speech basically explains to the informed audience the various meanings of the phrase "The Power of Habit". He says that Games are not popular in Open Source because of the following reason: <i>Open Source guys don't pay for a copy. They pay for an upgrade or for the future!"</i> Game Industry works at the other end of the spectrum. Each copy is supposed to be bought by the customer - because that's their business model. Since this model is not in line with the Open Source philosophy, there aren't many games out there.

I am impressed Klaus. I really am. Actually you should have paid more attention to the balding guy standing right next to the stage when you were uttering those priceless comments about Microsoft and Windows. That guy is from Microsoft and he is waiting patiently to deliver his lecture on Open Source. (WHAT?) To his credit, the MS fellow managed to keep a straight feace when Klaus was skinning Microsoft alive.

Now it is time for Q&A. One VIT fellow asked the cheeky question: "Do you really think Linux UI is as good as Vista UI?"

That brings in a period of complete astonishment and silence. After recovering Klaus tells the VIT fellow about how KDE/GNOME is far better than Vista UI. He tells him - excited in the same way as a five year old kid would who has just been exposed to XBOX 360 - that "3D desktops are cool". Uber cool you know!

Another question from a Linux geek: "Why offer Windows versions for Open Source softwares like Open Office? Aren't we compromising by doing that?"

Klaus answers: "We'd like everyone to have absolute choice. Moreover it makes the eventual migration to Linux - fast and easier!"

He signs off with a nice comment: If it is Open Source, anyone can support it. (Anyone who knows it). If it is proprietary, only the vendor can support it. (Because others won't know a thing about the software.)

Amidst thunderous applause he leaves the stage and Mr Rohit Kumar Rai - from Microsoft walks into the limelight. I am skeptical about Microsoft's presence in this forum. However they are one of the Diamond Sponsors of the event. So they should get a chance to voice their opinions. I try to be as neutral as possible.

Microsoft's Talk: "Open Source @ Microsoft"

Rohit talks about Open Source quite eloquently. To his credit he is a great orator and knows what to talk and what not to divulge. He is quite candid about Microsoft's interest in Open Source. "We are not a charity organization. We are profit oriented. All our objectives should be aligned with our company goals." he says. In his opinion, Microsoft is genuinely interested in working closely with Open Source community to resolve interoperability issues and to ensure these open source products run well on Windows.

So Microsoft's real interest is in ensuring that people can stay with Windows even if they want to use the Open Source products?

He tells us all about programming for multi core processors. He talks about Hashkel programming language which is supposedly Open Source. Microsoft has obtained two Open Source licenses approved by the Open Source community. They are almost the same as LGPL and BSD. In fact I am yet to find a difference. If any of you have an idea where these licenses differ from LGPL and BSD, please let me know immediately.

Microsoft has its own cute little open source team, which takes care of their own version of SourceForge - CodePlex. This was launched to fill in some glaring gaps found in SourceForge it seems. There is no version control of the projects and there is a lack of a good repository for documents and file management in SourceForge. CodePlex supposedly addresses all those gaps. "It was a need that we had to address" Rohit says. (Not his exact words but that's the meaning.)

I have a question on this but a gentleman in the penultimate row throws a tantrum before I voice my opinion and tells Rohit in a quivering voice full of emotion that Microsoft is doing a great disservice to the world of interoperability by bringing in a new document file format OXML when there is already an established ISO format ODF readily available. Yawn!

Rohit plays the usual line: Customers expect choice. These two formats can coexist. We are committed to support ODF too. We have converters available.
Yawn again!

That gentleman firmly says that he is happy India voted against Microsoft's format. Rohit smiles and tells him everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.

When I finally start with my question, the organizer hurriedly steps in and closes the session as we have already crossed the grace time.

Anyway - my question is this: Why didn't Microsoft offer to plug in those gaps found in SourceForge? Why did it have to come up with an entirely new "Open Source" project repository? It could have worked with SourceForge people and made SourceForge a better product!

Alright - I will send him an email :) and hope to get an answer.

If you are interested in knowing more about Microsoft's Open Source initiatives, please head to http://www.microsoft.com/opensource

Don't just write them off. The last speaker of the day has a lot of good things to say about Microsoft.

I come out of the Auditorium and visit the stalls there. First stall belongs to Microsoft and the reason it attracts me is the attractive young lady womanning the stall. I go there, she gives me three puzzles which I solve. She gives me a Laser Pointer as a gift. Thank you sweetheart. How about a cup of coffee tomorrow?

Then I head to a talk about John Smedley, from Ingress. He is quite a guy! He gets all irritated if questions are asked. He growls and swears at people "Lunch time! I am starving." Yes I know he is kidding and I know it is all in good humor but he overdoes his part there and gets on to everybody's nerves.

In his marketing talk about Ingress (Titled misleadingly as - Open Source Software Appliances - while in reality it is nothing but "Ingress is best; Ingress is best; Ingress is best") he says that his company delivers high performance "software appliances" that solve all the problems of his customers. Suppose you are looking for a Data Warehousing solution, earlier you would have to buy a system, load an Operating System on it, hunt the market for the perfect RDBMS solution (Ingress is the best) - get all the reporting tools for the RDBMS - customize them and deal with a whole lot of vendors for support. Now Ingress in all its wisdom has come up with the concept of a "Software Appliance" - which is nothing but an OS, a Database, All the reporting modules and the support required for all these - in one single installable package. (How does one install support?)

"What do you do when you get a problem with the OS? Dial our friendly call center. What do you do when the DB doesn't work. Dial the same friendly call center. We are 24X7. It means that if you get a problem on Friday evening at 7pm, you don't have to wait till Monday morning 9 o'clock to get it resolved." John Smedley has a twinkle in his eyes when he says "24X7". He is so proud of it. Come on John! This is the 21st century and we are in 2008!

The question by one of the irritated listener - "John do you have a software appliance for document management too?"

For this question, John is wide-eyed first and gapes next. After this dramatical theatrical histrionics he says in a la Phoebe Buffet - "Yes and No". He then explains, "Yes, we have an appliance ready. No it hasn't crossed Alpha stage yet."