FOSS Essentials Training - First day

Woke up at 5:30 in the morning and i'd already overslept. I had to reach MPP by 6:30 so i'd to rush. But when i reached there, i was the first. Other guys soon joined. Yesterday the training hall was occupied so we couldn't setup the computer. Now it was time to rush.

We'd quite a taskforce, so it didn't take much to manage the training area. The opening ceremony was scheduled for 9am. Everything was ready by then..

The program started with some speeches n all.. There were two Japanese guys from CICC. I really had problem understanding their english. Then there was a funny speech by Kamal Mani Dixit (the day before there was a disastrous typo on his name on the schedule sheet but was fixed immediately!!!). Similarly there were speeches from NITC Director Subarna Shakya and CAN President Biplab Man Singh too..

After the training started, we (volunteers) stayed in the hall for a while. The first presentation was by our very own Subir dai about FOSS. It was followed by Hempal sir's presentation on licensing issues. I was really overwhelmed by the number of licenses available. There was a slide where he'd put the logo of all the licenses available. The whole screen was cluttered by the logo. So many licenses, you need to be a lawyer to understand 'em all.. But i love GPL, it's widely used, simple and has full FOSS spirit too..

Lunch break and the training continued with Linux installation. We all volunteers were to assist the trainees so that they wont wipe out the existing data in the computers. I had the responsibility of total four computers in first and second row. There was this didi in the first row named Sushmita whom i thought had seen somewhere else before. Later on we found out that both of us know a same person..

Linux installation was a breeze. But in one of the computer, CDROM wasn't working properly so we had to abandon the installation.

The next session was basic linux commands, so we all volunteers got out for some chit chats. Yesterday Ankur, Prasanna, myself and other guys were planning to have a program on 'how to write code on Open Standards'. So we sat down to talk on it. My plan was to organize a one week long session with one hour each day. Later on we also discussed on how to work on understanding others' code as this is the first step to work on open source collaborations. It was decided we'll take next one week to design the program and the actual program need not be continuously one whole week.

We also talked on starting a project 'JotPad'. Basically this project will be used for OLPC laptop. This would be Nepali Notepad with handwriting recognition. Some kinda ambitious project, but we all are excited and
interested to work.

Besides there were talks on various topics like Google Summer of Code, OLPC and sometimes even on movies. Ujwal is still tryin to make some pace on his project Neprogra. His concept is awesome. Actually he is trying to make an universal microcontroller programmer, with all controllings from computer. I think i'm getting his idea but donno why electonics projects dont perk me much these days..

Finally OLPC laptop, there was a presentation on it by Ankur and Himali dai. This little laptop is really amusing.. The thing that most shocks me is the resolution of the screen. In such a small size, they've managed to squeeze a resolution of 1200x900 pixels. Moreover, it also works with sun's light. These days i'm really getting interested to work on the development stuffs of this 'sano sathi'.

In overall, the day's program was great. Although i didn't spend most of my time inside the training hall, i suppose the program was great from Geshan's blog. Tomorrow we again have the second day of the training. Lets see how it'll be tomorrow. Tomorrow i also have presentation on 'How to start a blog'.