Tip of the ICEberg

During the last 4 days, I was all away from home - travelling, meeting people, attending a nicely done FOSS meet, and of course, having a hell of effing fun!

ICE FOSS is a national level FOSS meet organized by FISAT. After attending a FOSS meet for the first time at 2K10 NITc FOSS meet, I was so thrilled about the concept of open source software and such techy meets. This one proved no less wonderful.
During this vacation, I was hunting for any possibility of a fairly long travel. Things came out quite correctly when there was the news of the ICE FOSS programme which was to be held at Ernakulam. It guaranteed a great travel experience together with a great deal of informative stuff.


The open source factor
ICE FOSS featured a hand full of high spirited talks and friendly(sometimes a bit too techy) workshops and camps based on the concept of open source software(teh Linux, folks!). It radiated much inspiration through the fact that FOSS is the future. Yes, it is going to take over every major sector in a matter of few years. May be its time you looked beyond your (Microsoft) Windows^TM ;) .
The best part of it is certainly that, at the end of the day, we're ready to create and contribute to the FOSS community. Unlike the usual Linux awareness talks you hear every other day these days, it was noticeable that people were not much interested in Windows^TM bashing. The game has reached a whole new level, and now it is all about making things better and bigger.

The travel
Yeah it *was* a long long journey. And there was, along with me, my friend Jo. He makes the perfect companion exactly because he can be as random as it gets. On reaching new towns we got intentionally lost, walking through random ways with our backpacks under the scorching sun. Well that was crazy. :D
The rendezvous with Hari occurred at Angamally, a small town away from the uber urban areas of the district. The geography of the place is kinda weird. At one point you're surrounded by bright green farms and small ponds and birds flying in the clear blue sky. You walk some 5 more minutes, and now you'll be amidst the concrete jungle of luxury buildings and all elements of a township. Development in the place was so irregular and scattered.

A peep out of the train

The awesome times
One important factor which makes the entire experience seem so nice is the utterly serene accommodation we received along with the tasty food. There were new people around, and new things to talk. I felt really nice when we were discussing about every crazy stuff on earth. The topics of discussion even included algorithms and a heated debate on the financial side of open source software.

Getting out from our temporary home : iceFOSS Day 1

Now this, was something I always missed at my own college. Back there, we're too free that we enjoy every moment and everyday is a celebration. The big loop hole here is, there's no particular effort or any particular achievement behind the celebration. We simply amuse ourselves everyday, but we do nothing worth it. This is an approximate picture of the collapsing industry of professional education in Kerala.


The return
On the way back, we could spent a nice little time at Hari's home. This is where I saw the movie Time Machine for the first time(which was a totally un-logical movie!). The return was a pretty exhausting bus journey, but it had its own lessons to add to our experience.
I want to use this opportunity to tell you all about the importance of getting started with FOSS. It all comes free, and sooner or later, you *are* gonna fall in love with it. At the least, try out the charming Ubuntu :)

Try some change!

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