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FOSS.in, day 5.5 and 6: Leaving Bangalore

Dec 17, 2007 | 3 minutes read

Tags: Conference, FOSS.in

My last evening in Bangalore has been spent at Atul’s place with all the other speakers around and the organization team for the “Speaker Party”. Once again great food, and great people to discuss with.

I left a bit early with Till, Volker, Christian, Kartik and Sheela. I got back to the hotel with Kartik while Till, Volker and Christian left to the airport to take their plane.

This way I had some sleep, and early in the morning I got a car sent by the organizers to get to the airport. Had my flight for Mumbai with no problem, and arrived in time. I have to admit that Mumbai airport is much bigger and cleaner than the Bangalore one. There, Pradeepto was waiting for me and picked me up to go to a hotel in Panvel (a small town near Mumbai). I’m staying there for the next few days because I’m attending Pradeepto’s wedding.

This post is officially the last one about FOSS.in 2007. But likely not my last one from India this year, I’ll probably blog about Mumbai and the wedding. As for FOSS.in, I have a short list of things which I’ll definitely remember (in no particular order):

  • Most of the talks are all done by high profile speakers… I even wonder how I got talks there. You definitely have the best people in their field coming here. The “who’s who” of the Indian Free Software contributors is there, but you also have quite a lot of famous international Free Software contributors. If you don’t believe me, look at this year speakers list but also past years… I hardly know any other conference with such speaker lists (except maybe FOSDEM).
  • The organization team is just awesome and I’ll really miss them all. Lovely and interesting people… I admit I was a bit heart broken when I had to leave the speaker party. I’m looking forward to meet them all again.
  • The party at Opus, nice karaoke club, terrific atmosphere… and Shlipa learning how to count people when drunk (I’ll never let you forget this moment). @Shreyas: No need to smile while reading this, you were half drunk too, remember? ;-)
  • The high quality of the organization (the organizers again, but also the volunteers and the logistics around the conference), it was just perfect. I’ve been speaker in quite a few conferences, and I’ve never seen something like this. As a speaker, you’re never let on your own, you always get help for anything, and you can feel it’s all done with a great pleasure. In short: it’s the best organized conference I’ve ever been to. And I don’t see another one beating this team anytime soon.