451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
Not using, but contributing
Matthew Aslett, October 11, 2007 @ 12:49 am ETFurther to my recent post about how open source is a global model that enables the growth of local software ecosystems comes news that Indian open source developers are trying to assert the country’s position as a contributor, rather just a user of open source.
As Glyn Moody reports, FOSS.IN - “India’s premier FOSS event” - is leading the charge.
“FOSS.IN is about demolishing the contention that India is a land of FOSS consumers, with almost no contributors - that we only take, not give back. Our objective is to enable and jumpstart more FOSS contributors from India, the organizers noted in restarting the call for papers.
“We need more contributions going upstream given that we produce almost 20 percent of the software developers in the world. Unless and until we start contributing, we cannot have a say in the development of technology,” added open source advocate Venkatesh Hariharan.
As Moody notes, India has everything in its arsenal to become an open source powerhouse. The focus on contributing, rather than simply using, is a positive move.
Categories: Conferences, Software
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