This IS meant for students. They have verbally confirmed me and also they want us to participate. I am waiting for their confirmation email which is due to come in. Once I get that I can announce the event. SUGGESSION ABOUT OUR PARTICIPATION WILL BE APPRICIATED (ACTUALLY I NEED IT).

On 12/24/06, Rahul Sundaram sundaram@fedoraproject.org wrote:

Rahul Sundaram wrote:

...

susmit shannigrahi wrote:

...

Hi all,

I am currently in talk with LUG,Durgapur on the occasion of their 'National level annual technical symposium on GNU/Linux and related Free and Open Source Software(FOSS)."

Here is the link http://lug.nitdgp.ac.in/index.php?ch=mukti&muktich=1

They want a team from us to work with them...right from the registration desk... So we need members,volunteers on this occasion. This is a tentative proposal, but i have talked to them over phone and they want to know about the team and tentative proposals from us...

So I need members and suggesions about our proposal to them.

The website seems to be a maze of links. I believe Kushal was referring to this when we met on foss.in in Bangalore. Kushal, are you participating? On Feb, I have FUDCon Boston, this one and Linux Asia in Delhi at the month end. Is this oriented towards towards?

Ahem. That was too fast. Is this oriented towards students?

Rahul

-- Fedora-ambassadors-list mailing list Fedora-ambassadors-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-ambassadors-list

On Sunday 24 December 2006 03:15, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

The website seems to be a maze of links. I believe Kushal was referring to this when we met on foss.in in Bangalore. Kushal, are you participating? On Feb, I have FUDCon Boston, this one and Linux Asia in Delhi at the month end. Is this oriented towards towards?

I was talking about an event just before this(13th-15th Feb, 2006) :)

Dr. B. C. Roy Engineering College, with the help of dgplug (www.dgplug.org) is going to organise a three day tech-fest keeping Free Software in mind. we had around 2 events(On Fedora) in 2006 there. On the first day there will be the first NRCFOSS (http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/) meeting, which will include participants from all engineering colleges in Bengal. The agenda of this meet is to start FOSS based syllabus for the students in Bengal. Next two days we will have seminars & workshops. Rahul, I talked about that seminar :)

I will be there in Durgapur that time, so if you need any help from me, just tell. I can also give a talk or do some workshop if needed.

Regards, Kushal

Hi all,

Today I have got a mail from the organizers of this event, Here goes the mail...I don't think all points can be agreed to..but we can work on that. I don't know if this proposal can be accepted...The only thing i am sure about that selection of any ambassador is upon the steering commitee,I can not give any assurence on that. So..what you all think? The main point being they can give us slot only on the day before the main event starts...

Dear Friend, We are happy to say that we would be wanting to collaborate with the Fedora Community during MUKTI 2007. We are ready to give slots for lectures to the Fedora Community on how to use fedora on the 15th of February, 2007 the day before MUKTI starts right inside the campus of NIT Durgapur, provided you assure us the credibility, technical ability and eloquency of the speaker. You will also be getting help from us to spread the Fedora word in the campus during MUKTI and can also interact with the students. You can also bring along any publicity material that you may want to distribute or display. We expect a team af about 10 (i hope more) people from you, all students from different technical institutes along with your speaker, who should be a professional and not a student. We hope that MUKTI will be linked from all your official websites and must be posted in our mailing list regulalry. As discussed over the phone, one student nominated by Linux Users' Group. NIT Durgapur must be selected to be a Fedora Country Ambassador without any probation period. The name will be informed to you as soon as you confirm to this mail.

Yeah, I know that...And told them too...But what about the rest of the offer?

On Sun, 31 Dec 2006, susmit shannigrahi sent out 4.6K bytes to say:

I don't know if this proposal can be accepted...The only thing i am sure about that selection of any ambassador is upon the steering commitee,I can not give any assurence on that.

My comments are inline. This is so DISTURBING, It's not even funny.

So..what you all think? The main point being they can give us slot only on the day before the main event starts...

Dear Friend, We are happy to say that we would be wanting to collaborate with the Fedora Community during MUKTI 2007. We are ready to give slots for lectures to the Fedora Community on how to use fedora on the 15th of February, 2007 the day before MUKTI starts right inside the campus of NIT Durgapur, provided you assure us the credibility, technical ability and eloquency of the speaker. You will also be getting help from us to spread the Fedora word in the campus during MUKTI and can also interact with the students. You can also bring along any publicity material that you may want to distribute or display.

They are getting us confused with some sort of commercial entity. The disturbing part is next.

We expect a team af about 10 (i hope more) people from you, all students from different technical institutes along with your speaker, who should be a professional and not a student.

So they want 10 people to come eh? Specifically, 10 Students from other colleges, and a speaker who ISN'T a student?

And why not? Is it an embarrassment to the college if they have a student speaking? I now a lot of students more qualified than most of the `professional`s in the world to speak.

We hope that MUKTI will be linked from all your official websites and must be posted in our mailing list regulalry.

This is the most disturbing part. This is a clear and obvious indication of their motives.

They are just in this for the publicity.

They don't want to actually _DO_ anything great, but they want to see their name up in lights.

In other words, they simply want to say `our project was sponsored by the `Fedora Project` a multi-million dollar `Professional Entity``

Don't worry NIT-D. Your names WILL be posted in all the mailing lists. With a lot of shame and embarrasment.

As discussed over the phone, one student nominated by Linux Users' Group. NIT Durgapur must be selected to be a Fedora Country Ambassador without any probation period. The name will be informed to you as soon as you confirm to this mail.

This part REALLY takes the cake. Apart from the fact that the there IS no barrier to anyone joining ambassadors (it's a 45 second process), and there IS no probation period, they forgot the most important part:

Ambassadors _DO_ things. Just because you are `nominated` to be an ambassador doesn't mean that you will accomplish everything.

They want to hold some ceremony, and announce `Today, xxxx xxx was announced as the official Fedora Ambassador for the state of xxxxx. WE are all so proud of him.....`.

If you ask me, I say we DON'T speak at this college, until every single `Term and Condition` is dropped.

Thank you so much...I understand your feeling and you have just expressed my feeling ... This is like holding someone to ransom!!! And The telephonic conversation was way much disturbing...

Well, I still want to Fedora community speak/participate at this event.. The organisers may not be able to look beyond their event only...why won't we?? After all ,We are trying to reach out to new people (not the organisers), hoping to let them know about a better concept...So let's not bother about the organisers...

I am not talking about accepting any insulting term...I told them in my reply, to detach the ambassador isuue from the event and that we need to "Work on" a few issues.. hope they have contacted kushal...

And well, about the probation period..its there..atleast formally... : ) http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/HowTo

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susmit shannigrahi wrote:

Well, I still want to Fedora community speak/participate at this event.. The organisers may not be able to look beyond their event only...why won't we??

So what is the role you propose for yourself here ? All I read (and given my past experiences with MUKTI) it is just a bit of misguided communication blowing a storm on the list.

After all ,We are trying to reach out to new people (not the organisers), hoping to let them know about a better concept...So let's not bother about the organisers...

I for one would not be enthused by that stand. The organisers at some point in time need to be made aware of the fallacy.

I am not talking about accepting any insulting term...I told them in my reply, to detach the ambassador isuue from the event and that we need to "Work on" a few issues.. hope they have contacted kushal...

One of the students I knew at the said institute was Arkoprovo, I don't know whether he's part of the committee or an ex-student now. But I guess it is time one got to hear both sides of the story. "Nominating" a "country" ambassador to me has whiffs of misunderstanding rather than any subversive approach.

:Sankarshan

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You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw

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susmit shannigrahi wrote:

I can not propose a role other than just be presented there as I am still a student...they have clearly told that they don't want students to speak...Well, if I be there i can interact with a few people and talk to them informally...what else?

What I do suggest that as a student and a probable participant you have a greater buy-in than a couple of folks who are talking on the mailing list. Perhaps you would like to put conversations with the committee in public. What seems to me a bit on the wild side is the rampant *advertising* effort by the organisers as opposed to understanding the issue-at-hand. Poor communication skills do sometimes provide the impression of malafide intentions - I think you will agree to that.

Both MUKTI and Horizon are big events. While the latter is being ably handled by Kushal (who is a Fedora Ambassador), it does not mean that we will let MUKTI be bereft of Fedora presence. So the questions we might like the organisers respond to are:

* What exactly do they want (in specific deliverable detail) * What are their plans for Fedora going towards a future * What are they offering in terms of speaker slots, demo areas for Fedora

Since you are in touch with them, perhaps you can ask them such specific queries (if not already asked).

I'd rather console myself that we did utmost to try and resolve the confusion rather than taking the stance "since you know folks go ahead validate my observations".

If they don't want students to speak, what's their criteria for a speaker ? A Fedora contributor ? An industry member ? A LUG member ?

:Sankarshan

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You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw