Sruthi Chandran

Growing the Debian Community in India

Debian community in India has a long and diverse history. Earliest events date back to 2006 when various free software developers from India joined Debian under various roles. Due to this, Debian is partially/fully available in 11 local Indian languages. A number of events including MiniDebConf, release parties, Debian Utsav/Utsavam has helped grow the community. We recently hosted the online MiniDebConf India which had 48+ talks/events from 6 local languages under two tracks. We’re also getting ready to host the Debian community in DebConf 2023 scheduled to held in India. These events have given us the platform to publicize the use, adoption and contribution of Debian in India.

In this BoF we’ll have some members of Debian India community coming together to discuss what was done to promote Debian in India and what are some areas that we need to work upon in the near future.

Debian Outreach Projects: Google Summer of Code 2021

This talk will showcase some of the projects on which students are currently working with Debian under Google Summer of Code 2021. The students will be sharing their experience working with Debian.

Summer with Debian

This is an idea I mentioned in my DPL platform 2021.

Summer with Debian is a concept that I borrowed from Free Software Camp (https://camp.fsf.org.in/) for which I was one of the core organizers. Basically the concept is to have 3-4 months long online mentorship program. The advantage of a Debian specific mentorship program is that we can tailor the program according to our specific needs.

There will be two parts for the program. In the first part, the primary focus will be on the philosophy of Debian (and free software) and why one should contribute to Debian etc. We can have common sessions on these topics for the mentees. In the second part, the mentees will work with mentors on the projects of their choice.

In this activity, I plan to have a team (may be debian-outreach team?) as the co-ordinators/facilitators who work in collaboration with debian-diversity, debian-localgroups, Debian Academy etc. The co-ordination team will be doing the back-end activities of organizing, scheduling etc. while other teams will be helping out with resource persons/mentors/projects etc. I specifically intend to have debian-localgroups involved so that we can have localized activities and not just in English.

NOTE: The question of whether to pay stipend or not could be discussed later (I do not plan to include this as a discussion point in this talk).

Debian Outreach Projects: Outreachy 2021

This talk will showcase some of the projects on which students are currently working with Debian under Outreachy 2021. The students will be sharing their experience working with Debian.

Closing Ceremony / Cheese and Wine

DebConf will shortly be over, so we shall console ourselves with (notional) cheese and wine. Bring your own cheese, we’ll provide the company.