We invite participation in the following areas - in order of importance.

1. Delegates to the conference. There is no fun in having a conference if there is no audience. Our primary focus is on audience. Please register as a delegate and encourage your friends to do so. We cannot guarantee transport and accommodation, but if you have a group of people who want to come and let us know early enough, we will try to get your travel and accommodation sponsored.

2. Volunteers. Volunteers are the lifeblood of a conference and will be treated as privileged persons. Volunteers are needed at the conference venue for myriad tasks. But, more important, are volunteers from outside Chennai who are needed to contact students, teachers, government employees and get them to come for the conference. We envisage holding training camps for teachers and government employees - and will do so if we are able to convince enough of them to come. We can send people to address meetings to motivate people to come – if you organise the meetings.

3. Sprints. A FOSS conference that does not contribute documentation/code is worthless. A sprint is where a group of people sit together and finish a task. We have had sprints before, once in Loyola college to do translation, and again, last year at MIT to do translation. A sprint can be for translating applications, mass fixing of bugs, doing long pending documentation, writing code etc,. Sprints need to be carefully planned, tasks laid down before hand, participants fixed, facilities arranged. If you are interested in organising a sprint, please register and attend the meeting in January for finalising proposed sprints. Since this is an entry-level conference, please be aware that you may need a day to train volunteers for the sprint before actually starting it. Some ideas: making a comprehensive list to be uploaded to the ILUGD Hall of Shame websites, completing a list of all lugs in India, making a directory of FOSS contributors in India, contribute to the OpenMoko project ...

4. Student projects in FOSS. We will give special place to student projects in FOSS - past, present and future. Now is the time for your project - register and exhibit it at the conference. Prizes will be given for the best projects.

5. Formal academic projects using FOSS tools. There are a huge number of these lying unsung in university and government archives. We invite academics to present their work here.

6. Talks. On any aspect of FOSS except installation issues. Talks will be of 30 minutes duration with 15 minutes for discussion. note: installation demos will be arranged anyway.

7. Mini talks - one hall will be reserved for this. 10 minute talk followed by 5 questions.

8. Cultural contests - drawings, paintings, skits, dances ... with FOSS as the theme. Prizes will be given for the best performances.

9. Sub-conferences and BOFs - these will largely be left to be organised by those who propose them. Facilities will be provided as needed.

10. Workshops for teachers and government employees will be organised by the conference organisers depending on demand.

11. The registration website will be up in a day or two. Kindly forward this CFP to all the groups interested in FOSS.