KDE India Founded (KDE.News) [LWN.net]

KDE.News reports on the creation of KDE India. "A group of enthusiastic KDE users and developers met last week at the FOSS.IN conference in Bangalore, one of the largest Free and Open Source Software meetings in the world, to combine their efforts in various regions of the country under a common banner and build a central platform for all things KDE in India. Along with spreading KDE awareness in India, especially in colleges and with local businesses, KDE.in has a few more practical goals. KDE.in will provide Indian KDE developers and users with a community hub to coordinate with and support each other."

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KDE India Founded (KDE.News)

Posted Dec 13, 2005 13:31 UTC (Tue) by achitnis (subscriber, #20) [Link]

Actually, things go a little beyond that. KDE.in is one of the first attempts to get Indian developers involved and contributing. While there are other projects that are run out of India, they are usually "invisible" to the outside world, as they are mostly corporate-driven (Gnome, for example), or just small parts of larger international projects.

Before the trolls reach for their axes - I am quite aware that participation in international projects is precisely what free software project are all about. What I am referring to is the "India is a consumer, not a contributor" syndrome which was a primary target at FOSS.IN (where kde.in was born).

Discussions we had with KDE developers at the conference (Till Adam, Sirtaj Singh) highlighted that like every mature project, KDE too was desperately in need of fresh blood and new thought processes, to break the "we have always done it this way" cycle. KDE.in has, as part of its charter, a clear focus on original and innovative development that will make Indian FOSS developers more visible to the rest of the world.