Quick update on talks registered so far:

At 3:30am this morning, the 100th talk proposal was registered. 93
speakers are registered, but many have not yet submitted talks.

Talks submission and speaker registration closes Saturday, Oct 8th, at
midnight IST. Any speakers who have registered but have not submitted
talks will be removed from the database at that time.

So if anyone wants to get talk in at the event and has been doing the
traditional "let's wait for the last moment"... well, that moment is about
here.

A word about the "Guru Shishya Syndrome" that seems to be keeping many
people from submitting talks:

The GSS is a situation when someone doesnt want to participate as a
speaker when a well known personality is also speaking on that subjet. For
example, someone who wanted to give a talk on foo doesnt register his talk
because teh primary developer of foo will also be speaking at the event.

This is ridiculous. Even if Linux Torvalds were to come and speak at the
event, do you really think that he would cover *every* aspect of the
kernel in his talks? He couldn't do that even if he tried - it would take
many people to cover the various aspects of kernel development.

And every little bit counts. Even a 20 minute talk about how to optimise a
Postgresql database, or how to efficiently patition a linux or freebsd
installation disk, or how to slim down your kernel. Remember, for every
person who knows a little bit about something, there are thousands who do
not, and would be grateful for that little tidbit of knowledge that you
thought to be insignificant.

Don't hold back because of the GSS. This event is to highlight the Indian
FOSS community, what we do, what we can do, what we want to do. So while
we clearly have *no* shortage of talks, we have a shortage of parctical
talks, case histories, tips and ticks...

Go on, register as a speaker, and submit a few talk proposals (don't just
submit one). Show the world that India sin't just a consumer of FOSS.

And hurry - time is running out.

http://foss.in/2005/speakers/

Atul