FOSS Workshop Report

13th and 14th October, 2014

The first official workshop of Free and Open Source Software FOSS group was
organized on 13th and 14th of October. The first day of the workshop was held at
Biotech Seminar Hall (Bio-Engineering Block) and the second day of the workshop was
held at ECE Seminar Hall (Tech Park).

Dr V. Nagarajan, Visiting Professor, The Chief

Guest Mr. K. Lavakumar, Author of IronWasp, Dr E. Poovammal, HoD, Dept of CSE delivering
Dr E. Poovammal, HoD, Dept of CSE, Dr. B. the welcome address
Amutha, Coordinator, CSE Association, during
the inauguration of the Workshop.

The workshop was initiated by a welcome address by HoD of CSE department, Dr. E.
Poovammal, followed by, her introduction of the Chief Guest and Speaker of the first
session, Mr. K Lavakumar.
Mr. Lavakumar, Author of Asias Biggest Open-Source Security Project IronWasp,
started with a presidential address and followed it with the first session of the
workshop.
Mr. Lavakumar introduced the gathering, marked by the presence of students and
faculties, to the world of Open Source and its application, progress and impact on
Information Security sector. He began explaining how he switched his interest to the
fields of Computer Science, his first experience with real-time programming using Perl
and how he got inspired by the work and contributions of Open Source Communities.
He explained how he entered the Information Security sector through Null meetups
and other groups. Mr. Lavakumar further discussed the importance of Information
Security at Industries, showcasing few examples of vulnerabilities in sectors like
Banking and Health, to name a few.

Dr V. Nagarajan, Visiting Professor, welcomes

the Chief Guest with a flower bouquet as the
HoD Dr E. Poovammal and Dr. B. Amutha looks
on.

Mr. K. Lavakumar, Author of IronWasp, Asias

largest opensource security project delivered
the presidential address and followed it with
the first session of the workshop How and
Why I Created Asias Largest Open Source
Security Project

He later discussed about the IronWasp project, which is currently Asias biggest open
source project and how he inspired numerous developers to contribute towards the
project by building various plugins over the IronWasp framework developed him. Mr.
Lavakumar later addressed various doubts raised by the audience which ranged from
topics like how to develop a rigorous application-coding practise, how to join
OpenSource projects like GSoC(Google Summer of Code) and how to learn and
contribute towards his Security project.
The audience dispersed for lunch break before coming back for the second session to
be handled by Ms. Prathibha, Senior Engineer from C-DAC Chennai.
Ms. Prathibha, a Senior Engineer from C-DAC Chennai and NRCFOSS, addressed the
second session of the workshop. She introduced the world of Linux and Bash to the
audience. Ms. Prathibha started her explanation with basic architecture of Linux OS, its
kernels, the file system structure and the working and communication of various basic
modules with the main kernel. She went on to teach the audience the basic Linux
commands like file listing, copying and moving of files, checking system usage etc.
and these commands were demonstrated on the BOSS operating system, developed
by C-DAC that supports all major Indian languages.
The guest of the second session, Ms. K.
Prathiba, Senior Research Engineer, NRCFOSS,
CDAC, Chennai, giving a talk on Basic Linux
and Shell Scripting

The guest of the second session, Ms. K.

Prathiba, Senior Research Engineer, NRCFOSS,
CDAC, Chennai, giving a talk on Basic Linux
and Shell Scripting

The session went into more depth as she introduced a very important and complex
topic of Bash scripting. Later, she cleared doubts related to good practices in file
partitioning and server setup. Ms. Prathibha invited the students to contribute to
projects happening at C-DAC and NRCFOSS.
After a short tea break, third session of Day 1 commenced. The third session was
handled by Mr. Ankit Pansari, Alumni and Manager of SRM Incubation Cell.

Dr. B. Amutha, Coordinator, CSE Association

welcomes the guest of the Afternoon Session
of Day 1, Mr. Ankit Pansari, Alumni and
Manager of SRM Incubation Cell.

Mr. Ankit Pansari, Alumni and Manager of SRM

Incubation Cell, giving a talk on Open
Hardware (Raspberry Pi, Arduino and the
Internet of Everything)

Mr. Ankit Pansari introduced the audience to Open Hardware, especially Raspberry Pi
a micro processor that is being widely used in many industrial applications recently.
Mr. Ankit discussed about various Open Hardware tools currently popular like Arduino,
Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. He stressed upon how they are being increasingly used
in Industrial applications, especially during prototyping phase, as the Open Source
packages and tools help build applications on these hardware quickly without much
initial capital or resources. He further explained the importance of Raspberry Pi by
displaying its usage in his 3D Printer. Mr. Ankit also explained our students and
faculties the process involved in project planning and applying for Incubation Cell
support.

Mr. Shashank, Final Year, B.Tech, CSE talking A section of the students who attended the
Workshop
about Raspberry Pi and Ruby on Rails

After the end of third session, the organizers of the workshop, Sukesh Reddy and
Shashank (4th year, CSE) ensured that all the attendees of the first day received the
Ruby on Rails installation CDs and have it installed on their workstations so as to
enable the smooth functioning of the second day of the Workshop.
As stated earlier, the second day of the workshop was held at ECE Seminar Hall, Tech
Park. The whole second day of the workshop involved a hands-on session on Ruby on
Rails, handled by Mr. Murtuza Kutub and Mr. Hari, Partners at F22 Labs.

Dr B. Amutha, Coordinator, CSE Association,

welcoming the Chief Guest of Day 2, Mr.
Murtuza Kutub of F-22 Labs, a Chennai based
startup.

The Chief guests of Day 2, Mr. K. Hari Hara

Sudhan and Mr. Murtuza Kutub, Founders, F22
Labs along with Dr. B. Amutha, Coordinator,
CSE Association.

Mr. Murtuza, former employee at Zynga and Fab and Mr. Hari, who previously
developed an operating system for surface computing: Emo2, were experts in the field
of Ruby. They believed that for converting our ideas to a fully- implementable project,
one should be well versed in scripting language like Ruby, an Open Source scripting
language. Mr. Murtuza started with the theoretical knowledge required to understand
the working of Ruby. He then delved into the basic commands and syntax of Ruby,
simultaneously engaging students by giving small, captivating exercises. Mr. Murtuza
and Mr. Hari also discussed the nuances in starting up a company and invited them to
come up new and exciting ideas, promising to help them in any way possible. The

second half of the day was about the Rails framework on Ruby platform. Mr. Murtuza
explained how an application is structured when it is developed using Ruby on Rails.

Mr. Murtuza Kutub, explaining the students Mr. Murtuza Kutub, explaining the students
about Ruby on Rails.
about Ruby on Rails.

The last session of the two day workshop was handled by the convener of the
Workshop, Mr. Karthick Nanmaran, Research Associate at the department with a brief
talk on the various FOSS Projects being undertaken at the Software Defined
Communications Technology / Research Testbed of which hes a part of. He listed and
explained the projects available under him and welcomed the students to get involved
in the projects.

Mr. Karthick Nanmaran, Research Associate, Dr B. Amutha presenting a memento to Mr.

Software Defined Communications Research Murtuza Kutub, the Chief Guest of the second
Testbed, Dept of CSE, delivering the last day.
session of the workshop Projects using
Free and Open Source Software

Dr. B Amutha concluded the two-day workshop with a closing address and presented
the speakers with a memento as a token of gratitude.

The Chief Guests along with Dr. B. Amutha, The Chief Guests along with students of the
Coordinator, CSE Association and Mr. Karthick CSE Association and FOSS Club
Nanmaran, the convener of the Workshop.

Overall, the workshop has been received well by the students and the faculties as well.
Although the registrations were over 60, the average attendees over the two days
were around 30 due to the fact that many of the students had lab practical exams
during those two days. Apart from small issues like WiFi connectivity and Ruby on Rails
setup problems on the second day, the workshop, as a whole, had been good and
could be deemed as a successful start to FOSS group. The speakers were impressed
with the response from our university towards Open Source development and were
very keen to help us start with few great open source ideas and projects and also
collaborate with us in the near future.
The first FOSS workshop could act as a good base for the students to delve more into
actual Open Source developments and soon start contributing towards Open Source
projects. This would really contribute in the making of future workshops.