My favorite sections in the NUS Central Library is the TK5I05.885 and QA76.76 – all catering to the latest and old books on various Computer technologies. Last semester, I had to write an essay for the USP application on a topic that talks about my interest. And guess what, I wrote about  Open Source. I had to keep it non-technical as mainly Arts Professors would evaluate that. (Disclaimer : I did not get through USP ).

So I looked up some books regarding the topics, and for that I had to look up in the above shelves of QA76.76. And there, sitting on the old shelves were the immense bundles of knowledge talking about the various aspects of Free and Open Source Software. I will be providing a list of books and locations at the end of this post so that any geek, passing the library can have a look at the areas.

Though, almost all these books are available freely over the Internet under the GNU license, getting some to read in the comfort of your bed is a boon in itself. And why not use the vast library that is full of smelly books, untouched for years, waiting for geeks?

I try to make it up to a habit that I have always craved for and sometimes achieved – “a book a week”. But a busy semester and less sleeping time pulls the habit down.

The most important aspect of FOSS that has inspired me is the point that reeks out from all the books that talk about history of Open Source – The way the eminent personalities coded day and night with huge motivations. I mainly refer to the “Rebel Code” by Glyn Moody. He gives a comprehensive insight into how the Hacker movement transformed into a highly organised rebellion – giving birth to GNU and Linux, as we know them today.

I think its better to read the books altogether, rather me giving brief reviews about each (I am still reading some of them, if you cant find them on the Book shelves, ping me, I will return those books back to the library).

You can get a simple list of all the books with the Keyword – “Open Source” at LincNUS -

http://linc.nus.edu.sg/search/Y?SEARCH=open+source&searchscope=16&SORT=D&submit=Submit

Other Books, pertaining to FOSS, I will list :  There are even more in the above link, and more that I am looking out for. Will update the list soon.

P.S. There are perhaps thousands of books that cater to the technical aspect of Open Source technologies such as PHP, Apache, Ruby etc. I talk only about the non-technical ones here.

Crisis Camp!

We are 1 month old, and we’re celebrating it by throwing ourselves a Christmas Party! This event is similar to our open house party!

We’ll be catering some halal food from around the area. If you can bring more food, that will be great! Just make sure it is halal, or if not, indicate it isn’t.

Drinks will be available, including Wine, and some alcohol. As usual, contributions to our pot of donations will be appreciated.

We’re also going to have a gift exchange in the form of a game. So bring some physical gift which cost no more than $15, wrap it up, hide it, and come up with clues! The smaller the gift, the easier to hide. *evil laughter* Oh and you don’t have to bring a gift to attend the party, but you won’t be able to play the game (I think??).

Join us for our party now!!!

A few of us will gather there for the party. If you want to join us, detail of the time and venue is as follow:

Date: Friday, 18 Decemer 2009

Time: 19:00 – 23:55

Location: HackerspaceSG , 70A Bussorah Street, Singapore

And please remember to RSVP on Facebook

See you there

Registration: http://apesnap.com/event/simonebrunozzi.

Organised by NUS Linux Users’ Group and Azione Capital.

We are back with our Hackfest and this time our venue is Redhat Office!

All the hacker/geeks/enthusiasts are invited to attend the linuxNUS Hackfest!

At linuxNUS Hackfests, youre free to work on whichever development project you want to, be it anything ranging from Linux to Android to Facebook. Or you can just collaborate with others on their projects. Look out for the one that interests you.

Importantly, you get to meet and interact with other hackers, and hopefully everyone gets to pass a little knowledge around. The more knowledge is shared, the more everyone benefits! Isnt that great!

Date: 14th November, Saturday
Venue: RedHat Office
8 Shenton Way #10-00, Singapore 068811
Timing: 1pm to 6pm
Please fill out the form below
http://tr.im/linuxnushackfest09
or
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFlrY09IYnRCRHlNcTkxalRNeC1YQ3c6MA

For any queries contact : contact@linuxnus.org

Hope to see you there!

The GNOME.Asia Summit is one of the top Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) events for developers, enterprises, officials and general users in Vietnam. The event brings together FOSS projects from Asia and around the world.

The event will feature keynotes, sessions, lightning talks, exhibitions, and a hands-on lab. Topic areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

* GNOME 3.0
* Localization & Internationalization
* Mobile platforms and thin clients
* GNOME Communities
* GNOME library and application development
* Desktop deployments
* School software

The event takes place from Nov. 20-22, 2009, in Ho Chi Minh City.

Chairing this event is none other than Mario Behling, President of the LXDE Foundation, and a close friend of Singapore’s FOSS community.

If you are interested in attending this event yourself or know of attendees from Singapore, please kindly indicate in the comments below. It will be great to have a strong Singaporean representation at the event

Planned program :

* Python Games Development in 60 minutes (as a Mini Sprint) – Mr. Morgan Heijdemann

Pre-requisites : Because this is a mini-sprint, you need to bring your laptop computer for the hands-on.
Pre-installations : Please have python 2.5/2.6 and pyglet 1.1.3 installed beforehand. (http://www.pyglet.org/download.html)

* Python Programming on Your Browser – Dr. Liew Beng Keat

* PyCon – Call for Papers (Stand up Singapore!) – Dr. Maurice Ling

· PUG website – Connecting our Community – Mr. Abhaya Shenoy

* Lightning talks – Open Invitation.

More details at the website.

linuxNUS is back again with our monthly HackFest. This month, we are proud to have Red Hat as our venue sponsor. So join us and lets have a great weekend together ! Details of the HackFest is as follow:

Time: 1pm-6pm, 17th October 2009

Venue: (Change in Venue) Wego Pte Ltd, 53B Boat Quay, Singapore 049842

To RSVP: please fill in our form below RSVP HERE

If you have any other enquiries, please email us at coreteam@linuxnus.org

But it seems that a new warfront is being fought in the sphere of soft drinks with Bing Soda, Microsoft Soda and Ubuntu Cola

We’ve come a long way since then, of course. From a single humble mailing list, we then set up our main site, linuxNUS.org, our wiki – Opensource@NUS, forums and our IRC channel, #linuxnus on irc.freenode,net (which you can join by clicking “Chat” at the top of this page).  We’ve ridden the recent social wave as well, turning up on sites such as Facebook and Twitter!

In this time, we’ve never stopped trying to promote, advocate and educate people about the use of open source software, organising activities that hopefully brought value to all involved. We organised Installfests, workshops and Hackfests, and even brought in external speakers to share their pet projects with us,  such as Mario Behling on LXDE, Ole Tange on OpenMoko, and Harish Mallipeddi on developing Facebook applications with Django. linuxNUS also produces a podcast, where we talk about stuff related to open source in Singapore. The linuxNUS Podcast has covered groups and events like the Free and Open Source Alliance of Singapore (FOSA), Software Freedom Day 09, and we even managed to squeeze in an interview with Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, when he was in Singapore.

It’s been a blast for us so far, and for those of you reading who have been part of activities, we really hope that you enjoyed the experience, and more importantly, gained something from it.

With that, we leave you know with a little something to mark our journey through the years