Hello FOSS Enthusiast!
Welcome to our monthly newsletter from FOSS United! Your journey into the vibrant world of Free and Open Source Software begins here!
We're excited to bring you the freshest updates, news, exciting projects, policy tweaks, and the buzz around our ongoing initiatives.
Highlights from FOSS United:
Wondering what's happening in FOSS United? Here are a few updates from our side:
What’s up with IndiaFOSS 2025?
Hot out of the oven and fresh on the lineup: Community-run “Devrooms” We asked you what you’d like to see, and the FOSS community delivered. We received a fantastic set of proposals for this year’s community-run Devrooms. Thank you to everyone who sent one in! The full list of selected Devrooms will go live soon, but here’s a sneak peek at what’s brewing: IndiaFOSS 2025 Devroom Proposals. Stay tuned for the full schedule, and if you haven’t yet,
Diversity Scholarship at IndiaFOSS 2025 We know that not everyone has the same access to opportunities, even when the interest and potential are there. Through the IndiaFOSS Diversity Scholarship, we hope to bridge that gap by supporting individuals from underrepresented communities, gender minorities, and students to attend the conference. This includes travel, accommodation, and ticket costs, so that financial constraints aren’t a barrier to participation.
Are you someone who is keen on attending IndiaFOSS and needs support? Apply soon. Deadline: 10 August 2025 Apply here: Diversity Scholarship Application
Are you an organisation/individual who wants to see the FOSS community grow in the right direction? Consider supporting the scholarship fund. Your contribution directly helps someone attend their first (or next) FOSS event and become part of this ecosystem. Sponsor here: Diversity Sponsorship
Childcare and Accessibility Got a tiny human to look after? No worries. Got a mobility aid? We’re on it! This year, IndiaFOSS is continuing to offer on-site childcare, so you can make the most out of the conference, without any worries.. We’re also making sure the venue is accessibility-friendly, with ramps, seating support, and volunteers to assist wherever needed. Let us know your needs early, so we can plan well and make IndiaFOSS truly inclusive.
FOSS Clubs are back! With applications from over 60 campuses around the country!
We’re excited to kick off a brand new season for FOSS Clubs across the country! To get things rolling, we recently hosted a FOSS Club Introductory Call + Q&A with students from new and existing clubs. It was great to see the enthusiasm - lots of questions, ideas, and plans brewing already. The upcoming semester is looking packed and promising.
ICYMI: NLSIU Releases Report on ‘The Rise of FOSS in India’
If you’ve missed the news, here’s the sauce. Earlier this month, National Law School of India, Bengaluru, released its latest report titled “The Rise of FOSS in India: Empirical Evidence and Insights from Cross-Sectoral Case Studies.” Check it out here. The report was launched officially at the “Round Table on FOSS in India,” jointly organised by NLSIU, IIIT Delhi, and FOSS United on July 11, 2025.
This month in Forklore 🪄
Here’s who joined the lore last month, projects worth bookmarking, and the maintainers behind them worth knowing:
- KitikiPlot and Boddu Sri Pavan
- freeCodeCamp and Mrugesh Mohapatra
- JupyterGIS and Arjun Verma
WinkNLP and Sanjaya Kumar Saxena
Find out what keeps them going, what lessons they have for their younger selves, and what files in their repos they’d set on fire. Head to forklore.in now!
Know someone who should be on this list? Add to the lore.
Upcoming Events:
- FOSS Meetup Bangalore - 9 August 2025
- Debian trixie Release party - 9 August 2025
- FOSS Meetup Mysore (Online) - 9 August 2025
- FOSS Meetup Hyderabad - 12 August 2025
- FOSS Meetup Delhi - 23 August 2025
To view other upcoming and past FOSS events, please visit the FOSS Events Timeline.
Our community thrives on respect, inclusivity, and collaboration, and the Code of Conduct is here to guide us.
From the Community Corner:
Projects
- Nixopus: Nixopus streamlines your entire server workflow - ServerOps with no fuss
- Bagisto: Free and open source Laravel eCommerce platform
- SanskritShala: A Neural Sanskrit NLP Toolkit with Web-Based Interface
- IndiaMLTracker: identifies, analyzes, and highlights India's contributions to global machine‑learning research
- KILN: Encrypt, share, and run with secure environment variables from the command line
News and more
- Cloudflare’s Troubling Shift From Guardian to Gatekeeper
- Open Source Isn’t Free: The Sustainability Crisis in Cloud-Native
- Addressing GDPR’s Shortcomings in AI Training Data Transparency with the AI Act
- HeroDevs Launches $20 Million Sustainability Fund for Open Source Creators to Secure End-of-life Software
- To Make Sure AI Advances Democracy, First Ask, ‘Who Does It Serve?’
- India’s Data Protection Act: A Shield for Privacy or a Tool for State Surveillance?
- The Overlooked Climate Risks of Artificial Intelligence
Grants & opportunities
floss.fund: Dedicated to supporting critical, impactful, and valuable FLOSS projects globally.
We hope you found this month's updates insightful and exciting. Your active participation and feedback are what make our community thrive.
If you have any questions, or suggestions, or need further information, feel free to reach out to us at foundation@fossunited.org
We invite you to join our Telegram group. It's a fantastic way to stay connected with the FOSS United community and be the first to know about our latest initiatives.
Thank you for being an integral part of our journey. Let's keep fostering innovation and collaboration in the FOSS world.
“May the FOSS be with you.”
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