Linux Bangalore/2003, India's biggest and most popular Linux and open-source event, will take place December 2-4, making it the third year that this event has been organised. What differentiates this event from commercial events is that it is completely conceived, organised and driven by the Open Source community. The event will offer technology talks and a technology expo.

Linux Bangalore/2003 continues to succeed because of its low cost model. preregistered delegates pay only Rs.300 (US $6.50) and walk-ins pay Rs.500 (US $11) for access to all the talks and sub-events. The registration fee includes lunch and snacks and a conference T-shirt. The event itself is funded entirely through sponsorships and the sale of expo space.

If you're thinking this low cost means low quality, think again. Over its three days, this event will feature almost 100 talks from such well-known open-source technologists as Miguel de Icaza (Mono/Ximian), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP), Nat Friedman (Ximian), Jeremy Zawodny (MySQL/Yahoo), Bdale Garbee (Debian), Harald Welte (iptables) and others. Also speaking are a variety of well-known community and industry speakers, including Gopi Garge, Kishore Bhargava, Atul Chitnis, Sirtaj Singh Kang, Naba Kumar, Sudhakar "Thaths" Chandrasekharan and others. To end each day, the organizers have planned a movie screening, a fusion music concert by the renowned fusion group Laya Taranga and a rock concert by the well-known group Phenom, respectively.

The event, which consistently has drawn thousands of developers, implementors and enthusiasts from across the world, is sponsored by Linux and open-source supporters HP, Novell and Exocore, with a number of industry and government bodies endorsing the event as well.

Bangalore, already the IT capital of India, is quickly becoming a hothouse for open-source development, with companies including Ximian/Novell, IBM, HP and others setting up development centres there.

For more information about the event, please visit the event Web site or contact the organizers.

Frederick Noronha is a freelance writer living is Goa, India.