Freedom , Debian Pure Blends and Jonaas Smedagaard

Freedom box uh !!! - what kind of box it is one wonders. Free as in free speech or free as in free box. How can you package freedom in a box? All set of questions arise in our mind.. But I had my answer after listening to an inspiring talk yesterday. Freedom box, Debian, philosophy about life, rocket science, correlation between mathematics and music full of divergent ideas ... what a great Saturday it was. All thanks to Jonas Smedagaard - Debian developer from Denmark. It was fun, It was entertaining and it was informative.

Waking up early in the morning and traveling two and half hours on a weekend is a crazy thing to do for a late night fellow like me. I thought twice before going to the talk if it is worth missing the relaxing extra two hours sleep I enjoy on a Saturday morning. Somehow I made up my mind in the morning and the the talk was just started when we reached there.

A man who matches all the features of a geek was speaking and an audience of about 100 students were there to listen to him. Jonas introduced himself in a funny way and slowly moved in to the technical stuff. I was surprised to hear that he has only 12 years of schooling and not much formal education. May be due to the quality of education system in Scandinavian countries like Denmark I haven't met any one from the universities in India who can deliver a passionate talk like Jonas. See this Video about the education system in Finland.

I was fortunate to hear Eben Moglan one of the best inspirational speakers in the world. I had written about that in one of my previous blog posts. Both of them are at different levels and Eben Moglan is much more publicly accepted person the free software community through out the world. But out of the tech talks I have heard Jonas may be only secondary to Eben Moglan in making an impact in the audience. Jonas's talk was full of fun with funny real life examples. He captured the attention of his audience with his effective body language, voice modulation and instilling passion into every word he said.

His passion towards free software and his passion towards life was visible in every word he delivered. He started with how the concept of Freedom box evolved from a tech talk delivered by Eben Moglan one and half years back. You can listen to Eben Moglan's talk here.

Freedom box is a small box that can be considered as a personal server running a free software operating system and free applications. It is designed to create and preserve personal privacy by providing a secure platform upon which social networks can be constructed. You can find the details about the Freedom box project at Debian Wiki. One of the point Jonas emphasized was simplifying technologies so that they can be used by an ordinary user so that projects like Freedom box gets more acceptance among ordinary users.

The talk also touched upon Debian community and the work the community is doing for the past several years. Visit the Debian Wiki here for more information about Debian project. Debian pure blends - the project to improve Debian for specific purposes and blend it back with the Debian project was also briefly explained. Jonas emphasized the need of simplifying technology to reach a wide audience.

The talk was followed by an interactive discussion where he not only answered queries but also tried to explain his vision of life. He spoke about we can make this world a better place if every one tries to convert his passion into his job. We can do the things much better if we are passionate about it. The discussions touched up on a wide range of topic from signal processing, designing, software development, rocket science, space ships to connection between music and mathematics. When one of the students asked a question how much practical freedom box is in a country like India where lack of infrastructure like less bandwidth exists. Jonas answered it in a philosophical way. He said problems can be approached only once we start. People like us also should study how things work and sort out ways to improve it rather than and not starting it. He quoted the example when they had to deal with less bandwidth in the university a few years back. The way he interacted with the students something that we all should try to emulate. He was able to instill his passion and energy into students and inspire them.

Finally we parted after a photo session A day full of intellectual stimulation, entertainment and fun - It was one of the best days I will cherish in my life.