Notes from the October 2025 Governing Board meeting

The Governing Board (GB) call for the month of October happened on Thursday, 09 October. In attendance were members of the board: Bowrna Prabhakaran, Nemo, Swastik Banarwal, Shree Kumar and Bodhish Thomas. They were joined by Poruri Sai Rahul and Ashlesh Biradar from the FOSS United staff. Here’s a quick summary of the meeting notes.

(This summary is authored by Poruri Sai Rahul, the first person references, “I” hereby refer to Rahul)

IndiaFOSS 2025

Swastik

1. It was not communicated explicitly that active city volunteers would not be provided tickets and travel support for IndiaFOSS 2025, unlike last year. Swastik says that a number of active volunteers were disappointed about this
2. Shree, one of the Co-chairs of IndiaFOSS 2025, responded that the conference grew significantly this year, and that there was definitely scope for improvement, regarding communication and everything else
3. I (Rahul) didn't grasp Swastik's words. Eventually, I responded that we were only able to support travel and stay for event volunteers, and that we had shared the volunteering form with all active city chapters. It is worth noting that most of the volunteers for IndiaFOSS 2025 were members of active city communities, but like Swastik said, this was definitely a departure from last year
4. I urged the need for more volunteers for IndiaFOSS 2026. Volunteers and Co-chairs alike felt a significant lack of trustworthy volunteers for IndiaFOSS this year, given the scale of the event, and we need to plan on cultivating a strong volunteer group for next year

Shree

1. Shree pointed out that Community Partnerships felt awkward this year. Community Partnerships usually helped us sell tickets, but given the popularity of the event, Community Partners didn't really help with ticket sales
2. Not many of the community partners engaged with the community actively at IndiaFOSS 2025
3. Community Partnerships need to be rethought and revamped if we want to continue this next year
4. He also wants to move workshops back to the conference, both the venue and the date of the workshops. He wants to go further and see if the number of talks could be reduced to accommodate an increase in the number of workshops
5. I (Rahul) strongly second this - we got a lot more workshop proposals than last year, and we saw a lot more participation in workshops than we did last year, so there is definitely demand for more hands-on workshops!
6. Shree also mentioned that we might want to select the students who receive a student ticket, given the significant discount they receive on the tickets. I (Rahul) responded that we could open student passes for the active FOSS clubs a few weeks before they are generally available

Bodhish

1. IndiaFOSS this year felt less technical than before. A lot of the talks were focused on introducing FOSS projects but he perceived a lack of technical depth when compared to talks that he remembers from 2023
2. He highlighted the need for technical talks at IndiaFOSS that aren't usually accessible to an Indian audience
3. Nemo called out more devrooms as the solution to this problem
4. For the record, the dearth of technical talks was also called out by an audience member at the Open House session at the end of Day 2, but they mentioned that a few of the devrooms made up for the lack of technical depth in the Main Track talks

Nemo

1. He hoped for more lasting connections between communities at the event. Specifically, he had connected with a number of students who expressed interest in participating in the FOSS ecosystem, but disappointingly, none of them got back to him
2. Rahul - I hope that we can set up activity stations where students can attempt to contribute to FOSS projects. Imagine mini devsprints happening alongside the conference
3. Nemo hopes to see food trucks at IndiaFOSS 2026!
4. Nemo, along with a number of other respondents, highlighted that comms needs to improve next year. As a speaker in one of the devrooms, as a devroom manager, and a participant, he saw first-hand several missed opportunities and gaps in communication. As a devroom organiser, he also saw potential improvements with the way communication was handled between devroom managers and potential speakers
5. Shree echoed this sentiment
6. Nemo hopes for a bigger maintainer summit next year, and a lot more pre- and post-events next year

Bowrna

1. She focused on the invited talks policy - highlighting that it'd be good to enable the FOSS United Community to recommend people they know as an invited speaker, whereas right now the Program Committee/Co-chairs of the conference decide on who gets to become an invited speaker
2. I (Rahul) seconded the idea, especially because it is possible for a member of the community to recommend someone who isn't even on our radar but would be a great fit for the conference programme
3. Shree noted that there might be a significant number of self-nominations or nominations that don't clear the bar, increasing the burden on the programme committee/Co-chairs to sift through the submissions
4. Bowrna was unable to attend the conference because she fell sick, but she highlighted that she consistently runs into students who are keen to contribute to FOSS, but they don't know where to start. Bodhish echoed similar concerns with professionals, whose friends recommended them to attend the event, who were also interested but weren't able to understand where to start
5. I (Rahul) mentioned that we could have a "How to start your FOSS journey" booth at the event
6. Bodhish mentioned the need for project showcase booths to have quick start guides, and I (Rahul) mentioned that starting next year, we can require project showcase booths to have a contributing guide, a code of conduct, and other best practices for FOSS projects that make onboarding easy. We could also organise a pre-event session with Project/Community Booth managers to help them understand the conference audience and be prepared for potential contributors
7. On the topic of Booths, Bodhish highlighted that Community showcase booths should showcase FOSS projects they created or contributed to over the past year, instead of showcasing themselves
8. Bodhish also highlighted that we should require all booths to be manned by at least 1 person at all times. Shree reminded us that most booths are manned by volunteers, making this a difficult ask

Free event

With the increasing support from sponsors, Nemo wanted to discuss the possibility of making IndiaFOSS a free event. Everyone weighed in - Shree is split regarding this, initially liking the idea of making the tickets free but acknowledging that crowd control and setting expectations will be impossible in such a situation at the current venue. Nemo highlighted that a free event might make the event more accessible (financially) to people, making it possible for them to drop in and leave without worrying about the sunk cost fallacy. He acknowledged that workshops require clarity regarding attendance! Swastik noted that attendee food is a significant fraction of the event expenses, and Bodhi noted that the event should continue to be a paid event. He highlighted that more and more companies are willing to pay for employee conference tickets, which becomes a meaningful source of revenue for the event. In order to make the event more financially accessible, Bodhish noted that we could find additional sponsors, who could help increase the number of discounted tickets that we are able to provide.

Governing Board Charter

The MVP of the charter is ready. The key change pertains to elections - every seat on the Governing Board will be up for election for a few years, until we figure out the functioning of the GB and the Community gets used to the process

Shree highlighted that going from being Foundation-led to being Community-led requires significant effort on our part, specifically to document and communicate policies, guidelines, and procedures. He remembers how he was passively observing for close to a year, trying to figure out how the FOSS United Community operated, before volunteering actively. And he noted that a lot of the community members are likely in a similar situation. Better documentation and communication will enable these people to get off the bench and participate in leading the Community.

We acknowledged that the time is nigh for Working Groups and Nemo highlighted that it would be good to have a boilerplate for a Working Group charter document - with placeholders where interested Community members can share why the WG was necessary, why it belonged in the FOSS United Community, how they were the right people for the WG, and why this was the right time for the WG. We discussed the need to reduce the friction of creating a WG and, at the same time reducing the friction of disbanding a WG. Like software, empowering people to quickly experiment is the best way ahead with WGs.

Nemo will be working on a draft Grants charter. Swastik will work on a draft Moderation charter, and Shree will be working on a draft Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) charter.

INR 10 Fund

Shree brought up the Ten Rupee Fund (TRF) idea that he has had for some time now, which he also echoed at the Open House at IndiaFOSS 2025. The premise is simple - donate 10 INR to the FOSS United Foundation - but given the strength of the FOSS United Community, small 10 INR donations quickly add up.

Nemo sought clarification about whether it was possible to have multiple bank accounts for a not-for-profit foundation, and I replied that we already had multiple bank accounts. Nemo mentioned that the simplest option might just be to open a bank account and receive such donations exclusively in that account, e.g., via a UPI ID. The small amounts will hopefully prevent the need for strict compliance, e.g., the need to provide 80G certificates to the donors. Nemo highlighted that every community meetup could show the donation QR code to hopefully receive donations regularly from community members.

Nemo asked Shree what the purpose of the exercise is, given that we will likely not be able to raise more than a few lakh INR per annum via this exercise, and Shree highlighted that it was about building awareness.

When asked where the money could be spent, Shree responded that the community could vote on where to spend this. FOSS United Foundation could be one of the options for the community to vote, but the community can collectively vote on one or more projects to which the funds would be disbursed.

FOSS Hack 2026

Swastik asked if FOSS Hack was being planned for 2026, and I replied that yes, FOSS Hack 2026 was indeed being planned, but that it was going to be a significant departure from FOSS Hack 2025. Based on our previous experience, we intend to make changes to the duration of the hackathon, criteria regarding which localhosts could host the hackathon in-person, and shifting the focus towards more contributions to partner projects.

Bodhish highlighted the experience of the Open Healthcare Network/Care project last year, where a lot of time and energy were spent talking about the project to the hackathon participants, only to not receive any contributions back to the project. I (Rahul) noted that we intend to have a higher bar for participants to hack on partner projects this year, to ensure that we're not causing undue burden to the already overburdened maintainers.

Annual Report

We ended the meeting discussing the Annual Report for FY 2024-25. Shree designed an annual report that is appropriate for newcomers to the FOSS United Community, and we discussed the next steps. We will be launching a design competition to create a template for the annual report - one that uses FOSS tool chains, isn't hard-coded, and is modular.

If you have any questions or comments for the Governing Board, please send an email to governing-board@fossunited.org