I have been a core contributor to the FreedomBox project since 2013 and have been a Free Software enthusiast for much longer than that. FreedomBox is a pure blend of Debian with the goal to make it easier for users to the host servers and data at home. I joined the project as I believe decentralization of the Internet, data ownership and protection of our digital rights are the most pressing concerns for free software community today.
My earlier contributions to free software include Spicebird, a collaboration suite based on Thunderbird and Indian language computing for GNU/Linux. I graduated from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India.
I am currently employed by ThoughtWorks, Hyderabad, India to spend majority of my time on FreedomBox and am living in Redmond, WA, USA.
Accepted Talks:
FreedomBox: The Home Server Appliance
FreedomBox, the pure blend to bring Debian to home servers, has had a productive year. In collaboration with Olimex, an OSHW manufacturer, we have launched FreedomBox home server kits that users can buy and set up at home. This move saw a significant increase in user participation in the project.
We have made a lot of progress so far in FreedomBox - simplified user experience, easy to acquire hardware, automatic configuration, well-managed security and a sizeable number of apps to wean us off of the proprietary surveillance-based cloud services we have come to depend on.
We have quite a few plans for the coming year. We want to improve our hardware offering by working with Olimex and also reach out to potential new partners. We will try to add some features such as Audio/Video conferencing, crucial missing apps and even prepare FreedomBox for NAS use cases at home while getting ready for a solid Bullseye release.
This talk discusses the progress of the project over the last year, what has been achieved as part of the bigger picture, our plans for the coming year and how the larger Debian community can contribute to the effort.