About

11/02/2009 Comments off

FOSS.vn is an initiative to foster the growth of the developers and users community of freely licensed Open Source Software in Vietnam. We organize developer gatherings and code sprints, present free and Open Source projects at community, government and business events and support developers, translators and designers to join international FOSS projects. We also aim to increase the number of women in the community. Acting director of FOSS Vietnam is Ms. Hong Phuc DANG. Read what she says about Fostering the Vietnamese Free and Open Source Community and Women in IT or check out ideas on ‘How to get contributors for your free/libre/open source project from Vietnam and Asia‘.

fossasia-volunteers in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City

Background

While the number of users of Open Source has increased steadily over the years, participation of Vietnamese FOSS developers is still limited. Community gatherings like GNOME.Asia and FOSSASIA in Saigon (HCMC) as well as FOSS business programs like FOSS Bridge have disclosed the big potential and abilities of many Vietnamese developers. So, why are not there more programmers taking part in international projects? Our research unfolded that there are reasons related to cultural and language challenges of potential developers. In fact many would like to contribute to free and open source development. Knowledge about “how to participate”, “norms” and “communication channels” is spreading. However, compared to contributors in other regions of the world potential contributors in Vietnam often only have limited chances to meet existing project contributors and get first-hand information and access. FOSS Vietnam therefore aims to support the exchange with the international community and support contributors to join or set up free and open source projects.

Goals

The goal of FOSS.vn is to support contributors to join international projects as well as to help the increasing number of local projects to attract international developers.

Mentor program

In the mentor program experienced Asian developers support new contributors to FOSS projects.

Event Participation

Members of FOSS Vietnam participate in international and regional events.

Event Support

The FOSS.vn team is supporting the FOSS community with a special FOSS.vn box. A number of resources including banners, flyers, books, posters and stickers are put together in the box, which members can use at events to promote the development of free and Open Source Software at events. We will send the box to members who would like to set up info stands. Secondly we support developers to go to events and assist in acquiring funding to connect the local community as well as the international community.

FOSSASIA Annual Conference

FOSS.vn co-organizes the annual FOSSASIA conference at the beginning of November every year. In 2010 the event will take place in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) from Nov. 12-14.