Welcome to FOSS United’s August newsletter!

Last month, the country marked a major student-led movement for accountability and transparency. Instead of dialogue, it was met with internet shutdowns, censorship, surveillance and police brutality. In a few days, the country will gear up to celebrate 79 years of independence, of sovereignty, of rights and dignity. Good time to sit back and ask ourselves what freedom means in practice? Is it something granted from above and withdrawn when inconvenient, or something built into the architecture so that no one can?

Systems work better when they’re transparent; power works better when it’s distributed, and commons deteriorate when no maintainers step up. What we build, builds us.

Highlights

IndiaFOSS 2026 is close enough to touch

CfP reviews almost done, sponsorship slots almost full, and lunch menu almost finalised. With a little less than two months to go, here’s what’s on the table

Diversity scholarships close on August 7th, apply now!
The party starts early this year, with IndiaFOSS pre-events! Get your community together and join in the annual celebrations of the digital commons. Propose a Pre-event!
And finally, if you’ve been putting off getting tickets, now is the time; be there or be square.

Get your tickets! →

Learn a thing or 2 @TechxPolicy

Applications are now open for

Sept–Nov 2026 cohort of the GCPP Tech-Policy course at Takshashila. As well as
Nov-Dec 2026 Virtual edition of the Policy in Action Program offered by YLAC.

We are offering scholarships to community members who want to pursue either of these programs. Continuing FOSS United’s push to get more technologists into the policy room instead of just reading about it afterwards.

Indian Academia’s Subscription Trap

How much do public universities in India spend on software? What do they spend on? We are mapping the software dependencies of Indian Academia! One RTI at a time.

Introducing Licence to Learn. So far we’ve mapped NITs, IIMs, IIITs and AIIMS, and are still in the process of compiling a lot of this information. The website is still a work in progress, but GO CHECK IT OUT!

A dedicated newsletter for students? made by students? Say no more.
Check out the brand new Students Edition. Go subscribe

Community

Events

In-person Open Community Call – Maintainers Program | Aug 3
In-person FOSS Meetup, KEC Katihar | Aug 3
In-person Linux Diary 7.0, Sangli, Maharashtra | Aug 8–9
In-person FOSS Meetup Bhagalpur, IIIT Bhagalpur | Aug 8
Virtual Against Tech Hype | August 6-7
Virtual CC 201: Finding & Reusing CC-Licensed Works | August 13
Open Call Processing Community Day 2026

Grants and opportunities

Beyond the Net Grant Program | October 1
Sustainable Peering Infrastructure Grant Program | Invite only
GECKO/fund | Rolling Basis
Open Source Endowment | Rolling Basis
FOSS United Grants | Rolling Basis
FLOSS/fund | Rolling Basis

News

Projects

Want to showcase your project? Post it on the forum, and we’ll include it in our next edition!

Housekeeping @FOSS United

Forklore

Here’s who joined the lore last month, projects worth bookmarking, and the maintainers behind them worth knowing:

Anand Bagmar, maintainer of Teswiz
Shree Harsha, with GoPie

Also, a quick recap of Maintainer May, can’t believe it has already been 2 months :’)

Monthly Tech Report

Check out FOSS United Platform’s Monthly Tech Report for July 2026 .

Grant updates

Head to the FOSS United website and read why and how we are supporting Aravinda V K and Lakshmipathi G.
Check out the updates from FU’s Grants program. Follow the bi-weekly thread.