Hello FOSS Enthusiast!

Welcome to our monthly newsletter from FOSS United! Your journey into the vibrant world of Free and Open Source Software begins here!

We're excited to bring you the freshest updates, news, exciting projects, policy tweaks, and the buzz around our ongoing initiatives.

Highlights from FOSS United:

Wondering what's happening in FOSS United? Here are a few updates from our side:

• FOSSHack 2025 is just days away. Have you registered yet?

  Join us for the 5th edition of India’s largest FOSS Hackathon, find your localhost or participate virtually. (Psss, have questions or need help? Join us for the pre-hackathon sessions, happening 13th and 17th February)

• * Drumrolls* Partnering with FLOSS Fund to Support Open Source Projects

  As an ecosystem partner of FLOSS.Fund, FOSS United is proud to help connect impactful open-source projects with sustainable funding opportunities.

• Electing a Governance Board @FOSSUnited.

  We are now accepting nominations for the FOSS United Governance Board. Submit yours? Read more about why we are doing this.

• Notes from the UN Workshop on Data Commons

  A quick rundown of the workshop, our contributions and more.

• Updates from the FOSS Grants program

  We are supporting Project Segfault and Albony mirror. If you’re an Indian FOSS project looking for funds, please drop us an email at grants[at]fossunited[dot]org, lets talk :)

• Announcing the SpicyIP Tech Innovation Policy Fellowship

  We are supporting SpicyIP in running a one-year program aimed at fostering in-depth analysis of intellectual property laws and policies concerning emerging technologies.

• Cooking a Tech Policy Strategy for 2025

  As we kickstart 2025, here’s a proposed roadmap of how some community members think we drive the Tech-Policy efforts. Read, share your thoughts, volunteer!

From the Telegram Corner:

Projects

    
• Tails: a portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship.
 
• LoxiLB: Flexible & Extensible Cloud-Native Load-Balancer.
 
• Pilet: Opens-ource, Modular, Portable Mini Computer.
 
• API Dash: open-source cross-platform API Client that can help you easily create & customize your API requests.
  
• Ocaml: a general-purpose, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the Caml dialect of ML with object-oriented features.

News and more

• Frappe framework: Empowering innovation in healthcare

• 5 years of Ente

  Ente, a pioneer in private photo storage, celebrates its 5-year milestone!

• DeepSeek AI

  A cheaper AI system that reportedly uses a small fraction of the resources consumed by competing U.S. models upended assumptions about future electricity demand, was announced by Chinese startup DeepSeek.

• MeitY releases Draft for Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025
• Data for India

  Insights, charts and data to create shared knowledge and expand our understanding of India, free to use with attribution.

• The Tor Project is recruiting participants for a study on a new Tor-powered tool

We hope you found this month's updates insightful and exciting. Your active participation and feedback are what make   our community thrive. If you have any questions, or suggestions, or need further information, feel free to reach out   to us at foundation@fossunited.org

We invite you to join our Telegram group. It's a fantastic  way to stay connected with the FOSS United community and be the first to know about our latest initiatives.

Thank you for being an integral part of our journey. Let's keep fostering innovation and collaboration in the FOSS   world.

"May the FOSS be with you"