Atul Chitnis

Atul Chitnis (20 February 1962 – 3 June 2013) was an Indo-German consulting technologist. He was one of the organizers of FOSS.IN^[1] (formerly Linux Bangalore), which was one of Asia's free and open source software (FOSS) conferences.

Atul Chitnis
Born	(1962-02-20)20 February 1962 Berlin, Germany
Died	3 June 2013(2013-06-03) (aged 51)
Nationality	German
Citizenship	Indian
Occupation(s)	Consulting, writer, Public Speaker
Known for	FOSS.IN
Spouse	Shubha
Children	Geetanjali
Website	atulchitnis.net

Career

In 1989, Chitnis set up a Bulletin Board System (BBS) called CiX^[2] which provided an entry point for many users to online communities.^[3][4] He was the author of a PCQuest magazine column – COMversations.^{[citation needed]} Chitnis gave talks on data communication in Indian industry, the Internet and intranets.^{[citation needed]} As a Consulting Editor for PCQuest,^[5] he worked on the PCQuest Linux Initiative.

Working as a volunteer in the FOSS community such as the Bangalore Linux User Group, and through seminars and articles, he encouraged use of FOSS technologies. Chitnis was one of the organizers of the Linux Bangalore series of FOSS community driven conferences. FOSS.IN is said to have been one of Asia's largest annual FOSS events.^[6][7] Atul also served as one of the members of the faculty committee at the National Resource Centre For Free/Open Source Software.^[8] He often spoke at various fora on FOSS technology and adoption. ^{[citation needed]}

Death

Atul Chitnis was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in August 2012.^[9] He died on 3 June 2013.^[10][11][12]