TossConf

#opensource #software

My TossConf 2026 Experience

TossConf 2026,it is a tamil free open source software conference,scheduled for 3 days. It was held on 3 days from 23/07/2026 at st.Joseph's Institute of Technology, chennai.

Day 1: Hackathon

On day 1, there was a hackathon. Teams picked a problem from 20 problems and built a solution for it.

I liked two projects:

One team built a tool for a Tamil newspaper called Theekkathir. This tool finds and fixes spelling and spacing mistakes in the newspaper text.

Another team built a mobile app. This app watches your phone activity while you read a book or document. If you start using social media instead, the app stops you and brings your focus back.

Day 2: Workshops

On day 2, there were workshops. I attended two of them.

Frappe Framework — Frappe is a full-stack, low-code Python/JS framework, mainly used to build business applications. This session explained how Frappe is built internally, and how anyone can contribute to its open-source codebase.

The Art of Crafting Software — This session was not about any specific tool or framework. It was about how to write clean, maintainable, and well-designed code. It also covered how employees and organizations should behave. The main idea was simple: always ask yourself "what, why, who, how" before doing any task. People often skip these questions because they seem too basic, but they are actually the reason behind most failures.

Day 3: Talks and Stalls

On day 3, there were two parallel tracks of 45-minute technical talks, along with FOSS project stalls/booths that people could walk around and visit.

I explored two projects:

LibreOffice — This is a free software, like MS Office. You can use it to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It works on all types of computers.

OpenStreetMap — This is a free map, like Google Maps. But anyone in the world can add or edit information on this map.