I was restraining myself from posting about this..but I guess I am doing the right stuff..
This is about the Free Software Quiz conducted by CUSAT during the Free Software Conference they are having over the weekend.The entire event is pretty large and well organized, with lots of dignitaries and loots of politicians pouring in...there is a good exhibition as well...featuring lots of stalls by companies,organizations,colleges etc for promoting free software related work...though I must mention my inability to understand how some of those stalls are even remotely connected software(free/proprietary).
The Quiz in itself is something to be mentioned.We were invited many times..lots of papers were circulated,we were even asked in person to register.So me and my friend Cijo, left the stall duties our juniors and came early for the prelims at abt 9..which finally began at 10.30 in a hall filled with only school students !!Later some college students also poured in..and the question papers were given.We were awaiting a standard type quiz on open source and free software movement,personalities,licenses,projects etc...but it turned out to be what I call 'Free' Software Quiz.It was like some school level paper on computers..definitely hard for the kids..but I finished it in 5 minutes,though not answering all questions correctly as they were very specific into technical details,nothing on the line of the entire Free Software Movement as a whole.We weren't allowed to leave the hall until about 25 minutes passed :(.Results were to be announced at abt 1.30 with finals at 2.
After leaving the hall..we were sure to get in..coz it was really a crappy paper.We went onto our jobs with stalls..until afternoon and finally at there Open Air Auditorium..the results were announced after some waiting.We were in first.Total 5 teams from junior and senior sections respectively were chosen.One junior team was from my school as well(10th std).
What followed later on in the name of Free Software Quiz was the biggest flop quiz I have ever seen...off the topic...too complicated and into internal details of specific linux flavours...asking unrelated questions on some god-knows-what technology and many more on exact dates and years!!! In addition to all this...they repeated many questions which were answered earlier by either participants or the crowd(still some didnt answer those..wonder why).The quizmasters themselves having no idea on the topic relied on a guy called the 'judge'.. another fellow who wanted answers by the way it was written down!
After the juniors' quiz came ours...almost on the same lines..asking unknown details of unknown stuff...RNDC,how many mails can be sent by qmail(wtf)..and asking abt configuration files that exists in fedora only and not in other flavours like the common Debian(anyway the entire quiz was off track from being a free software related one to one which was half cooked and some tech stuff added to maybe increase difficulty just for the sake of it)..and again asking questions asked to and answered by junior teams over and over and even mixing tough ones with very simple ones like GNU's full form..blah
We had discussed two things before coming stage..one abt Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu fame and about the year Linux came out( I said '91,Cijo corrected me as '92).The first question was asked and I got it correct after it was passed by other teams.The second one was asked in a rapid fire round at last ...where I said '92 and ans turned out to be '91.:D The team from MES got away with first prize as they ans one question more than us(they were at tie before that) which was full form of GNU!!! Can u believe it..I can't ..this could be the crappiest quiz I have ever participated or even seen in my life..that too conducted by BTech students of CUSAT...to say the truth..I feel sorry for those guys..so I didn't criticize them there...and the prize didn't involve any money..so its all the same for us.. :D
Anyway it was a funny incident ...we r still trying to put the blame on each other for not winning this crappy quiz...
Site for the conference
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