Please give a brief introduction of yourself?

I am Software engineer by profession and a Free Software advocate.Presently, working as project coordinator of GNUKhata(http://gnukhata.gnulinux.in) and also helps professional colleges to switch to GNU/Linux.

Conducted various workshops for professionals as well as visually challenged people.More than 2 years of experience with Python and proficient with PYGTK and glade.


What are your contributions to FOSS projects ?

My career started with True Vision in which I helped the visually challenged people to learn openoffice along with Krishnakant Mane who lead this project.Also worked on Insight project at Space Mission.Kerala.In that I thought python and Latex to visually challenged people. Then i conducted various workshops in professional colleges along with my team ‘FOSSers Valley’.

Now at present coordinating the team of programmers for the development of an accounting Software,GNUKhata in which most of the code for core-logic is XMLRPC has been contributed by me.


What will your talk be, exactly ?

I would like to explain participants how to use GNUKhata and deploy it.In this course , i will also show its features along with how it differs from other accounting softwares which may be proprietary or Free.And also show people how to contribute to it for its further development.


What do you hope to accomplish by delivering this talk? What do you expect ?

Now a days people who want to migrate to FOSS got stuck up with an accounting software which suits the Indian market. So by looking at GNUKhata they can easily migrate to FOSS since it is made according to Indian market and can be changed according to their needs.


What prompted you to develop a new accounting package instead of improving the existing ones ?

At present there are no FOSS based accounting software which suits the Indian market and architecturally GNUKhata is totally different from other software. GNUKhata is both Desktop and Web-based application.Besides accounting software are also required to help activites like rural banking and micro-finance.As per the mission of the lead developer behind this project, GNUKhata is aimed to solve this problem right from beginning.So these reasons appealed to me and prompted me to join this project.


What new features can we expect in GNUKhata ?

GNUKhata will soon have a complete web based client and all the future development will happen on the web framework.Besides GNUKhata is right now depending on Postgresql but in the coming month we will have a database independent version of GNUKhata. Based on the user feedback we have made suttle changes to the interface which will make it less complex to use and more userfriendly.


What advice will you give to people moving from other accounting packages to GNUKhata ?

GNUKhata is unique in that it can have a web client and a desktop based front-end at the same time. It works with open standads such as ods and pdf.It is light and scalable and is a dynamic and highly customisable software.


Have you enjoyed previous editions of gnunify ?

No.I am attending gnunify for the first time.