JOIN USAtul Chitnis, an advocate of open source software , who spent much of his life in making open source software accessible to everyone, died of cancer on Monday morning. Chitnis was the founder of FOSS.in, one of the largest conferences on free and open software.He was 51 years old. He was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in August 2012.
Chitnis had worked extensively to promote Linux and Free and Open Source Software. He also served as a faculty member at the National Resource Centre For Free/Open Source Software.
After being diagnosed with cancer, Chinis said: “I have been acutely aware of the fact that professionally, things were going to change dramatically for me.While I intend to beat this thing, I also need to consider that a lot of things will change for me – things that I can do, things that I won’t be able to''.
In his twitter account, he described himself as an 'Irrationally committed product guy, FOSS.IN founder, former PCQuest columnist, writer, RadioVeRVe, amateur musician & cook, beating stage 4 cancer'.