In 2001, Chitnis, along with a group of like-minded friends, was a key organizer of the Linux Bangalore series of FOSS community driven conferences. Now known as FOSS.IN, the conference has become one of Asia's largest annual FOSS events. He also served as a faculty member at the National Resource Centre For Free/Open Source Software.

He stopped writing ever since he was diagnosed with cancer in August 2012 and chemotherapy sessions had weakened him. However he started writing again only a few weeks ago, “Nothing excited him like a new piece of tech. One of his last acquisitions, his MacBook Air 11, a gift from friends and family, got him kick-started into writing again – in between chemo sessions. He was all set to get back to serious writing,” said Prashanto K Roy from NDTV Gadgets.

A Pink Floyd fan, his last tweet on June 1, "Morning prayer: Pink Floyd's Shine on You Crazy Diamond :) Complete with my cousin's cat in Berlin," will be frozen in time for ever.

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