The 2006 O’Reilly European Open Source Convention: Taking “Open” Further
Sebastopol, CA–EuroOSCON, the O’Reilly European Open Source
Convention, wrapped up last month in Brussels, Belgium. The second
edition of EuroOSCON was loosely coupled around the theme of “Open
and Connected,” bringing together just over 500 developers, hackers,
IT managers, sys admins, entrepreneurs, and researchers from around
the globe. Participants spent four energizing days exchanging ideas
on how open source’s architecture of participation and user
contributions provide guideposts for new business models and tools,
how it influences geek culture and beyond, and how it informs and
extends the concept of Web 2.0.
EuroOSCON delved into critical issues across the spectrum of open
source technologies: the business, politics, and social dimensions of
open source, open culture, open APIs, open innovation and all that’s
built on top of them. A particularly thought-provoking set of
innovators, creators, and leaders from across Europe and around the
world spoke about best practices, strategic issues, and coming
changes, including:
-Chris Heathcote, Nokia
-Charles Lamb, Oracle, “Developing Berkeley DB Java Edition”
-Author Tor Norretranders, “Dare, Care, and Share”
-Marten Mickos, MySQL AB, “Culture’s Consequences on Open Source
Communities and Businesses”
-Mark Shuttleworth, “Ubuntu: Improving Collaboration in the Free Software
World”
-Rasmus Lerdorf, Yahoo!/PHP, “Fast and Rich Web Applications with PHP 5”
-Louis Suarez-Potts, OpenOffice.org, “Making It Work: How to Build a
Successful Open Source Project”
-Kathy Sierra, “Building Passionate Users”
-Frank Mantek, Google
-Adrian Holovaty, Django, “Journalism via Computer Programming”
-Florian Mueller, No Software Patents, “EU Software Patents Reloaded”
-Bill Liao, Open Business Club GmbH
-Martin von Haller Groenbaek, Bender von Haller Dragsted, “Open Source
Licensing as Strategic Asset”
-Colin Brumelle, Bryght, “Music 2.0: The Coming Revolution”
-Peter Saint-Andre and Ralph Meijer “Jabber Bootcamp”
-Damian Conway, Thoughtstream, “Seven Principles of Better API Design”
-Ranga Rangachari, GroundWork Open Source, “Channeling Open Source in
Europe”
-Walter Harms, “How OSS Changes a Government Department”
-Scott Dietzen, Zimbra
-Dale Dougherty, Make Magazine, “Make and the Re-emergence of DIY Tech”
-Jim Zemlin, Free Standards Group
EuroOSCON sponsors CodePlex, Google, Port 25, ActiveState, Autodesk,
Booking.com, fotango, Iona, Linagora, and Scalix presented their
cutting edge products and tools in the Sponsor Gallery on day two of
the event. The following day, the Gallery was the site of DotOrg Day,
a showcase for important non-profit and volunteer efforts. The MAKE
Fest–a fun, creative evening event the brought do-it-yourself
projects from the pages of Make Magazine to life–returned for its
second year.
Two announcements were made at EuroOSCON:
-Fotango launched Zimki, a JavaScript application development platform
that enables developers to produce web applications quickly, simply
and with no upfront costs
-GeoPress, a plug-in that makes it easy to embed locations and maps in a
WordPress blog, was released at EuroOSCON
At EuroOSCON 2006, technologists met up with business people, hallway
conversations connected community activists and politicians with
developers, and managers traded predictions about what the future
holds for free and open software. While EuroOSCON included all the
coding and practical sessions of a skills-oriented conference, it
also took “open” further, recognizing that open source is just one
facet of a larger revolution in commercial and social life that can
all be traced back to the inherently open nature of the Internet.
Additional Resources:
For complete information about the 2006 O’Reilly European Open Source
Convention, visit:
http://conferences.oreilly.com/eurooscon/
Check out the EuroOSCON conference blog for the latest news and
photos: http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/eurooscon/
Many speakers shared their presentation files; downloads can be
obtained by visiting:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/48/presentations.html
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September 17-19, 2007 in Berlin, Germany
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