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"Open and Connected" at the 2006 O'Reilly European Open Source Convention

Press release: June 7, 2006

Sebastopol, CA--EuroOSCON, the O'Reilly European Open Source Convention, has unveiled the preliminary schedule for its second annual event. With free and open source software use on the rise all across the continent, EuroOSCON creates a place for developers, sys admins, entrepreneurs, and business people working in free and open source software to come together and delve into critical issues across the spectrum of open source technologies. Registration has just opened for EuroOSCON, which takes place in Brussels September 18-21; early discount pricing is in effect until August 7.

EuroOSCON 2006 includes all the coding and practical sessions of a skills-oriented conference, but also takes "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.

"A major change is taking place in our lives, whether we like it or not," observe EuroOSCON co-chairs Nikolaj Nyholm and Nathan Torkington. "The Internet makes it easy for people and applications to communicate, and new political, legal, technological, and cultural systems are emerging that harness this potential for open communication. Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) shows us that these emerging systems will be hugely disruptive to the status quo, will create opportunities for entrepreneurs, and will be enormous fun for those doing the disrupting. We've broadened EuroOSCON's scope to include revolutionary tools and thoughts that will power the next decade."

This year's EuroOSCON examines the technology, business, politics, and social dimensions of open source, open culture, open APIs, open innovation and all that's built on top of them. Torkington and Nyholm have put together four very full days, loosely coupled around these thought-provoking topics:

  • Open Source: The latest in user-created software, looking at governance, licenses, patents, and social aspects
  • Media: How the next wave of media consumption play out as rules of broadcast are finally broken
  • Mobile: Mobility finally pushes data beyond the paradigm of the desktop--mobile computing goes from data consumption to creation
  • Browser/Web: Since the launch of gmail, web apps have become real alternatives to the desktop apps of yore, finally paving the way for the web platform
  • Deployment: As we enter an age of continuous software updates, operations become a competency and central to any application
  • Services: Best practices for delivering and integrating web APIs
  • Open Culture: Fueling the commons that benefit business, individual, and community
  • Open Business: What and who will drive future growth and innovation in Europe around open source and open models
  • Open Society: Applying the continuous user-driven innovation to government, and ensuring laws support these new models
  • Cybernetics: Logic and interfaces to get the most from the users of an application
  • EuroOSCON brings together a particularly thought-provoking set of innovators, creators, and leaders from across Europe and around the world. Some of the participants scheduled to speak about best practices, strategic issues, and coming changes include:

  • Charles Lamb, Oracle, " Developing Berkeley DB Java Edition"
  • Author Tor Norretranders, "Dare, Care, and Share"
  • Marten Mickos, MySQL AB
  • Jeffrey Nolan, SAP
  • Gary Lang, Autodesk
  • 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"
  • Greg Stein, Google
  • Expert entrepreneur Marc Hedlund, "Start-ups 2.0"
  • Florian Mueller, No Software Patents, "EU Software Patents Reloaded"
  • 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"
  • Paula Le Dieu, Creative Commons International, "Open Archives, Open Culture"
  • Ranga Rangachari, GroundWork Open Source, "Channeling Open Source in Europe"
  • Walter Harms, "How OSS Changes a Government Department"
  • The second annual EuroOSCON is where technologists meet business people, where hallway conversations connect community activists, politicians, developers, and managers, where the people building the future meet the people taking it to the mainstream.

    Additional Resources:

    Other Upcoming O'Reilly Conferences:

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