Brightest Minds and Big Ideas in Open Source Converge at the Ninth Annual OSCON
Written by O'reilly Media
Thursday, 09 August 2007
Sebastopol, CA, August 5, 2007—The O'Reilly Open Source Convention
(OSCON), held July 23-27 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland,
Oregon brought together over 3,000 industry luminaries, developers,
hackers, and business people to advance the discussion and share
information surrounding open source computing.
The conference covered every area of the open source arena: Administration, Business, Databases, Emerging Topics, Java, Linux, People, Perl, PHP, Programming, Python, Ruby, Security, and Web Applications. A "united nations" of computing languages, attendees at OSCON were not only speaking in multiple technical languages, they were finding unique solutions to integrating tools seamlessly.
The first two days of the conference were devoted to tutorials on topics such as Taming Legacy Perl, Programming for OLPC, and Scalable Internet Architecture. The content provided at these hands-on tutorials had the halls of the Oregon Convention Center buzzing with information even before the official opening of the conference. The program was packed; attendees could choose from a staggering 80+ topics per day. Attendees took a deep breath and dove into the sessions providing a higher level of participation than in previous years. The seating areas were overflowing with discussions lasting long after sessions were finished. The speakers were both knowledgeable and well prepared and covered in-depth topics such as:
-"Mozilla Firefox and the Internet as an Open Platform," Mitchell Baker,
Mozilla Corporation
-"MySQL Internals and Kernel Developments," Michael (Monty) Widenius,
MySQL AB
-"Adventures in Copyright Reform," Karl Fogel, QuestionCopyright.org -"PHP Security: Fact and Fiction," Andi Gutmans, Zend Technologies, Inc. -"Prototype and Object prototype: JavaScript Power Tools," Amy Hoy, Lime
Wire, LLC
-"The LLVM Compiler System," Chris Lattner, Apple Inc.
-"Toward True Open Hardware," Timothy Miller, Open Graphics Project
-"OpenJDK: The First Eight Months," Mark Reinhold, Sun Microsystems -"Next Generation Version Control Systems," Sam Vilain, Catalyst IT (NZ) Ltd
As for keynote presentations, the roster was a veritable industry "who's who" ranging from Simon Peyton-Jones, Jimmy Wales, Tim O'Reilly, and Mark Shuttleworth. The keynote presenters covered every area of the open source debate and wrapped up by fielding audience questions. For more information and videos of their presentations, see the link below.
OSCON was also the location for the O'Reilly Radar Executive Briefing. This high level event was hosted by Tim O'Reilly and included industry leaders, visionaries, and pundits alike. Joining the full day discussion on the future of open source computing were Eben Moglen, Cory Doctorow, Karl Fogel, Christy Canida, Mike Shaver, and Matt Asay. The Executive Briefing was as much about conversation as formal presentation and was the spot to be seen and heard while at OSCON.
A key component to any O’Reilly conference is providing attendees an opportunity to network, share ideas, and information. Although there were many conference events running into the evening, a wonderful subculture of social gatherings was experienced at OSCON 2007 with parties and events being hosted by MySQL, Sun Microsystems, Intel, Mozilla, SourceForge, Powell's Technical Books author signing, and a tour of the Free Geek headquarters. At the conference itself, attendees could choose from the following events:
-The sponsor reception gave attendees another opportunity to network while enjoying
drinks and snacks
-Meet 'n' Geek: a structured mixer to encourage new connections -Hack sessions hosted by Open Solutions Alliance and Google
-OSCamp: an un-conference opportunity for people to discuss technology -Perl Foundation Auction & State of the Onion address featuring Larry Wall -Birds of a Feather sessions (BOFs) allowed any participant to lead an informal
evening gathering
Over the past nine years, OSCON has become the place to launch products, unveil strategies, and otherwise disseminate open source news. Sponsors and exhibitors were able to take advantage of an expo hall packed with attendees. OSCON 2007 sponsors included Intel, Sun Microsystems, Dell, HP, IBM, Mozilla, ActiveState, OSGeo, Google, Ingres, Novell, NYTimes.com, OpSource, Rearden Commerce, SnapLogic, Thoughtworks, and Ticketmaster. The O'Reilly OSCON Passport program encouraged participants to visit each and every booth, and resulted in hundreds of contestants vying for various prizes including the grand prize a R207i server provided by Silicon Mechanics.
Of the sponsors and exhibitors at the conference, a significant number took advantage of the opportunity to make announcements while at OSCON. Those included:
-Kysoh announced "Beta of Gadgets Manager Transforming Tux Droid in a
Real Smart Companion"
-ActiveState announced "Komodo IDE Demonstrates Advanced Code
Management and Development Capabilities"
-SpikeSource announced they will "Certify Open Source Applications on
Windows"
-Intel announced an "Open Source Project for Its Popular Multi-Core Development
Software"
-Ingres announced "Ingres Joins the Eclipse Foundation" -Silicon Mechanics launched "New Blade Server Platform" -Once:technologies announced "Once:technologies Contributes World's First
Browser-Based Web 2.0 Platform to the Open Source"
-Jive Software announced "Launches Innovative Developer Community for Clearspace" -O'Reilly introduced "beautifulcode at oreillynet.com" -Prentice Hall and SourceForge announced "New SourceForge Community
Press to Offer Definitive Information on Popular Open Source Projects" -Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall/SAMS launched "New Ubuntu, AJAX, and
Ruby Books at OSCON"
-SnapLogic announced "Service-Enabled Applications Demonstrate Power
& Flexibility"
OSCON was also the place to acknowledge members of the technical community. There were four separate award events. The Google-O'Reilly Open Source awards honored the following industry contributors:
-Karl Fogel, Best Community Builder
-Pamela Jones, Best FUD Fighter
-Aaron Leventhal, Best Accessibility Architect
-David Recordon, Best Strategist
-Paul Vixie, Outstanding Lifetime Contributions
The Python Foundation gave the Frank Willison Award to Steve Holden, author of Python Web Programming. The Perl organization gave special White Camel awards to Allison Randal, Tim O'Reilly, and Norbert E. Gruner. Lastly, SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards were held at the nearby Jupiter Hotel.
>From sessions to hallway debates, OSCON 2007 was the place to be in the
>open source community. The momentum of this year's conference will
>continue into the program for next year. Program co-chair Allison
>Randal is anticipating another stellar gathering for 2008: "As open
>source moves into the mainstream, every year brings a dazzling array of
>new developments in technology, techniques and tools, business
>strategy, and the ways open source integrates with our lives. I'm
>looking forward to the year ahead in open source, and to hosting the
>most exciting innovations at OSCON 2008."
OSCON 2008 will take place July 21-25 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. The call for papers will take place in the January timeframe, and registration is expected to open in April.
Additional Resources:
For complete OSCON 2007 details, visit: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2007/
For a complete list of speakers and session topics, visit:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/58/speakers.html
To review the speaker presentations and video visit: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/58/presentations.html
Read the OSCON blog for the news and photos (available for use with attribution): http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/58/news.html
For information about exhibiting or sponsoring at OSCON 2008 contact Sharon Cordesse at (707) 827-7065 or
For a complete list of OSCON 2007 exhibitors and sponsors visit: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/58/exhibitors.html
If you would like to form a media partnership with O'Reilly for an upcoming event, contact Avila Reese at (707) 827-7116 or
To read the O’Reilly Radar, visit:
http://radar.oreilly.com/
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
O'Reilly conferences bring together forward-thinking business and technology leaders, shaping ideas and influencing industries around the globe. For over 25 years, O'Reilly has facilitated the adoption of new and important technologies by the enterprise, putting emerging technologies on the map.
O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Other products mentioned may be trademarks of their respective companies.
Mobile Technology Feature - Top 10 Business Apps for Android - Android has become one of the most popular mobile operating systems
in the world due to advanced software, competitive manufacturers, and an
app market that is filled with exciting and useful applications. Read
on for this fine Top 10 List compiled by tech writer, Blake Sanders
The Really Big List of Mapping, Geo location Mobile developer resources, APIs and Tools - The Mobile Ecosystem... no question that mobile is huge and
the opportunity for developers, in particular, geo developers! There's
loads of developer resources on the web so to help the developer,
here's a listing of just some of the fine dev resources, blogs,
toolsets and more to consider when developing or porting your app to a
smartphone or Tablet.
ArcGIS.com Mashup Tutorial with Flickr and Foursquare data-
Here's a simple "how to" tutorial on working with the free ArcGIS.com
to easily import KML or RSS data from Flickr and foursquare into ArcGIS
to create your own custom map mashup. ArcGIS.com has some recent
updates including support for KML, be sure to check it out!
Most Users of Free Photo Apps Say Adding Cool Effects is Most Useful - Adding cool effects
to photos was rated as the most useful thing by more than halfof
consumers surveyed using free online photography services, according to
CatchFree a free
online service that helps people find the best free mobile and web applications
to perform useful tasks.
Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet Up Close - No Replacement for the iPad But Pretty Darned Sweet - As could be
expected, speculation and blogging is rampant with many stories and
pseudo "reviews" coming out, many of them touting the next "iPad
killer".
Mobile Developer Resource - MapQuest & The Mobile Worker - Facility management companies, surveyors, multi-level marketing,
insurance claims, pipeline companies, water utilities; all have field
workers who would benefit from mobile applications. Not only checking in
to work sites, but keeping a record of the work done
Flickr GPS Photo Tag Tip - Here's a tip for Flickr users who want to share their GPS information
with their photos. note, in order to do this you'll need to be
capturing photos using a GPS-enabled or GPS-aware camera (see you're
smartphone hardware settings to ensure that GPS or location sharing is
turned "ON)".
Mobile data usage in Canada to triple between 2010 and 2012 - Some interesting, yet not terribly surprising, numbers on mobile
usage coming out of Canada. According to a report summarized on
Techvibes, mobile usage is soaring, in particular, the smartphone
segment
Social Location Directory
Do you have a location-aware application, social location service or other location-sensitive service that you'd like to share with us? Please browse this growing directory of Social location Services and feel free to leave a link to your favorite service! See the Directory HERE
Suggested Reading
The Underground Guide To The iPhone:
The iPhone is – if I may say so – one of the greatest mobile
revolutions of the past decade. More and more, mobile phones seem to
materialize out of our wildest dreams. Because of the tight integration
of third-party applications, you can do nearly everything with your
device — be it gaming, working, fooling around, and of course phoning.
Good Mobile Messaging: Executives and professional field forces spend an increasing amount of time on the road tending to business.
Mobile Apps - Native or Web?:
You probably have a plan to build a mobile app, but you've struggled
with the basic question - Should I build it using open web standards
such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, or should I build it as a native app
for the devices I want to target?
iBike Coach App- a new “Always On” feature always gathers data
Nike+ GPS App- for sports tracking, recording and sharing
Featured Events
Content & Apps for Automotive Europe 2012 (18-19 April, Germany)
will give you key insights on how in-vehicle connectivity is being
revolutionised as OEMs integrate dynamic content to stay relevant
throughout the vehicle life cycle.
Location Intelligence for Enterprise - Europe 2012, January 16-17, London Hear from Google, Jones Lang LaSalle, Tesco, Willis, Oracle,
ESRI, Microsoft, PBBI and many more as they debate the best strategies
for business models and integration.
Consumer Telematics Show 2012 (Jan 9, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, USA) is the most prestigious and
dynamic consumer telematics focused meeting for the automotive industry.
Held in Las Vegas on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES),
this year's senior-level speakers will include General Motors, Audi,
Toyota, Panasonic, Continental, Hughes Telematics, Gartner, KIA,
Mercedes-Benz and many more
Esri Dev Summit - The
Esri Developer Summit (DevSummit) brings together developers and GIS
professionals from all over the globe. March 26-29, 2012, Palm Springs,
CA
