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Announcements GNU is Not Unix

Free & OpenSource Software Weekend 98

Posted by michael from the what-else-were-you-doing-anyway dept.
FOSDEM Team writes "This week-end, the fourth edition of the FOSDEM (Free and Opensource Software Developers' European Meeting) is taking place in Brussels, Belgium. Once more, famous speakers will be present for this 2 days event to talk in the different tracks presented (Linux Kernel, Accessibility, Desktop, Java, Scripting languages and Security); on Saturday evening, the FS Award ceremony will be conducted by Richard Stallman. This year, the introduction talk will be made by Tim O'Reilly and the end talk by Jon Maddog Hall. Don't miss the interviews made by the FOSDEM guys : Hans Reiser, Ian Formanek, Keith Packard, Tim O'Reilly, Robert Love and many others."
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Free & OpenSource Software Weekend More

Free & OpenSource Software Weekend

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  • But.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by flewp ( 458359 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:29PM (#8345290)
    Is the meeting free? Is it free as in free beer? Or more importantly, IS THERE FREE BEER?!
    • Admission is free. Beer, probably not.

    • Re:But.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @08:12PM (#8345650)
      If you go there, and you like beer, I can recommend l'atelier, a nearby bar with more than 200 (300?) beers, most of them belgian.. It's very cosy, too! Can be found at Rue Elise nr 77, 1050 brussels. At maporama [maporama.com] you can locate it. It's not free, though :).

    • Re:But.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RiverTonic ( 668897 )
      I hope so, and if not, you can go to Leuven. That's the city where interbrew brews Stella Artois. If you take the guided tour in their museum, you'll get to beers for free.

      • Re:But.... (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by Mr2cents ( 323101 )
        You can get free beer at every brewery in Belgium! I have friends who go to Duvel every year to take the tour and "taste" the beer (a whole bunch of them, they rent a bus)! If you want to introduce foreigners to belgian beers, Stella is a bad start, IMHO. I recommend Leffe, Bush (bad name, great bear), Chimay, Queue de charue (give or take a spelling error),... Stella is just another pils!
    • Yeah.. "Free as in Freedom"

  • Missing personailties (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:29PM (#8345295)
    Don't miss the interviews made by the FOSDEM guys : Hans Reiser, Ian Formanek, Keith Packard, Tim O'Reilly, Robert Love and many others.

    Darl McBride? Blake Stowell, Ralph Yarro?

    They too are part of the Linux movement, in their own weird sort of way. I mean, think about it : aren't these people at least in part responsible for uniting the free software world behind Linux, and provide a much needed distraction from the traditional boring ole Microsoft hatred?
    • Darl McBride? Blake Stowell, Ralph Yarro?

      They too are part of the Linux movement, in their own weird sort of way.

      Certainly. Unfortunately, the "SCO Developers' Room" sign appears to have ended up posted on the toilet doors. (Sorry, I don't have pictures.) I wonder how that could have happened.

  • Free Software is so mainstream (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:32PM (#8345319) Homepage Journal
    The Free Software movement has gotten so large and so mainstream that I would think that conferences like this that highlight the 'separateness' of Free Software would eventually wither away. As more businesses pick up Free Software, the movement would become more prominent at true software conferences that cover the entire industry.

    Free Software is not a product, but its products are products. Apache, Linux, Perl, these are all products and have a place to stand among commercial products like IIS, Windows, and Visual Studio.Net. Free Software, OTOH, only describes a group of software that really has nothing in common with each other except that they share a common license.

    I would rather see the Apache booth at COMDEX and SD than at FOSDEM. The earlier we can throw the yoke of 'Free Software' from our backs, the earlier Free Software will fulfill its mission.

    • Re:Free Software is so mainstream (Score:4, Informative)

      by homeobocks ( 744469 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:35PM (#8345346)
      I don't think it's really gone mainstream on the desktop. On the server, it really is, but few normal people even know what free software is! BTW, Apache isn't a product, it is a project. You're probably thinking of the Apache HTTP server (abstract concept) or the Apache HTTP daemon (the program.

    • Re:Free Software is so mainstream (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:42PM (#8345416) Homepage Journal
      I've heard a rather convincing argument that the successes of Free Software have been where it is best able to conform to business mentality and shed that which people tend to misinterpret as 'elitism'. Companies get confused when they see a license that says they must share, and many no doubt have misconceptions about the degree of sharing that must occur (will employee files end up on the net?)

      To truly compete, perhaps it should arrive in binary-only form in 'commercial' style packing material, and mention the option for interested users to download the source in some obscure portion of the manual. Otherwise it's just too strange a concept to get a handle on for the average person (manager/boss) whose computing experience has been shaped by commercial software and practices.

      • Right now, yes, it is a foreign concept for many people.

        As the popularity of OSS continues to grow however, this will change.

        I predict that in ten years companies will be like "We don't have access to the source code? How will we know if it's secure?"

    • Re:Free Software is so mainstream (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lowieken ( 522530 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:49PM (#8345471) Homepage
      What would you say if you saw the WordPerfect and MS Office teams get together to think about how to implement a feature in their programs? Fosdem is really much closer to that kind of activity than to a trade show. This is a "Free and Open Source Developer Meeting". That means it's targeted at _developers_. Maybe similar events don't exist in the proprietary software world? Or are they just less visible and accessible?
    • The Free Software movement has gotten so large and so mainstream

      Does that mean, if I go, there'll be chicks?!?

      I'm there!!!!!!!!

    • Software freedom still matters. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Friday February 20, 2004 @08:29PM (#8345785) Homepage

      I would rather see the Apache booth at COMDEX and SD than at FOSDEM. The earlier we can throw the yoke of 'Free Software' from our backs, the earlier Free Software will fulfill its mission.

      Software freedom is not something that chains you or in any way enslaves you. It is, as the name says, something that gives you freedom--freedoms you don't get with the other software you named. Even by the metric of mere popularity, Apache has apparently done quite well without booths at COMDEX and the like (Apache is still the most popular web server in use). But Apache is one of the outliers--most free software is not as popular in its field as Apache is in its field. I think we are better served by conveying how non-free software (not "commercial" software) restricts your freedoms to share and modify. There is nothing to gain by conflating the two definitions of "free" (except, perhaps, to point out how other languages don't have the problem English does because other languages separate freedom and price by using two different words). We gain more when we talk about software freedom and insist upon it. Insisting on software freedom has gotten us very far in the past 20 years. You don't gain success in a movement by throwing away the principles that the movement stands for.

  • As you know ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <gustgr@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:35PM (#8345341)
    there are a lot of foreign people who can't be there to watch the presentations, so I would like to know if some speech/talk will be recorded (in video or just the audio maybe) and have it avaliable on the net for those of us who are not in Europe download it and enjoy this meeting too.
    • there are a lot of foreign people who can't be there. . .

      Yeah. Don't you just hate it when the Belgians act like they're the whole world, just because of their size and insularity?

      KFG
      • Well, if the Belgains are acting like they're the whole world, it clearly must be Bush's fault.

        No, wait, Karl Rove. Yeah, that's it, Karl Rove made the Belgians insular.

        Btw, anyone want my 3 crates of Dean for President bumperstickers?

  • A question... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nimloth ( 704789 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:44PM (#8345437)
    Can the Win2k SP1 developpers attend this year?

  • New NetBeans Release (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WilsonSD ( 159419 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @07:52PM (#8345510) Homepage
    Everyone should check out the newest beta release of NetBeans [netbeans.org] (as mentioned in the interview with Ian Formanek). It really shows how nice a rich Java application can be.


    -Steve

  • I attended the very first FOSDEM (Score:5, Funny)

    by crimestopper ( 754997 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @08:01PM (#8345579)
    it was called OSDEM back then, and RMS was there telling audience people off because they said "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux" when asking questions.

    During his session he was talking about emulators for some reason and he said "Emulators like WINE" I yelled "Wine Is Not An Emulator!"

    serves him right!
  • Ok, so to do my part, I'll boot to my Slackware partition (instead of XP) and run that all weekend :)

    But seriously, weird "holiday" but enjoy it :)

  • Hope to meet a lot of you guys (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20, 2004 @08:45PM (#8345931)
    I'm gonna be there, and hope it's gonna be an awsome week end. Belgians are not used to see a huge event taking place in our country, but we hope you'll feel at home. And about beer, I'm right now having one of ours... Anyone from abroad should try a "Biere Speciale" and don't hesitate to ask wich one (there are hundreds of different ones, not bad for a ten million citizen country ;-) ). There's a place to check in case you'd like to discover this side of belgian culture close to the site. It's called "L'Atelier" ask any Bruxellois where it's at, they'll know ;-).
    Have a nice FOSDEM.
    • not bad for a ten million citizen country

      Are you serious? Belgian's population is only 10 million people. I dont have time to google it, but if your right is that even considered a country? I'm not trolling or anything,and perhaps my views are distorted from living in the U.S. my whole life, but New York City has 9 million people and thats not even the whole state. I don't mean to insult your country but how spread out is everything? Does every person have like an ton of land?
      Regards,
      Steve
      • I may live in a small country(Belgium), but I like it rather small and pretty, then big and crap. Greetz
      • my views are distorted
        Well, I agree can only agree with you. FYI, Belgium's population is about a third of Canada's! And it has the second highest population density in Europe (after the Netherlands) of 333 p/km^2. (US has 28 p/km^2).
      • What, you think Belgium is small? How about Andorra (~67.000 inhabitants), Liechtenstein (~32.000) or San Marino (~27.000)? Even Iceland has a population of less than half a million.

        Oh, and the Vatican is a state of its own, too - with less then 1000 people on a whopping 3.2 square kilometers. It probably also has the lowest birth rate of all countries.

  • openMosix Summit at FOSDEM (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The openMosix community is organizing its own meeting at FOSDEM 2004. http://www.fosdem.org/2004/index/dev_room_mosix

  • Freenet's Matthew Toseland (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @08:50PM (#8345979) Homepage Journal
    Be sure to say "hi" to Freenet's Matthew Toseland, recently [slashdot.org] featured in a ./ article as Freenet's only (grossly under-)paid developer.

    To those who might be concerned that Free Software is a North American thing, be assured that Europeans are taking a leading role.

  • ...he's doing a presentation on Ruby [ruby-lang.org].

    The slide images alone should be worth attending... he's hunted far and wide for images of pythons, pearls, rubies, and such-like.

  • Java as a track? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Didn't they get the ESR memo that Java isn't popular in open source projects?
  • When I first read this headline I thought it said "Free & OpenSource Software Weakened," as if one of the GPL court cases had gone sour or something...
  • The MirBSD project is here with _all_ of their
    developers and giving out CDs for a small donation;
    the height is up to you.
    We're also available for talks and short interviews
    on German or English about the project. No FAQs
    please tho, we've written them on the website ;-)

    The FreeBSD project is selling CDs for 1 Euro (or
    more; up to the customer) and giving demonstration
    and insight into two books.

    The OpenBSD people are using subliminal tricks
    (ie, chicks and T-Shirts) to show their project
    off to the public again

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