B. Mann Consulting

A little more personal pointer to the people at FOSDEM. It was nice to see O'Reilly as the major sponsor. The bookstore was hot, with people agonizing over just how many dozens of books they should buy. In many ways (as indicated by the full name -- Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting), the attendees are the core audience for O'Reily's books. OSCON, on the other hand, tends to be priced out of reach of the mainly grassroots, non-commercial hacker culture in Europe (aside from being accepted as a speaker).

Some of the usual European suspects were there -- Ralph and Edwin (wow -- Edwin did some Englsh blog posts Day 0/1, Day 2), and I did see Gerv off in the distance although I didn't end up talking to him directly. I also met Christ, who came with Ralph and Edwin (and yes, that name will be funny to native English speakers).

Geo Dan came along to experience the uniquely European hacker experience that is FOSDEM, along with the infamous Ivan with whom I had many great talks about architecture and culture as well as a fantastic dining experience. Andy brought an Amsterdam crew (Gijs, Marco, Nadya) and talked about Flock and I stole the wonderful Nadya's scarf.

FOSDEM 2006 is over. The picture at left was taken by Dries Buytaert, showcasing the fact that this was my first appearance at an event being associated with Jabber. I'd put "officially" somewhere in that last sentence, but I'm not a member of the Jabber Software Foundation (JSF)*, so it's just my name on a presentation. I had a lot of fun co-presenting with Ralph for the second time -- he knows all the technical nitty gritty, and I wave my hands and try and open people's minds as to the current and future potential of XMPP.

Lots of people had heard about Jabber, and I think mine and Ralph's intro presentation on the first day helped hilight the point that I have been trying to make for a while now: that it's time for people to pick up the IETF-blessed XMPP standard and use it for real-time uses other than IM.

The picture at right is from my poking my head into the Jabber developer room on the second day -- every seat was taken and it was standing room only. Ralph by all accounts kept the room quite full, being stuck doing all the presentations as other presenters hadn't been able to make it. The Virtual Presence session (see the LLuna project for more info) became a step more virtual because the presenter wasn't in the room, but that itself became a great example of uses of the technology.

I just joined the Free Software Foundation as an Associate. It's $120/year, or $60/year if you're a full time student. The OSCMS Summit is next Tuesday, and I will be attending FOSDEM.

As well, I've really enjoyed my efforts here in Vancouver, working with organizations like Leading Edge BC to explain and promote open source locally. And, of course, Zak Greant (of many free-and-open connections, as well as now regional director of North America for eZ), who was the direct inspiration for my FSF membership. And ActiveState. And Enfold Systems. Gee...lots of cool, innovative open source stuff going on here in Vancouver! This is a Good Thing™.