The First Annual O'Reilly European Open Source Convention Supports FLOSS Momentum in Europe

Sebastopol, CA--Europe has become fertile ground for open source projects and innovators: European governments are beginning to integrate FLOSS (free/libre and open source software) in innovative ways, and open source communities--particularly on the professional level--are multiplying and gaining influence across the continent. To support and further this open source momentum, O'Reilly Media held its first O'Reilly European Open Source Convention (EuroOSCON) at the Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam on October 17-20, 2005.

Nearly 500 developers, programmers, hackers, and systems and network administrators attended tutorials, sessions, on-stage discussions, informal events, and hallway conversations focusing on almost every aspects of the open source platform. Mature technologies were explored alongside newer and less developed tools, allowing attendees to take in the full range of open source's capabilities.

Like OSCON, its US counterpart, EuroOSCON brought together diverse people, projects, and communities. Delegates heard from leaders, experts, and alpha geeks leading the open source charge throughout Europe and the world, including:  Simon Phipps, Sun; Alan Cox and Michael Tiemann, Red Hat; Jason Matusow, Microsoft; Damian Conway, Monash University; Larry Wall, Perl guru; David Heinemeier-Hansson, Less Software; Cory Doctorow, EFF; Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media; Chet Kapoor, IBM; Jeff Waugh, Canonical; Paul Everitt, Zope Europe; Paula LeDieu, Creative Commons International; Marcel den Hartog, Computer Associates; Luis Casas Luengo, Extremadura; Rasmus Lerdorf, Yahoo!; Alex Martelli, Google; Autrijus Tang, open source advocate; David Axmark, MySQL AB; Ben Laurie, Apache Software Foundation; Danese Cooper, Intel; and Karoly Negyesi, Drupal.

Announcements made during EuroOSCON include:

-Microsoft announced three templates for licenses for Shared code:  Microsoft Permissive License, based on the BSD license; Microsoft  Community License, based on the Mozilla model; and Microsoft Reference  License.

-Alfresco, Inc. announced a partnership with Siennax to offer a trusted,  hosted service for Enterprise Content Management (ECM); Alfresco also  announced the release of the Dutch Language Pack.

O'Reilly Media's MAKE magazine made a big international impression at the conference, hosting a packed evening reception that featured hands-on demonstrations from makers.  EuroOSCON also offered an exhibit hall filled with exciting, cutting edge products. Sponsors include Computer Associates, IBM, Microsoft, ActiveState, Alfresco, Intel, Linagora, MySQL AB, Oracle, Red Hat, Sleepycat Software, SpikeSource, and Zimbra.

Widespread adoption by European governments and organizations has signaled strong support for FLOSS technologies and has put that part of the world squarely in a leadership position in the open source space. The O'Reilly European Open Source Convention will be back next year to continue to support the open source cause in an international forum.

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 conferences include: the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference; ETech, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference; the MySQL Users Conference, co-presented with MySQL AB; Where 2.0 Conference; OSCON; and Web 2.0 (co-hosted by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, and co-produced with MediaLive International).

Additional Information:

For complete details, visit: http://conferences.oreilly.com/eurooscon

News articles, blogs, and photos (available for use with attribution) can be viewed at: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/eurooscon/coverage/

For speaker presentation slides, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/41/presentations.html