So there is an Open Source Business Conference happening in a few weeks a few blocks away from me and I just randomly came across the site. After SxSW, reading about OSBC is like being in another world: it’s $1500 to go, only two days long, the language on the site is sickeningly corporate, and I haven’t heard of a single person there. Then again, this is an “open source” conference with Microsoft as a platinum sponsor. A real Open Source conference would have no fees, everything would be web streamed, the line between speakers and attendees would be thin or non-existant, and the topics would not focus so much on money. Actually, it would be a bit like Bloggercon.
“A real Open Source conference would have no fees”
Likely more feasible is that a real open source conference would be revenue-neutral. That actually includes “no fees” as an option, since you could have sponsors from non-profits, for-profits, rich-people, etc. but it would also allow for “by donation” or “small fees to cover expenses”. If sponsored, then it should be sponsored by companies that buy into the open source ideal of taking and giving back in terms of code and licensing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with making money from open source software as long as licenses permit it (and may licenses do permit doing whatever you want with the software so long as the code is redistributed under the same open source license).
So you’re basically saying that the Open Source Business Conference doesn’t look like a real open source conference. Sounds like you have a good case for that, but what would make a good open source *business* conference? I don’t see that there’s necessarily a contradiction there, but a conference that’s about the business of open source (or the business of anything) should probably at some point cover the topic of “so, how do we make money with this?”.
You haven’t heard of Lawrence Lessig or Larry Wall? Looking at the speaker list I see people from many big open source projects like Mozilla, MySQL, and PHP. I do agree about the format though.
Sounds like just the friendly ethics the open-source community needs.
how could Microsoft be a platinum sponsor of ANYTHING open source? It’s not just against the company’s DNA, it’s just BAD PR for the organization as WELL as MS!
Hmmm….Revenue neutral? No fees? I’d probably put OSCON as the premier open source development event, and it charges $1300+. Tim is normally thought of as a “good guy” in the tech world – does the fact that he charges make him somehow less supportive of open source? I don’t think so. Money is necessary to run a conference where the orange juice is $80/gallon. (Not because it’s special, but because that’s how much hotels in SF bilk you.)
And money is not bad. Money is what has made open source increasingly pervasive in the corporate IT world – isn’t that a good thing? One of the goals in creating the conference was to help vendors learn strategies for making money on open source software (without violating the spirit or letter of open source “law”), thereby fostering the creation of more open source software. I would have thought you would appreciate that fact, given that you (like I) have a fondness for open source.
At any rate, for some with non-profits, they don’t, in fact, pay to attend. We just don’t advertise that fact. Those with a desire to come ask, and we make it possible. You didn’t ask.
As for attendees (that you haven’t heard of), do any of these ring bells? Ray Lane (former president, Oracle and currently a GP at Kleiner Perkins), Andrew Morton (Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer), Michael Tiemann, Danese Cooper, Larry Wall, Peter Fenton (Accel), Jonathan Schwartz (Sun), Ken Klein (CEO, Wind River), etc. etc. etc. I think you’d be surprised at the attendee list – you know them well.
A suggestion: if you have a legitimate gripe/question (which I think you did/do), then ask the source. Don’t just complain about it when you haven’t taken the time to investigate. We would have loved to have you join us.
Matt Asay
asay.blogspot.com