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Toronto Open Source Conference Report

Posted by michael on from the oh-canada dept.

derrickoswald writes "Today's Ottawa Citizen is running a report in the TechWeekly section on the recent open source conference in Toronto organized by U of T's interdisciplinary Knowledge Media Design Institute and last month's Real World Linux trade show. It highlights the extremely poor Extremadura region of Spain's success story using open source to bootstrap themselves technologically. Quotes from FOSS luminaries include: 'Who controls the software, controls life. Well, it had better us. That's the real political meaning of the free software movement,' said Eben Moglen. Open source 'was the default way you built Internet Infrastructure. You wrote code and released it without trying to commercialize and monetize it,' said Brian Behldendorf." Newsforge (also part of OSDN) has a series of reports on the conference: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

19 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. So let me get this straight... by Power+Everywhere · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Open Source software is about controlling life? I wonder that was what RMS was really thinking.

    --

    BLING BLING. Meet the architecture that's changing everything.

  2. PowerPoint? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    PowerPoint was required
    Behlendorf led off with a comment that he is not used to PowerPoint -- the presentation software of choice for the conference, which is running Windows XP -- and apologized in advance if the PowerPoint requirement caused him to slip up, because he said he is used to the OpenOffice.org variant of the software.

    Any idea why PowerPoint/XP were chosen in the first place, seeing as it's an OpenSource conference?

    1. Re:PowerPoint? by DrEldarion · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, people always say they want Microsoft to go open-source... Someone just intepreted it the wrong way.

    2. Re:PowerPoint? by Emunix · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah... all of our conference spaces at U of T are equipped with XP and PowerPoint and I doubt our techs were going to bother switching for the conference when they'll need to load XP and PowerPoint again for summer section professors who are used to PowerPoint.

    3. Re:PowerPoint? by Cecil · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because, while the people with PDF files, OpenOffice presentations, and such were mostly amenable to either converting them to PowerPoint, or simply using their own computers, the majority of the presenters could not/would not use anything other than PowerPoint.

      Remember that people from all walks of open-source life were at this conference, including Microsoft's manager of their Shared Source initiative, government officials, non-technical people, even people who were basically arguing against F/OSS.

      Still, the irony did not go unnoticed. I heard all sorts of people mentioning it with varying levels of amusement.

      Of course, it seems relevant to note that without exception, the very best speakers did not use any presentation software at all. Some of them, Dr. Moglen included, didn't even have notes.

      --
      Random and weird software I've written.
  3. Who controls the software, controls life by Timesprout · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That might be true for a small number of of obsessed geeks but the majority of people dont give a monkeys about who controls software. To them its just another product and their interest ends as soon as they have finished reading their email or their computer controlled car tells them it needs an oil change.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
    1. Re:Who controls the software, controls life by PMuse · · Score: 2, Insightful
      That might be true for a small number of of obsessed geeks but the majority of people dont give a monkeys about who controls software. To them its just another product and their interest ends as soon as they have finished reading their email or their computer controlled car tells them it needs an oil change.

      The narod cares about the results. They care:

      When their car records their driving habits and they get sued after an accident.

      When they can't skip the previews/ads at the beginning of their DVDs.

      When they can't afford a new computer (due to licensing fees).

      When they can't get their TV hooked up right. (That is, their TV, DVD player, stereo, VCR, PVR, and computer refuse to cooperate with each other even when a 14-year-old with a PhD properly cables them together.)

      When the music they bought online won't let itself be played on their portable player.

      When their email provider starts putting ads in their email.

      When their office administrator locks down their desktop.

      When the library's SurfNanny blocks their access to a heath website or political website.

      When their new "audio disc" (not CD) locks their iMac shut.

      When they're forced to use Powerpoint for their presentation at a conference.

      etc.

      They know that they don't like some one else controlling their lives. Thing is, they usually don't get that the control of their lives is being exercised through control of software.

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
  4. Gasp... by carvalhao · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am Portuguese and am currently working with a Spanish colleague who was falbbergasted when he read about the "extremely poor region of Extremadura". Hey, it looks like we're talking about sub-saarian Africa of something!

    As a matter of fact, Spain is one of the best developed economies in the European Union. There may be some regions where e-development may not have reached somewhat high standards, but hold on! :)

  5. My Guess... by TamMan2000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... is that the facility hosting the conferance had computers and projectors in all of the conference rooms already...

    --
    "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
  6. "Extremely Poor" Extremadura? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh man, I'm sure the average salary of a resident of the Extremadura province is still higher than someone living in Arkansas.

    Spain is not a third-world country. It's one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Which is way the terrorists hate it.

    1. Re:"Extremely Poor" Extremadura? by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not knocking Spain (I lived there 3 years and LOVE it), but with an average income ~70% of the EU average, and Extremadura being the poorest region of Spain, and unemployment running at near 30%, 'extremely poor' might well be a valid descriptor.

      However, they did win a 2004 European Regional Action Award with their GNU/LinEX project.

      Hopefully, more projects like this will help them boost their economy.

  7. Heh. Not. by brunes69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Computer software *does* control your life.

    For the vast majority of people in inddustrialized countries, softwate controls how they get paid, how the bank maanges their money, how companies track their habits, how they buy goods and services, how their cars work, how *they* work, how they get to work, how they have fun, how they communicate. It controls nearly every piec eof equipment in the modern military. Getting through a day without interacting with a piece of software is near impossible unless you're on a caomping trip in the middle of the woods.

    Pretty soon, software is going to be controlling your whole household. It's going to control every applianc ein the house. It's going to control your security system. It's going to control all communications in and out of that house, and it will all be unified.

    So here is the doomsday scenario - in 25-30 years, when this is all in place, if one monopoly controls all this software, they *control society*. All they have to do is hide some backdoors well enough to slip through detection and they have it made. Who would be there to stop them? Anyone who spoke out on any public forum is automatically detected and flagged as a terrorist in the national database.

    Open Source software, especially for anything at the national infastructure / military level, should be *paramount* on people's mids. The only reason it is not is an educational one. Us people in the know really need to get the word out on why this is important, because as software becomes mroe powerful, we're treading downa slippery slope.

  8. Wow by Curtman · · Score: 4, Interesting
    • Free software -- software that can be freely copied, modified, and re-distributed by its users (and often software which is free of charge) -- is inextricably bound with personal freedom, the loftiest speakers say.


    I'm shocked. Printed media that actually described free software properly. Props to Ottawa Citizen.
  9. Whoa by Short+Circuit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Matusow went on to make a point about Red Hat's corporate Linux licensing, saying that Red Hat has a per-CPU licensing scheme with an auditing clause in the contract, and that client companies could not modify the (GPL'd) code for risk mitigation reasons on Red Hat's part.

    Either that's a "damn lie," or Red Hat has some explaining to do on the part of restricting GPL'd code.

    --
    tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  10. Quotes on "controlling" things by Apostata · · Score: 3, Informative

    'Who controls the software, controls life.' - Eben Moglen

    'He who controls the spice, controls the universe!' - Baron Harkonnen, Dune

    --

    This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
  11. Controlling software has gotten FOSS geeks where? by swb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Last I checked, the FOSS geeks control very little. People who don't know/care about controlling software seem to be increasing the control they do have exponentially.

  12. What controls life, will be controlled by persaud · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Be it energy or open-source software or broadband or rice genomes. If an entity, artifact or class of artifacts becomes a control nexus, it becomes a vehicle for the transition of incumbent power.

  13. Accountants? by b100dian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder how would one manage to get the accountants to hear/read of these "free as in freedom" ideas - for the ones that I came to know don't give a s*** about quality of software either.

    --
    gtkaml.org
  14. GPL by Psymunn · · Score: 2, Funny

    'This GPL brings good luck to all software developers who use it. One guy used GPL software and licensed it under seomthing else and was eaten by a despondent goat with rabbies. One girl forked GPL software and keeped the license and she met the man of her dreams later that day and had Opensource children (they released videos of the conseption on teh internet). Pass on your GPL software to 10 of your closest friends and receive a millioin years awesome luck'

    in all seriousness though, GPL is a great thing and is an essential tool in preserving freedom of information. it also happens to be the most successful chain letter ever

    --
    The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist