Open Source in Vancouver Panel

An extra talk on Free Open Source Software at the Vancouver PHP Conference, Open to the Public

Monday February 12 6:30 - 8:30 PM, in combined rooms C150/C180 the Vancouver PHP Conference will be hosting an additional open discussion on the future of Free Open Source Software (FOSS). There is no entrance fee for this presentation; The public is welcome to attend, as this talk is scheduled for the evening, after the scheduled conference talks.

In no particular order, topics for panel discussion include:

• Choosing a license
• License proliferation
• GPL3
• Comon Misperceptions about the GPL
• GPL as a business weapon
• Growth in GPL
• Winning Over New Converts to FOSS
• Reasons Why Businesses Choose FOSS
• Current state of FOSS in North America
• Encouraging the growth of FOSS in Vancouver/N. America

Brian Aker of Mysql

Brian Aker is the director of architecture for MySQL when he helps set direction for technology and looks for opportunities to harness and shape the MySQL database for efforts in Web, OEM, and telephony. In his copious amounts of free time he works on Apache and Perl modules, and hacks on the Asterisk Telephony System (hence, never has a working home phone number). In the past, he has been involved with projects for the Army Engineer Corps, The Virtual Hospital, Splunk, and Slashdot. He lives in Seattle with his dog Rosalynd.

Zak Greant of EzSystems/Mozilla Foundation

Zak’s love of Free Software and Open Source is turning him into a penguin. The only visible changes (so far) are a gradual accumulation of blubber, a loss of hair (which he hopes is the prelude to feather growth) and a growing preference for raw fish. When not practicing how to waddle or wear a tuxedo, he works with eZ systems AS as their managing director for North America and with the Mozilla Foundation on various community and foundation issues. As time permits, he also volunteers with the Free Software Foundation’s Compliance Lab.

In the past, Zak worked for Sxip Identity as their Technical Evangelist and MySQL AB as their Community Advocate. Additionally, Zak has written and contributed to several books on PHP, MySQL and Free Software/Open Source, and was an early participant in the PHP community.
Zak's blog.

David Ascher of ActiveState

David is a key figure in the Python community, and a director of the Python Software Foundation. A Python trainer and frequent speaker at conferences, David also co-authored Learning Python, and co-edited The Python Cookbook, both published by O'Reilly, and helped develop and document the Numeric and PyOpenGL Python extensions.

As CTO and VP, Engineering, David focuses on product and technology strategies. He has spent the past six years providing business and technical leadership for ActiveState, most recently in the position of Chief Technologist. He has 17 years of experience as a developer, consultant, and advocate of open source software, with companies including Apple Computer, Neuron Data, Brown University, and Distributed Data Systems. David holds a B.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science, both from Brown University.

Perrick Penet of France AFUP

Perrick Penet is the owner of the web-software company No Parking. Their main product is openTIME, a web-based time management tool (written in PHP of course).

He's also president of the AFUP (french PHP user group), co-leader on the Open Source project SimpleTest (Unit Testing for PHP) and Agile practitioner (mainly XP though).

Perrick Penet's talk earlier in the day will be on the topic of Open Source in Europe and the push in Europe to adopt 'Open Standards' by using applications such as OpenOffice and Mozilla. His talk will examine european centric projects the impact of the french government, case studies, new services, and next wave of big contributions.

Bruce Byfield Contributing Editor,OSTG

Bruce Byfield is a contributing editor for the Open Source Technology Group, the owners of Linux.com, NewsForge, and Slashdot. He also writes a twice monthly blog for the Linux Journal web site. Previously, he was communications and marketing director at Progeny Linux Systems and product manager at Stormix. Away from the computer, he runs, raises parrots, reads history, science fiction and 19th century literature, and listens to punk-folk music.

Greg Dean of ictcoop.ca

Greg Dean is in the process of writing a book, towards creating a full-scale economic system that operates via participatory planning. He believes that Open Source principles need to be enshrined in the capital and governance structure of enterprise and politics so that they are not co-opted for exploitative greed, but help towards the establishment of commons outside the realm of IT.

Greg's mostly interested in writing things about himself in the 3rd person to convey greater objectivity and thus credibility upon what he writes. He started out in HyperCard (high level) and C++ (low level) and then quickly moved into CGI, HTML during the mid '90s at Virtual High (a free school on the W.Side of Vancouver) but mostly spent his time pixel pushing in wire cages (animation). He's attempted to move away from code monkeying and pixel pushing with mixed success but basically still derives a good half of his income from web development and design.

He has spent the last year and a half in law libraries figuring out how to allow for co-operative / open-source structure of capital. For more information, read about his ideas on an Open Source business model.

Sponsored in-part by Information and Communications Technology/ Open Source Co-op (ICT/OS).