Report--O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON)

This year OSCON drew over 1800 programmers, developers, strategists, and technical staff, as well as the open source-curious to vibrant, tech-friendly Portland, OR from July 7-11. For five days, convention-goers delved into a program designed to "embrace and extend proprietary software," reflecting open source technology's long-awaited move into the mainstream. Open source software "has gone from being a question mark to an exclamation point," quipped OSCON program chair and O'Reilly editor Nathan Torkington.

"What really distinguishes open source is not just source, but an architecture of participation,'" noted O'Reilly & Associates founder and CEO Tim O'Reilly. "This architecture of participation allows for a real free market of ideas, in which anyone can put forward a proposed solution to a problem. As we move into the era of dynamic, data-backed applications, and services built out from those applications, the traditional model of 'open source' being defined by source availability seems limiting. As the global role for open source software expands, so do the challenges and rewards for the open source community. It's a pivotal, exciting time to be a part of it all."

The convention's wide range of participants and corporate sponsors--ActiveState, Apple Developer Connection (ADC), Hewlett Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Ticketmaster, among others--are just one indication of the breadth of open source technology. Tutorials, keynote addresses, and conference sessions at OSCON were presented by the likes of Mitch Kapor, Robert Lefkowitz, Milton Ngan, Stormy Peters, Paul Buck, Stas Bekman, Damian Conway, Miguel de Icaza, George Dyson, Myron Hattig, Yukihiro Matsumoto, and David Stutz. The states of six open source technologies were summarized in a "States of the Union" address by Larry Wall, Guido van Rossum, Theodore Ts'o, Greg Stein, Shane Caraveo, Monty Widenius, and David Axmark.

Book signing events, birds of a feather sessions, video game parties, trips to local sights, and lots of animated hallway discussions at all hours balanced the formal program. A "meet the authors" event, where attendees had the chance to chat with over twenty authors speaking at the convention, was held during the IBM-sponsored exhibit hall reception. Apple Developers Connection's Rendezvous Lounge, featuring the latest Mac hardware and software, was jumping throughout the convention. Portland treasure Powell's Books set up a popular satellite bookstore on the exhibit floor.

Two convention details are cause for economic optimism. Attendance was up by nearly 300 people over OSCON 2002. In addition, O'Reilly editor Nathan Torkington noted that, "Last year, everyone knew someone who had been laid off, whereas this year everyone knows someone who has landed a job."

Slides of speaker presentations are available at this O'Reilly web page.