DivaBlog

Just talking to my pal Doc Searls, and he's pointed out to me that Microsoft's Longhorn is in trouble. I especially like the penultimate paragraph, where Doc says:

In his opening remarks, Tim O'Reilly credited the need for the EuroFoo meeting to George W. Bush!

No kidding! George W. Bush? How's that?

It seems that so many F/OSS people from Europe have sworn off coming to the US (because its such a total hassle now due to Homeland Security paranoia promulgated by the Presidential Administration of George W. Bush) that O'Reilly had to bring the meeting to Europe...

Every cloud has a silver lining :-)

At the first night of EuroFoo, and already I'm happy!

Foo is an invitational conference that's put on by O'Reilly....its sort of a camp-out for geeks. This is only the second ever Foo and the first ever in Europe, where O'Reilly hopes to host a European OSCon sometime next year...so this meeting is a chance to hook up people active in the European F/OSS scene. But it so much more than that. There's a whimsy to Foo that's lost at regular conferences (sadly even at O'Reilly ones). It is much more reminiscent of 1990s era Apple WWDC events, because people are encouraged to play, to get to know each other and to have fun (not just to circuit between flashy keynotes and endless sessions). At those old WWDC events there were always (pre-MindStorm) lego contests and afternoon junkfood binges and pinball tournaments...and if your demo crashed (of course there were tons of real sessions too) you had to do pushups while the system rebooted ;-).

So tomorrow I'll be co-presenting on "Guerilla Evangelism" with the enthusiastic Zak Greant. Then on Sunday I'll co-present with Rishab Ghosh on "Open Source in Developing Countries"...but the sessions I'm really looking forward to attending are the ladies from the BBC talking about how their open source archive project and the guys from this week's FOAF conference talking about what they decided (oh and the lock-picking session). Conferences like these remind me why I was interested in software to begin with. The people are so weird and wonderful, and so enthusiastic about projects that let them express themselves.

So, I'll blog more about EuroFoo in the next couple of day, but in the meantime check out that funky clocktower here at the University of Twente, where EuroFoo is being held. This university has all kinds of whimsical features...What a perfect place for a Foo!

Just read the /. story about how the IOC decided to forbid Olympic atheletes from blogging, in order to protect the scoop rights of the media giants who have paid for the right to "cover" the Games. This is just so enfuriating (and confirms the nagging thought that all the Games are anymore is a big business where the atheletes are exploited like trained animals at a circus). Evidently the media giants and the IOC realize just how contrived and boring Olympic coverage is and the last thing they want to see is authentic voice associated with their circus. And clearly Olympic atheletes have no right of Freedom of Speech. Do they lose their medals if they talk?

For those of you who try to read me regularly...I know I've been disappointing lately. I was on a much needed vacation for the first part of August. We go to Lark in the Morning Camp, which is about the best place to go if you like hand-made music (and camping...to love Lark Camp you've gotta love camping).

Anyway today I'm on the road again traveling for Open Source, so there will be more to blog.