Featured Keynote Presenters

• David Recordon - "Learning from Apache to create Open Specifications"
• Shahani Markus Weerawarana, Ph.D. - "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"
• Sam Ramji - "struct.new("future", :open, :microsoft)"
  

Learning from Apache to create Open Specifications

Wednesday | 09:30 | David Recordon 

Open source development has reached a stable and remarkable maturity. With services like SourceForge and Google Code for hosting projects, the Open Source Initiative to vet and curate Open Source licenses, and organizations like the FSF and Apache where like-minded developers can work together to build sustainable and open communities around Open Source projects, and the support of hundreds of thousands of developers and major corporations alike, the success of open source is firmly established.

Yet when we turn our attention away from open source and instead to specifications and standards for the open web, much of this infrastructure doesn't yet exist. Formal standards bodies may enforce interoperability, but they don't always guarantee that a standard is freely implementable by everyone or that the development community is open to all potential contributors. As software development is increasingly centered on protocols and formats instead of simply source code, many newer initiatives, like Microformats, OpenID, OAuth and OpenSocial, have had to each invest time and money reinventing the legal and organizational infrastructure required to ensure that the specifications they create are open and their communities are healthy and run in meritocratic fashions.

Isn't there a better way? What can we learn from the open source movement that will help us create open specifications for the web?

The newly created Open Web Foundation is tackling this exact question by borrowing heavily from the proven model established by the Apache Foundation. This talk discusses the Open Web Foundation's progress so far, our goals for the future, and how you can get involved.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Thursday | 11:30 | Shahani Markus Weerawarana, Ph.D. 

In 1675, in a letter to Robert Hooke, the British mathematician and physicist, Isaac Newton, famously said, "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants."

Today, the spirit of open source has reached across all nations, fueling innovation, making a difference in ways never before thought possible.

Living and working in the small island nation of Sri Lanka, I have been immensely fortunate to have also been drawn in by the magnetic force of open source. I have witnessed the birth of a new global community rising above the depths of despair after a devastating tsunami, I have seen the realization of ambitious dreams and I have experienced the benefits of readily available cutting-edge technology.

All this has been possible because of the "giants" in the world of open source. These giants are the people from around the world who have come together with their hearts, minds and hands - they are the people in the global open source communities. These giants are the people who have responsibly worked together with a great sense of transparent collaboration resulting in projects that have brought forth enormous benefits to the entire world.

This is a collection of real-life stories and first-hand accounts that highlight the significant impact, panoramic change and compelling innovation that these "giants" of the open source world have - possibly unknowingly - unleashed.

struct.new("future", :open, :microsoft)

Friday | 11:30 | Sam Ramji 

Sam Ramji has spent his entire career in the technology industry, from leading technical product strategy at BEA Systems to heading the engineering teams that built large-scale applications on Open Source Software at Ofoto.com. As Senior Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, his current focus is to drive Microsoft's Linux and Open Source Strategy, working together with technology development teams and open source communities to find open and interoperable solutions to some of today's development challenges. Sam is passionate about all things software, and will use his keynote to share his vision for driving forward Microsoft's participation and growth with open source communities, and show how the entire company is making progress on the strategy to "architect for participation".