content/editorial/oscon_wrap_up.html - openoffice-org - Git at Google

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 <head>
 <title>OSCON 2003 Wrap Up</title>
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 <body>
 <h2>OSCON Wrap Up</h2>
 <p>
 -<a href="/lspintro.html">Louis Suarez-Potts</a>
 </p>

 <p>2003-07-16</p>


 <p>What follows is a brief account of OpenOffice.org's days at OSCON 2003,
 which took place last week in a sweltering Portland, Oregon, USA.
 </p>

 <p>
 To begin with OSCON (Open Source Convention) this year has focused on
 enterprise and open source.  The conference has been fascinating and
 exciting--mainly developers but developers who recognize the next step
 for open source is the enterprise.... And guess which open-source
 project has bee cited, touted, mentioned, discussed?
 </p>

 <p>
 But the focus on OpenOffice.org has not been without critique.  And it
 has been the best sort.  Over the next week I'll be highlighting some
 of the more interesting comments, but first, a belated report on OOo
 days at OSCON.
 </p>

 <p>
 OSCON, for those not in the know, is where Open Source (with capital
 letters) began, in 1998, and it remains the defining meeting of the
 year.  This year, Tim O'Reilly set the official tenor of the conference
 with a packed presentation on where Open Source Software (OSS) is
 heading and how it is evolving. He calls it, following Thomas Kuhn's
 famous phrase regarding "revolutions" in scientific understandings, a
 "paradigm shift":  "One of the greatest challenges for open source in
 the next few years is to understand and adapt to the paradigm shift
 implicit in network computing, and to shed the legacy thinking of the
 desktop era."  The potential is enormous; the limiting factor is not
 having open standards. Open standards, distinct from open source, which
 describes a work method, allow for radical interoperability.
 </p>

 <p>
 Tim's presentation underscored the importance of collaboration and
 networks; other presentations and panels focused on technical and
 abstract problems relating to open-source technology and
 implementation.  I was most interested in those that either touched on
 OpenOffice.org as a product, project, and exemplar. For OpenOffice.org
 is not just an open-source project working without a clear organization
 but a defined corporate-initiated and corporate-sponsored project with
 structure and organization.
 </p>

 <p>
 In our presentation, Danese Cooper, Sun's Open Source Diva, and I
 elucidated OpenOffice.org's structure and emphasized Sun's support for
 involvement in the project by the open-source community.  We addressed
 questions from developers interested in contributing, from people
 curious about the enterprise/open-source community relationship, and
 from general users wondering about this application they have heard so
 much about.  Later in the day, I moderated a BOF (birds of a feather)
 panel in which we discussed "most wanted" features and elements. I'll
 be discussing the results of both conversations later.  They are
 interesting.
 </p>

 <p>
 In addition to our presentations, OpenOffice.org also maintained a
 *very* active booth in the Sun pod, which was prominently placed.
 Thanks to Phillip "Flip" Russell, we had hundreds of CDROMs to
 distribute. I went through all of them.  Everyone was encouraging and
 supportive, and I was able to snag the business cards of many
 developers who expressed interest in contributing their efforts.
 </p>

 <p>
 And this was partly the point of attending this conference: to entice
 the open-source community to work on OpenOffice.org.  Why?
 </p>

 <p>
 Because we want OpenOffice.org to be better. The point is not that open
 source products work. That, at this point, is a given.  The point is
 that OpenOffice.org should be the best. We should be judged not our
 mere existence but on our capability; on what we do. Judge us on our
 merits not on how well we copy somebody else.  Why be tied to the
 proprietary imagination? Open source is about innovation and newness.
 Let's make it new.
 </p>

 <p>Links</p>
 	<li><a href="http://www.onlamp.com/oscon2003/">O'Reilly Network OSCON News</a></li>

 <p>
 Louis Suárez-Potts
 Community Manager
 OpenOffice.org
 </p>
 </body>
 </html>
	<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
	<html>
	<head>
	<title>OSCON 2003 Wrap Up</title>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
	</head>
	<body>
	<h2>OSCON Wrap Up</h2>
	<p>
	-<a href="/lspintro.html">Louis Suarez-Potts</a>
	</p>

	<p>2003-07-16</p>



	<p>What follows is a brief account of OpenOffice.org's days at OSCON 2003,
	which took place last week in a sweltering Portland, Oregon, USA.
	</p>

	<p>
	To begin with OSCON (Open Source Convention) this year has focused on
	enterprise and open source. The conference has been fascinating and
	exciting--mainly developers but developers who recognize the next step
	for open source is the enterprise.... And guess which open-source
	project has bee cited, touted, mentioned, discussed?
	</p>

	<p>
	But the focus on OpenOffice.org has not been without critique. And it
	has been the best sort. Over the next week I'll be highlighting some
	of the more interesting comments, but first, a belated report on OOo
	days at OSCON.
	</p>

	<p>
	OSCON, for those not in the know, is where Open Source (with capital
	letters) began, in 1998, and it remains the defining meeting of the
	year. This year, Tim O'Reilly set the official tenor of the conference
	with a packed presentation on where Open Source Software (OSS) is
	heading and how it is evolving. He calls it, following Thomas Kuhn's
	famous phrase regarding "revolutions" in scientific understandings, a
	"paradigm shift": "One of the greatest challenges for open source in
	the next few years is to understand and adapt to the paradigm shift
	implicit in network computing, and to shed the legacy thinking of the
	desktop era." The potential is enormous; the limiting factor is not
	having open standards. Open standards, distinct from open source, which
	describes a work method, allow for radical interoperability.
	</p>

	<p>
	Tim's presentation underscored the importance of collaboration and
	networks; other presentations and panels focused on technical and
	abstract problems relating to open-source technology and
	implementation. I was most interested in those that either touched on
	OpenOffice.org as a product, project, and exemplar. For OpenOffice.org
	is not just an open-source project working without a clear organization
	but a defined corporate-initiated and corporate-sponsored project with
	structure and organization.
	</p>

	<p>
	In our presentation, Danese Cooper, Sun's Open Source Diva, and I
	elucidated OpenOffice.org's structure and emphasized Sun's support for
	involvement in the project by the open-source community. We addressed
	questions from developers interested in contributing, from people
	curious about the enterprise/open-source community relationship, and
	from general users wondering about this application they have heard so
	much about. Later in the day, I moderated a BOF (birds of a feather)
	panel in which we discussed "most wanted" features and elements. I'll
	be discussing the results of both conversations later. They are
	interesting.
	</p>

	<p>
	In addition to our presentations, OpenOffice.org also maintained a
	very active booth in the Sun pod, which was prominently placed.
	Thanks to Phillip "Flip" Russell, we had hundreds of CDROMs to
	distribute. I went through all of them. Everyone was encouraging and
	supportive, and I was able to snag the business cards of many
	developers who expressed interest in contributing their efforts.
	</p>

	<p>
	And this was partly the point of attending this conference: to entice
	the open-source community to work on OpenOffice.org. Why?
	</p>

	<p>
	Because we want OpenOffice.org to be better. The point is not that open
	source products work. That, at this point, is a given. The point is
	that OpenOffice.org should be the best. We should be judged not our
	mere existence but on our capability; on what we do. Judge us on our
	merits not on how well we copy somebody else. Why be tied to the
	proprietary imagination? Open source is about innovation and newness.
	Let's make it new.
	</p>

	<p>Links</p>
	<li><a href="http://www.onlamp.com/oscon2003/">O'Reilly Network OSCON News</a></li>

	<p>
	Louis Suárez-Potts
	Community Manager
	OpenOffice.org
	</p>
	</body>
	</html>