GOSCON'08

 I won't give a report on the conference, you can go to their website - www.goscon.org for that - just the things relevant to my participation. Some comments are relevant to Health Atlas Ireland project, some relevant to OpenForum Europe project, as I wore two hats at the conference.

Key points

  1. Collaboration, enabled and encouraged by the availability of OSS,
     seems to be the key interest in the US and with the World Bank
  2. Health Atlas Ireland is way ahead of anything people seemed to
     have seen to date in this type of software - but difficult to
     articulate our offer.
  3. Microsoft contributed in a number of sessions and were clearly
     taking a conciliatory approach to OSS.
  4. OpenForum Europe concept is beyond the thinking of the attendees -
     and some of the organisers expressed strong interest.




Session 1 - International Open ICT Summit

  1. Telecast chaired by Samia Melhem, Chair eDevelopment Thematic
     Group, World Bank
  2. Remote attendees were the World Bank, Russia, Brazil, PloneGov
     from Spain, Senegal, Gahan, Rwanda, Sri Lanka
  3. I presented an overview of OFE - membership, goals and activities
     - attached.
  4. I responded to a question about government mandating OSS with the
     idea of using Certified Open as a more balanced criteria for
     procurement.
  5. People who expressed interest in OFE and Certified Open - Deb
     Bryant of Open Source Labs at Oregan State (conference organiser
     and a participant in the OSS Think Tank)
  6. The session was very well received but I found it difficult to follow