Till Adam

Abstract of the presentation

The Kolab concept is substantially different from other groupware server solutions in that it puts a lot of the functionality into very feature rich clients (Kontact on KDE, the Toltec Outlook connector on Windows and Horde as a web interface, for example), instead of tasking the server with most of the work involved with managing groupware data. The server acts primarily as a storage provider which is synced with clients via the IMAP protocol. Communication between clients happens through email. This, along with mechanisms such as LDAP replication, allows for excellent scalability and robustness. The use of IMAP synchronisation as a means of exchanging the groupware data between clients and server and the rich client concept allow for advanced offline capabilities. The clients are functional even without access to a server. This talk will contrast the ideas and technologies employed in the Kolab concept and its clients (primarily the KDE client) with those used in other solutions. It will present Kolab as a way out of the “Outlook Trap”, opening up ways for migrations towards open and free platforms on both the server as well as the desktop.

Bio:

Till Adam is one of the core developers of the KDE mail and personal information management applications and libraries (KMail, KOrganizer, Kontact, etc http://www.kde.org, http://pim.kde.org). As a software developer for Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, Sweden, he is part of the team which implemented the Linux client support for the Kolab (http://www.kolab.org) project based on the KDE PIM components. He lives with his wife at the shore of the Baltic Sea close to Kiel, Germany.

Events: Applications

Ramon van Alteren

Ordina

Events: Workshop ‘Esperanto Sessions’

Pär Ågerfalk

deputy coordinator and scientific manager of the EU FP6 project CALIBRE University of Limerick

Ireland

Abstract of the presentation

CALIBRE and CALIBRATION: Co-ordinating European OSS Research and Policy Making The presentation outlines the role of the EU FP6 project CALIBRE (Co-ordination Action for Libre Software Engineering) in co-ordinating European OSS research and creating a European industry OSS research policy forum (CALIBRATION). The key goals and purposes of CALIBRE are detailed. Findings from a brainstorming session held with industrial representatives in The Hague on the 19th of November 2004 are presented, providing an industry perspective on the role of OSS in the European secondary software sector. These insights are summarized in the formulation of key factors involved in creating what we refer to as "Open Source Software, Inc." With this backdrop, the potential role of CALIBRATION in and beyond the European OSS policy process is discussed.

Bio:

Pär J Ågerfalk is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Software Research at the University of Limerick, Ireland, where he acts as deputy coordinator and scientific manager of the EU FP6 project CALIBRE (Co-ordination Action for Libre Software Engineering). He received his PhD in Information Systems Development from Linköping University, Sweden, in April 2003. Dr Ågerfalk has published more than 30 research papers in journals such as Information and Software Technology and at conferences such as the European Conference on Information Systems. His current research centres on open source software development in the secondary software sector, globally distributed and agile/flexible software development methods, and how information systems development approaches can be informed by language/action theory.

Events: EU Projects, (local) Policies & SME's

Jeroen Baten

i2rs

Events: High profile OSS applications

James Baty

Vice President SUN microsystems

USA

One of the keynote speakers at the Holland Open Software Conference is James Baty. In this article we'll introduce the CTO for Sun's Global Sales Organization (GSO) and even give you a little keynote preview.

"The way of the peacefull nerd"

It sounds like a new kungfu-meets-hacker movie, but actually is the topic Dr. James Baty chooses to talk about. The CTO and Vice President of Sun Microsystems will share his company’s view on Nerds. To be short: How to incorporate innovative young people in a business climate, which problems you could encounter and why a company needs ‘Nerds’.

From this perspective he will share his views on what ‘openness’ is really about. For instance: how can you mobilise the potential of 1500.000.000 telephones with java if one out of thousand consumers might build something with it. What are essential characteristics of open software? Dr. James Baty will talk about these matters and much more. And he will welcome a discussion with developers.

Who is Dr. James Baty?

Dr. James Baty is currently CTO and Vice President of Sun Microsystems. And he has been SunPS's Senior Internet Architect for the last 4+ years. In addition, he is a Sun Distinguished Engineer and is the first person to achieve that recognition from the Sun Services organization.

Dr. Baty is an expert in the design, implementation and management of information technology, and is renowned for his work in designing the technical architectures for a brand new industry of service providers and e-commerce systems. Jim has been the lead Architect of the Internet infrastructure design for many of Sun's customers, including global telecommunications and financial services companies. In this capacity he has led the development of several large-scale, electronic commerce system architectures, and is a recognized expert on distributed high availability design and capacity planning and modelling.

In the Netherlands we also know Dr. Baty. In 1993 he contributed hands-on in the middle of the night to the first conference on eCommerce, in the Netherlands, by connecting the PTT's new ISDN system to the Canadian equivalent with a different (54k)signal. This so that Mintzberg could talk to the students from Montreal.

During his tenure, Jim has been a technology leader amongst technical leaders in Sun Professional Services deep competency organization. He provides integrative technical leadership, mentorship, and evangelism across the entire .Com Consulting team, and is a thought leader, academic and industry innovator in the area of architecture patterns for large Internet systems.

Jim brings over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, including 7 years at MCC in Austin, where he was the program administrator for the software technology program. He holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas, specializing in the convergence of computer-human interface and artificial intelligence issues in the design of electronic shopping systems.

Events: Keynotes , Workshop James Baty , Debate on innovation

Jan Bergstra

Amsterdam School of ICT

Jan Bergstra's presentation will handle the subject of scientists in the software patent discussion. Or better said; where are they?

Events: Software patents

Kees Blom

Abstract of the presentation

This note provides an overview of design and implementation experiences with the AMBULANT media player. Ambulant is a fast, open-source multimedia player that is designed to work with the W3C SMIL language. This note presents a discussion of the design goals of AMBULANT and provides an overview of our implementations for a variety of media player platforms. We start with a short introduction to the SMIL 2.0 Language.

Bio:

Kees Blom works as scientific programmer at CWI since 1992. He has worked on the implementation of a number of algorithms andsystems using various languages (C, C++, Java, Python) on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Irix, Solaris, AIX).

Events: Centrum voor Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)

Alexander Boer

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

Title: XML for Geospatial Legislation

For a few years legislation in the Netherlands has been available in a standardized XML format; this standard treats all legislation as a searchable document related to other documents in a systematic way. This form of standardization is less suitable for map-oriented geospatial legislation. In the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen (DURP; Digital Exchange of Spatial Plans) municipalities, provincial governments, water control boards, and the ministry of spatial planning cooperate to develop an open XML standard for geographic data in legislation. The standard will be based on Geography Markup Language (GML) and is primarily intended for use in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The Leibniz Center for Law has been involved in this project to advice on the relation between legislation as geospatial data, as documents, and as a normative system that tells citizens and legislators what they can and cannot do. We will present our views on the nature of geospatial norms and the benefits and problems of using GIS to access legislation. Present GIS are ill-equipped for dealing with the document management requirements typical of legislation. We will present a proposal for a standardized way of coupling a document standard for legislation with a geospatial standard for legislation.

Bio:

Alexander Boer is a computer scientist who has been working for the Leibniz Center for Law, a research institute specialized in developing innovative concepts for the application of IT in the field of Law, for 6 years. In recent years he has been involved in a number of projects involving loose XML interfaces between government bodies and government bodies and citizens. He is also one of the main contributors to the METALex XML schema (see http://www.metalex.nl), a jurisdiction-independent standard proposal for legislation.

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Johanna Boogerd

Johanna will display a political analysis about the software patents directive. She is a former employe of MEP.

Johanna Boogerd welcomes the Rocard report. The right diplomatic tone is set and the amendments prevent that software as such can be patented.

Events: Software patents

Hans Bossenbroek

co-founder and managing consultant Luminis

Bio:

Hans Bossenbroek is one of the founders and managing consultants of Luminis.
Luminis is a small services company that finds the majority of her customers in product-develoment companies. Hans has been working for services companies in the software development market for close to 20 years, where he has always aimed to apply innovative technologies in a business-driven context. Starting with software development in an object-oriented Unix kernel environment, his activities have become more and more focused on the software-aspect of product- development.
Over the last years, Hans has become more and more involved in areas related to the succesful adoption of new technologies and architectures. As such, Hans has been working in the field of architecture alignment and techhnology management. An important part of innovation in software development has to do with with introduction and positioning of OpenSource solutions.
Apart from his role within Luminis, Hans is also a board-member of the NLJUG (the dutch Java User Group). Open Source solutions and the creation of a community for engineers around Java software are some of the main themes here.

Events: Architecture Compliance

Alan Boulanger

IBM

Abstract of the presentation

One of the most powerful movements in the information technology community today is the widespread adoption of free and open-source software (FOSS). What was once an idealistic fringe movement conceived and formalized by MacArthur award laureate Richard Stallman has now become one of the most powerful influences in the world of information technology. As FOSS systems grow in popularity, questions of the reliability and security of these systems emerge. In particular, how do FOSS systems compare with proprietary systems in terms of reliability and security? Many papers discussing these issues have been published by proponents of each type of software. This presentation will examine the arguments presented in the published reports as well as the deployment and reliability figures for both FOSS and proprietary systems.

Bio:

Alan Boulanger joined IBM in October 1995 as a member of the TJ Watson Global Security Analysis Laboratory. His research interests include network security, intrusion detection and remediation, applied penetration testing techniques, data forensics, telephony security, and emerging threat analysis. Since joining IBM, Mr Boulanger has filed several information security related patents and has provided security related technical assistance to the business community and to federal and state government agencies. Mr Boulanger is an active member of both the New York and New England Electronic Crimes Task Forces.

Events: Free/Open Source vs. Proprietary Software: Reliability and Security

Mark Bressers

Role of oss-communities? OSOSS: long and winding road
Events: EU Projects, (local) Policies & SME's

Mark de Bruijne

Researcher TU Delft

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

Research demonstrates that the more popular open source communities like Linux and Apache have been able to create reliable software. What can explain this reliability? When analyzing the more popular writings on open source, we discovered that the debate on reliability is riddled with metaphors and analogies. Consider for instance the quote: ‘With many eyeballs all bugs are shallow.’ Obviously, to have many people looking at the source code will help, but it can never be a sufficient guarantee. In this article we present a wide range of mechanisms that can help to explain why some open source communities are able to create reliable software. This knowledge is important, for instance because it provides potential new users to understand whether a certain open source package has a chance of being reliable.

Bio:

Mark de Bruijne (MA) is a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft, University of Technology. He is part of the Dutch Institute of Government (NIG), the research school for public administration and political science. His PhD-research “Networked reliability” explores the consequences of institutional fragmentation on the reliability of service provision in critical infrastructures. The focus of this research is specifically described how operators and organizations who manage these infrastructures cope with these changes. He has written articles on this subject, which have appeared in journals like Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management and the Journal of Public Administration Research. His broader research interest involves how (high levels) of safety and reliability are achieved in networks (of organizations).

Events: 4 Quality Management/ 5 Legal Issues

Arthur Buijs

Abstract of the presentation

The NL.OpenOffice.org project represents Dutch speaking people and organizations inside the global OpenOffice.org community. Although this community shows many similarities to other open software communities, the size of the project and the target audience give it it's own unique features. OpenOffice.org is split up in a number of projects. There are projects for marketing, documentation, localization and api. Community members choose, based upon their interests, in which project(s) they want to participate. One of the biggest projects inside OpenOffice.org is the Native Lang Confederation. Here you find the so called native lang communities. NL.OpenOffice.org is one of those projects.

Bio:

Since 1996 Arthur Buijs advises and assists SME's in IT-related fiels. Since 2002 he is an active member of the OpenOffice.org community. As of 2004 he is co-lead of the NL.OpenOffice.org project.

Events: Organizational aspects of OSS communities

Dick Bulterman

head department Convergent Media CWI

Abstract of the presentation

Multimedia documents designed for distribution across a mixed desktop/mobile environment will typically need to provide multiple sets of media assets, each tuned for the intended distribution platform. A simple example may be that a video fragment intended for the desktop may need to be replaced by a slideshow for a mobile device. While several standards exist for negotiating content based on capabilities at runtime, there is no uniform mechanism that can be used in the context of content authoring at development time. At development time, a virtual device model is typically used rather than a physical device; as a result, programmed solutions that query device and network characteristics are not appropriate. As an alternative,this paper describes the GSX language. GSX is an XML language for specifying environment properties for use during presentation authoring. We define the language and then illustrate how it can be used to specify various system properties so that an authoring system can effectively model an expected distribution environment. We also discuss implementation experience with GSX with the AMBULANT open source SMIL 2.0 player developed at CWI.

Bio:

Dr. Dick C.A. Bulterman is head of the department Convergent Media at CWI, the Dutch national Centre for Computer Science and Mathematics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Before rejoining CWI in 2002, he was managing director and CTO of Oratrix Development BV, a CWI technology transfer company specializing in authoring systems for complex multimedia presentations. Prior to joining CWI, Bulterman was on the faculty of Brown University, in Providence RI (USA). He has also head part-time faculty appointments at the University of Utrecht, Delft University and Leiden University.

Dr. Bulterman was one of the principal architects of the W3C SMIL 2.0 language. He was written extensively on SMIL and other aspects of distributed multimedia services. In May 2004, he published the book SMIL 2.0: Interactive Multimedia for Web and Mobile Devices. He was written over 70 research articles and has presenting work at leading conferences world-wide.

Bulterman received his Ph.D. in 1982 from Brown University based on research on the animation of parallel and distributed architectures. He received a Master’s degree from Brown in 1977 and an undergraduate degree in political economics and mathematics from Hope College in 1973.

Events: Evolving standards

Eric van Capelleveen

Twijnstra Gudde Management Consultants

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

The Threat of Floods in The Netherlands is again increasing. Large area’s in river regions had to be evacuated as recent as in 1995. New standards of the OCG (see: www.OpenGeoSpatial.org) in distributed Geo webservices can provide powerful solutions in crisis management. Geo webservices actually “serve” geo related information from the source holder with the administrative responsibility. Public safety and crisis require instant access to those sources. The ministry of Transport, The Province of Gelderland and the German Bunde NordRhein Westfalen and Twijnstra Gudde have tested the feasibility of this state of the art technology to address the Flood emergency scenario with the administrative key players in realistic action. Eric van de Capelleveen will demonstrate this virtual crisis control and the need for further Geo standardisation. He will illustrate the case of fast distributed information access when the local emergency escalates into a National crisis when one of the ships on the river turned out to carry toxic cargo…

Bio:

Eric van Cappeleveen (1957) became partner at Twijnstra Gudde after a carrier in construction and ICT and industrial automation. His wide interests made him responsible for assignments varying from software selection to large scale chain integration among government agencies. Eric has played a key role in Geo standardisation over the last five years. At the moment he concentrates on eGovernment and issues of safety.

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Enrica Chiozza

Dir. Gen. Information Society and Media EU

Abstract of the presentation

The presentation will address the issue of collaboration concerning software and ICT among small and medium sized enterprises. It will cover the experience and pitfalls over the last five years of European developments, the difference between organising Industry and SME’s and the issue of trust and continuity . The Term “digital ecosystems” refers to the added value, the strengths and weaknesses of collaborative efforts in ICT. The presentation will also address some of the issues in New Member States and the lack of scientific data on the uptake of Open Source.

Bio:

Enrica Chiozza is working in the Software Technologies Unit at Directorate General for Information Society and Media, European Commission. Enrica is currently following issues related to the economic impact of open source software and standardization in software services. Since she joined the Commission she has followed research and development projects aimed at boosting information communication technologies in small organisations and their impact on the local growth. Currently, she is performing a research work on “economic ecosystems for local growth: the role of the ICT” in the framework of her PhD work for the University Autonomous of Madrid, Faculty of Economics, Department of Structural Economy. She joined the Commission in 2000, working as Project Officer in the area of e-business. Before joining the European Commission she worked for more than nine years as research and development project manager for a Spanish private research institute specialised in knowledge-based engineering. Enrica has been editor of several volumes describing European best practices and research results like: E-work and E-commerce; “Novel solutions and practices for a global networked economy”, “eBusiness Showcase”. She has been speaker in several seminars, workshops and summer courses and member of international conferences organisation comittees.

Events: EU Projects, (local) Policies & SME's

Naci Dai

Chief Scientist and Managing Director Eteration

Abstract of the presentation

The Web Tools Platform (WTP) Project extends Eclipse into the domain of Web and J2EE application development, www.eclipse.org/webtools. WTP provides both a set of core tools for application developers and a platform API for tool developers. This presentation describes the scope, structure, and goals of the WTP project, and gives an overview of the tools and APIs in its Web Standard Tools and J2EE Standard Tools subprojects. The presentation also includes a demonstration of the upcoming release.

Bio:

Naci Dai is an object mentor and an educator. He is the founder of ObjectLearn and one of the initiators of the eteration network. He wrote Lomboz, a tool for J2EE development. Prior to eteration, he was with BEA Systems Inc. and The Object People as a managing director with their professional services organizations. He teaches object technology, web development, and distributed computing. His background is in applied engineering and computational physics. He received his Ph.D. from Carleton University, Ottawa Canada. Eteration is a member of the ObjectWeb Consortium; Naci is the leader of the Java Standard Tools subproject and is a member of the Project Management Committee of the Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project.

Events: Web technology

Joost Dam

Via@frica

Otto Dassau

Managing Director GDF Hannover bR

Germany

Abstract of the presentation:

Coastal zone vegetation classification of East Frisian islands, Germany

GDF Hannover in collaboration with its partner company nature-consult developed an algorithms to continue the monitoring of the East Frisian islands by classifying recent digital aerial imagery (HRSC-AX und DMC cameras). The project is realized on behalf of the Wadden Sea National Park of Lower Saxony (Nationalparkverwaltung Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer) in Germany and includes mapping of the total terrestrial area of the national park (~2.400 km²). The aim of the project is to support the field survey of biotopes by delivering precise and accurate geometrical units (vector polygons) with attributes. This was worked out in a timely and cost effective fashion.

Core algorithm of the image classification was the "Sequential Maximum a Posteriori" (SMAP) multispectral segmentation algorithm implemented in the Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as GRASS GIS. SMAP is based on an image pyramid approach which allows a combined radiometrical/geometrical classification. This takes possible similarities of adjacent pixels into account and delivers high quality results.

GRASS is a raster/vector GIS, image processing system, and graphics production system. It contains over 300 programs and tools to render maps and images on monitor and paper; manipulate raster, vector, and sites data; process multi spectral image data; and create, manage, and store spatial data. GRASS is Free Software, released under GNU General Public License.

Bio:

Professional Background:

- (1997 - 2003) Study: Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology in Hannover - (since 2003) Managing Director of GDF Hannover bR

Working fields:

- GIS consulting for free software products - Statistic und geostatistic analysis of spatial data. - Remote sensing

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Hapee de Groot

HIVOS

Bio:

I started my digital career as programmer at de Digitale Stad in Amsterdam, the first public free internet provider in the Netherlands, later I maintained the Digital Divide Channel at Oneworld.net, which evolved to the Digital Opportunity Channel (http://www.digitalopportunity.org/) an interesting source for those working to bridge the digital divide. 4 Years ago I started to work as webmaster at Hivos, a dutch funding agency with an active ICT policy. Part of this policy is the use of open source. Hivos conducted a study on the use of Open Source among partners in Africa and organised a symposium on the use of Open Source at the Waag in Amsterdam. For more information: http://www.hivos.nl/english/english/themes/ict_media

What would interest me is the question: how can we convince our "own kind" of organisations to use Open Source, if you look at the developing organisations in the Netherlands, none of them is using 100% Open Source, how can we send a signal to developing countries if we can not give a good example? As a homeuser of Linux I sometimes feel a kind of (digital) social exclusion in developed society.

Events: Social Inclusion

Arjen de Jager

IICD

Michiel de Lange

Disc.nl

Jan-Bart de Vreede

Kennisnet

Events: Open Content

Jeroen van Disseldorp

Events: Capgemini

Ian Dolphin

Head of e-Strategy Sakai Project ,University of Hull

Abstract of the presentation

The Sakai Project is a community source software development effort to design, build and deploy a new Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) for higher education. The Project began in January 2004.

The Sakai Project's primary goal is to deliver the Sakai application framework and associated course management tools and components that are designed to work together. As an augmentation of the original CMS/VLE model, Sakai components also support research collaboration. The software is being designed to be competitive with the best CMS’ available.

The tools are being built by designers, software architects and developers at different institutions using a variation of open source development called the community source model. Community source is an extension to the already successful, economically feasible, open source movement forged by projects such as Apache, Linux, and Mozilla. Community source relies more on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members, than some open source development models.

To date, the Sakai Project has put out two major software releases (1.0 and 1.5), developed an Educational Partner's Program which now has around 70 members around the world with 14+ active discussion groups. Sakai also has five commercial affiliates, has organized two highly successful SEPP conferences, and successfully demonstrated a model for community source software development among colleges and universities.

This presentation will provide information on both the background and development of the Sakai Project to date, look forward to Sakai release 2 software together with the future of the Sakai community.

Bio:

Ian Dolphin is Head of e-Strategy at the University of Hull, where he is responsible for advising on Information & Communications Technology strategic direction, and managing the Digital University Project. The initial phase of this project has overseen the integration of key online services in libraries, administration and learning, with the implementation of an institution-wide portal. Current activities include a range of national and international collaborations exploring the relationship between portals, learning objects and environments with the perspective of providing a seamless experience for the learner or educator.

Ian Dolphin has a background in teaching, having taught Special Educational Needs English and Information & Communication Technology in Secondary schools for fourteen years. Initially motivated by the power of emerging technologies to help educationally disadvantaged children, in 1993 Ian was seconded to a regional agency, where he helped establish a curriculum resource development unit. This unit worked collaboratively with teachers and business partners to produce curriculum-focused learning resources for secondary education.

Ian is a member of the Board of Directors of the Java Architectures Special Interest Group (JA-SIG), and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Committee for the Integrated Information Environment.

Events: E-learning

Tineke Egyedi

Senior Researcher TU Delft

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

Open source software (OSS) harbors unprecedented opportunities to create variety. This could lead to incompatibility and fragmentation, and suggests a need for coordination. In this talk we will explore and discuss some of the mechanisms we believe to be responsible for limiting the divergence in open source communities. We will discuss the nature of these mechanisms and will contemplate some of the problems of our categorization.

Bio:

Tineke M. Egyedi (PhD, 1996) is senior researcher in standardization at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Her present research and coordination tasks address issues of Interoperability (Sun Microsystems), Standards Dynamics (EU project, NO-REST), and Flexible Infrastructures (NGI/TU Delft). She is associate editor and member of the editorial board of two international journals on standardization (CSI and JITSR), and vice-president of the European Academy for Standardization. She has been organizer of session, seminars, workshops and conferences (e.g. EURAS 2001 and 3rd IEEE SIIT2003). She has published widely (e.g., books, reports, book chapters, and articles)

Events: Organizational aspects of OSS communities

Jeroen Elfferich

Founder and CEO at Ex Machina Ex Machina

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

In a few decades, interactive entertainment has become a massive industry and the videogames produced reach millions and millions of people. With the proliferation of broadband at home and data services on mobile networks, online gaming is now available anytime, any place, at an affordable cost.

As the games industry is very much driven by innovation that requires pushing current technology to its limits, by the time technology is a standard, it’s outdated. Traditionally an industry left alone by open standards advocates, online gaming is the area that is about to change the situation.

As people spend more and more time playing online, they create a virtual identity, develop it into something they’re proud of, something they have a hard time letting go of. Nevertheless, people like to try new stuff, and eventually, they will play another online game – only to find out they have to start to develop their online persona from scratch.

Online games infrastructures are based on internet technology. The Internet has shown to all how important open standards are. After figuring out how to use TCP/IP et al. to play games with others, games companies are now taking clues further up the stack: allowing games to re-use data created by a previous game and to share this data in cross-game online communities – and they’re finding out open standards make sense.

This presentation will look at the emerging area of online games for mobile phones to introduce the specific challenges and opportunities that open standards face in the most dynamic of all software industries, and cover first steps taken towards standardisation.

Bio:

Jeroen Elfferich is founder and CEO at Ex Machina, the independent, Amsterdam-based company that enables multiplayer gaming on the internet and mobile devices. Jeroen's passion is extending the social context of technology and believes multiplayer mobile gaming is its cutting edge.

After studying Artificial Intelligence as well as Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, Jeroen founded NetlinQ in 1996, where he held the position of CTO. NetlinQ grew to become the largest web consulting and technology firm in The Netherlands with 200 employees and was acquired in 2000 by Framfab. NetlinQ nurtured a number of spin-off companies, including Ex Machina.

Ex Machina has since powered millions of live multiplayer game sessions. Deus+, Ex Machina's connected gaming platform, was turned into an SDK in 2003 and is currently used by over 30 mobile game developers in three continents as well as leading mobile operators.

Jeroen helped to start the MMBase Foundation and is part of the Liberty Alliance Gaming Services Subteam. Jeroen has been chair and speaker at numerous conferences covering multiplayer mobile games and contributed to various academic research projects.

Events: Gaming and education

Arnoud Engelfriet

European pattent attorney Philips

Netherlands

Abstract of presentation

‘Computer-implemented’ inventions (i.e., inventions that make use of software) drive innovation. Europe is a leader in inventions in areas such as medical equipment, mobile phones, cars, aviation and consumer electronics. More often than not, these inventions are enabled by software. Under the existing European legal framework, these inventions can be patented.

In 2003 the EU proposed a directive to harmonize European patent law regarding patentability of these inventions. Despite what is often said, this proposed directive does not permit “trivial patents” or patents on pure software or business methods. Nevertheless, the proposal sparked an intense public debate: should it be possible to patent these inventions or not?

In 2004 the European Parliament proposed amendments that would actually eliminate most patents on computer-implemented inventions. A directive along these lines would have major negative implications for Philips, for innovative companies in Europe and for the European economy in general, leading to the loss of thousands of high quality R&D-jobs in Europe.

Bio:

Arnoud Engelfriet (born 1974) is a European patent attorney working at the IP department (IP&S) of Royal Philips Electronics. After obtaining his M.Sc. in computer science, he joined IP&S and started working on Digital Rights Management (DRM), e-commerce and software. As the secretary of Philips’ Open Source Advisory Board he advises on the legal aspects of open source software by Philips. He has published a large number of articles on the subject of law and technology, and regularly gives lectures and workshops on IP law inside and outside Philips. In addition he is a part-time IP law teacher at the Renmin and Tsinghua universities in Beijing, China.

Events: Software patents

Tom van Engers

Abstract of the presentation

see "Alexander Boer"

Bio:

Van Engers studied Cognitive Artificial Intelligence at the Utrecht University 1990-1994 where he graduated in two specialisations; Cognition and Representation and Cognitive Ergonomics. Van Engers received his PhD in 2001for the thesis Knowledge Management; the Role of Mental Models in Business Systems Design at the faculty Mathematics and Information Sciences at the Free University in Amsterdam. Van Engers is professor in Juridical Knowledge Management at the Leibniz Center for Law of the University of Amsterdam.

Van Engers works at the Ministry of Finance since 1983. From 1983 he worked at the Automation Directorate (Directie Automatisering der Rijksbelastingen (DAR)) at the Development Department (Bureau Ontwikkeling Automatiseringsprojecten). He works as Manager Research at the Project Organisation Artificial Intelligence and Audit Automation from 1990 until 2000. In that period he is the responsible project manager for many innovative projects (e,g, risk detection, natural language processing, data mining and digital intelligent agents on the Internet). Van Engers represents the Ministry of Finances in the interdepartmental working group Knowledge-based Systems from1999 until 1996. From 1996 until 1999 Van Engers is co-chair of the Knowledge Management working group. From 2000 on he works for the Design department (Centre for Process and Product Design) as programme manager for the research programme POWER (Programme for and Ontology-based Working Environment for Rules and regulations).

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Guido Fambach

Presentation together with Darco Jansen

Events: E-learning

Brian Fitzgerald

Professor and a Science Foundation Ireland Investigator University of Limerick

Ireland

Abstract of the presentation

CALIBRE and CALIBRATION: Co-ordinating European OSS Research and Policy Making The presentation outlines the role of the EU FP6 project CALIBRE (Co-ordination Action for Libre Software Engineering) in co-ordinating European OSS research and creating a European industry OSS research policy forum (CALIBRATION). The key goals and purposes of CALIBRE are detailed. Findings from a brainstorming session held with industrial representatives in The Hague on the 19th of November 2004 are presented, providing an industry perspective on the role of OSS in the European secondary software sector. These insights are summarized in the formulation of key factors involved in creating what we refer to as "Open Source Software, Inc." With this backdrop, the potential role of CALIBRATION in and beyond the European OSS policy process is discussed.

Bio:

Professor Brian Fitzgerald holds the Frederick A Krehbiel II Chair in Innovation in Global Business and Technology at the University of Limerick, and is also a Science Foundation Ireland Investigator. He was formerly at University College Cork, Ireland, and has held positions as Visiting Professor at Northern Illinois University, US, the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and University of Northumbria, UK. He received his PhD from the University of London and his research interests lie primarily in the area of software development, a broad area which encompasses the use of development methods, globally-distributed software development, agile methods and open source software. He has been Guest Editor for a number of special issues of international journals (The Information Systems Journal, IEE Proceedings Software, Informing Science, Systemes d'Information et Management), has served as Associate Editor for The Information Systems Journal, Data Base, and the Journal of Information Science and Technology, and is on the Editorial Board of Information Technology & People, Information Systems Review, and Health Information and Libraries Journal.

His publications include seven books and more than 60 papers, published in many of the premier international journals, including the Information Systems Journal, Data Base, Communications of the ACM, IEEE Software, IEEE Computer, Information & Management, and Information Technology & People.

Having worked in industry prior to taking up an academic position, he has more than 20 years experience in the software field. This experience was gained in a variety of companies (Citibank, eircom, IDS Computing, Ridge Tool Company) in a number of countries (Ireland, Belgium, Germany). He has also been involved in a number of consultancy projects, including an ERP systems evaluation for Dairibord, Zimbabwe, and has been successful in a number of research funding proposals from Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, and the EU. These projects have received funding in excess of €10 million.

Leon Gommans

Director Rotterdam-CS

Abstract of the presentation

Rotterdam CS builds the majority of it's solutions on C.O.P.S. a collaborative opens source portal framework that is build on a stack of best of breed open source components. C.O.P.S is designed on top of a number of portal and collaboration principles. The presentation high lights these principles and the way that C.O.P.S. adresses those based both on its past and its expected future.

Bio:

Leon Gommans is one of the founding partners of Rotterdam CS an innovative open source integrator based in Rotterdam. During his studies for his Master degree in computer science and business at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Leon was involved in a number of parallel computing efforts surrounding the Minix kernel. Once graduated he worked in different capacities for a number of international technology companies before founding his first startup at 1998. Rotterdam CS, his third startup, builds portal and search solutions based on open source components.

Starting from 1999 Leon has been involved in a number of social events surrounding technology. Lately these events become more and more focussed on Open Source resulting in the Open Source experience of 2004 a prelude to the Holland Open. Another effort of his hand are the open source drinks that he co-hosts every second month.

Events: Web technology

Dai Griffith

Spain

Abstract of the presentation

Focusing on the field of education, this presentation will examine the relationship between, on the one hand, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and, on the other, Open Specifications for Interoperability in education. FOSS software brings with it many advantages, but it does not necessarily provide interoperability, as each application has its own document format. To achieve interoperability it is necessary to use open specifications. The specifications published by IMS have achieved a high degree of adoption, both individually and as components of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) application profile. SCORM has achieved high levels of adoption, in part because it is supported by US Federal Funding channelled through the Department of Defense totalling 84.4 million dollars between 2003 and 2009, plus mandated adoption in federal projects. Using the SCORM it is possible to create content which can be distributed and reproduced on a wide range of systems. This exchange of documents makes it possible to support not only the distribution of learning content, but also the exchange of documents to support discourse over a wide range of systems. This is clearly of educational benefit. Unfortunately the pedagogy which is supported by the SCORM is limited to a single user, working in isolation, and appears to be designed to meet the needs of programmed learning. FOSS can support all kinds of learning, but there is a substantial overlap between the values of the FOSS community and those of educators who work in the constructivist tradition. These include an emphasis on collaboration, discourse, of multiple valid viewpoints, and the importance of the learners local culture. If FOSS developers are limited to the SCORM as an interoperability specification, they have to make a difficult choice between sacrificing interoperability, or sacrificing pedagogic flexibility. Fortunately the more recent IMS Learning Design specification, published in 2003, resolves this problem. It provides a way in which SCORM objects, or other resources, can be used in pedagogically flexible learning activities by multiple learners who can take on a variety of roles. Because of this it is important that the FOSS community in education support the LD specification. A considerable effort has been made over the past two years to create a FOSS infrastructure for the implementation of LD, and a minimum tool set for use of the specification is now available. This includes both design time and run time software. The use of Open Source in this development work has been of great importance, not only because it offers a low cost route for potential adopters to try out the specification, but also because it makes it possible to develop reference applications which can guide later developers, and so ensure interoperability. A number of these applications have been designed to make it easy for other developers to add their own interfaces, and so they constitute a significant resource for developers of FOSS educational applications.

Bio:

Dai Griffiths is an arts graduate, and has taught at all levels from primary through to university and continuing education. He has worked in educational technology for over ten years, and for the last five years he has been a researcher at the Interactive Technology Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. He is a member of the SIGOSSEE/JOIN project (which promotes the use of FOSS in education in Europe), and the coordinator of the UNFOLD project (which coordinates the adoption of the IMS Learning Design specification).

Events: E-learning

Syb Groeneveld

kennisland

Bio:

Syb Groeneveld is Public Project lead for the Creative Commons in the Netherlands and responsible for the Digital Pioneers fund at Knowledgeland (Stichting Nederland Kennisland). This fund gives financial and organisational support to almost 100 small organisations that realise innovative projects in the public domain that contribute to the free distribution of content and the development of new services.

In 2003 he started in cooperation with Waag Society and IViR negotiations with various parties to introduce Creative Commons in the Netherlands .

Abstract of the presentation

In his presentation he will address the importance of open content strategies. He will present the results of Creative Commons Netherlands and will link this with the so called “amateur content” on the web and the public value of content.

Events: Open Content

Lucie Guibault

assistant professor of copyright and intellectual property law Institute for Information Law

Abstract of the presentation

A number of legal challenges need to be addressed in order to ensure the most efficient deployment of open content licences in the Netherlands, not least because most open source licences originate from the United States. This presentation intends to give an overview of the current legal situation regarding the use of open source software licences and to report on the most interesting findings of a report to be published soon on how the most commonly used open source software licences measure up to Dutch and European private and copyright law. How does the distinct production and distribution model of open source licences fit in the current legal framework? Does the legal environment support the use of open source licences or does it rather impede their use? In this last case, would some adaptations to the law or to the licence terms be appropriate?

Bio:

Lucie Guibault is assistant professor of copyright and intellectual property law at the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Born and raised in Canada, she studied law at the Université de Montréal [LL.B. (1988) and LL.M. (1995)] and received her doctorate in January 2002 from the University of Amsterdam, where she defended her thesis on Copyright Limitations and Contracts: An Analysis of the Contractual Overridability of Limitations on Copyright. She joined the Institute for Information Law in 1997. Dr. Guibault is specialized in international and comparative copyright and intellectual property law, and takes part in national and international conferences.

Events: 4 Quality Management/ 5 Legal Issues

Scott Handy

Vice President IBM

USA

Scott Handy is Vice President of Worldwide Linux Strategy for IBM.

He has been with IBM for over 20 years and is currently based out of Somers, New York. Scott started with IBM as a systems engineer. As an Account Development Manager, he focused on multi-year, complex customer projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. In his history with IBM assignments include Technical Assistant to the General Manager of the IBM, Motorola, Apple alliance, and Executive Assistant to the President of the IBM Personal Software Products Division.

In this keynote, Scott will present his vision about the power and potential of next generation technologies including Grid, Virtualization and Deep Computing, and how IBM sees innovation in the area of Linux and Open Standards and is rapidly increasing and its role as a major global participant. Scott will illustrate how IBM is leveraging Linux and Open Standards inside its own business to foster innovation, increase security and reduce costs based on a Linux and Open Standards ecosystem. Drawing on case studies, Scott will demonstrate how IBM is applying this experience to enable its customers to attain new levels of productivity and innovation through Open Standards-based solutions in the world of On Demand Business.

Events: Opening and keynotes

Henk Hangyi

Abstract of the presentation

Title: From highly sexy to commodity: Content management MMBase-style

This year MMBase celebrates its fifth anniversary. Since its first release MMBase has shown to be a flexible and powerful content management solution for a fast growing number of users. Why do organizations opt for MMBase and when do they refrain from using MMBase? This presentation will try to answer this question by looking at the main characteristics of the MMBase functionality, the MMBase community and a number of use cases. The presentation will conclude with some challenges facing MMBase and its community.

Bio:

Henk Hangyi is project manager of the MMBase documentation project. He has worked with MMBase since 2001 focusing mainly on consultancy, implementation and education. Before starting his own firm, he worked as a consultant at CMG and Arthur Andersen.

Events: Web technology

Marcel den Hartog

Abstract of the presentation

Creating a new product, donating it to Open Source and wait to see what the success is has been done a thousand times before. Taking a successful product that already generates substantial revenue and donating that to Open Source is a totally different issue. How do you explain that to all the stakeholders (clients, shareholders, personnel etc.)? Open Source without a strategy is guaranteed to fail. How does professional ISV like Computer Associates work with Open Source, how do we deal with the challenges and what do we tell/teach our clients? After this session, you will have a better understanding of the position of CA, how large enterprises would like to deal with OSS, but also how they are sometimes forced to deal with Open Source software.

Bio:

Marcel den Hartog is responsible for the success of CA’s Linux strategy in EMEA. In that role, Marcel frequently meets CA clients and prospects, talks to the press and Industry Analysts across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Marcel is also responsible for briefing CA’s product marketing and development people about specific requirements in these markets. Marcel is a member of OpenForum Europe and the European OSDL Linux User Advisory Council (LUAC). In these forums large vendors and other parties work together on promoting Open Source solutions in general and Linux in specific. The OSDL LUAC also provides input and direction to OSDL regarding customer requirements for Linux in the enterpriseMarcel joined CA in 1987 as a Pre-sales consultant and brings 17 years of technical experience covering everything from mainframe, distributed systems and the Intel platform in all IT disciplines.

Events: Business models

Roger ter Heide

Ordina

Events: Ordina

Ívar Helgason

TM-Software

Abstract of the presentation

Presentation together with Gauti Thor Reynisson

Topic of our presentation is open source in the medical community. Over the past years, software developers and other “computer centric” industries have benefited greatly from open source. However, applying this idea to other industries is a challenge. The key ideas are open communication and information sharing to the benefit of everyone in the community. Coming up with the theory is easy but applying it in the real world is what has to happen. One such opportunity is in patient medication management where physicians are doing more and more of their work with the help of computer software. However, in order to correctly configure medication treatments, physicians need to rely on a body of knowledge dealing with protocols, dosage adjustments, drug interactions etc. Building this body of information and gathering sufficient experience with it is a long process, one that will benefit from an open source community. Currently, this information is found in books and conference papers if the physician takes the time to publish it. However, this information is not easily accessible by the doctor working with the medication software on the hospital ward. Opening this knowledge up is what TM-Software aims to do by founding and contributing to an open source community and making tools available for physicians to share their knowledge.

Bio:

Gauti Reynisson holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Skövde, Sweden. Mr. Reynisson worked intensively with internet technologies at Cambridge Technology partners in Amsterdam before relocating to Iceland to work for deCODE Genetics where he got to know the world of clinical IT. Mr. Reynisson now works as a consultant in healthcare informatics for TM-Software in Europe, concentrating on finding ways to apply information technology at hospitals to improve patient care.

Events: Evolving standards

Xavier Heymans

CEO Zope Europe Association

Belgium

Abstract of the presentation

Zope Europe Association (ZEA) is an international network of companies involved in the development and business of Zope, Plone, and Silva. We deliver content management system (CMS) deployments and manage large Zope-based projects. The business partnership stresses the client value of working with the creators of award-winning open source software. With ZEA, the money returns to the beginning of the value chain, thus delivering durable impact and providing consulting excellence. As a non-profit, ZEA is focused on the strength of all links in both the value chain and the "values" chain. Customers need a solid value chain of links leading back to the open source developers that create code. Agencies need a healthy "values" chain for software competitiveness and quality, leading back to the open source businesses that launch innovation. ZEA isn't driven by corporate shareholders as an isolated link in the chain. Instead, ZEA is a <> cooperative of the shared interests in the value and values chains. With 15 partner companies in 10 countries (9 in Europe), ZEA provides a broad reach of expertise in content management for Zope. The ZEA network currently totals a combined staff of over 100 employees and a turnover in excess of €6,5 million.

Bio:

Xavier Heymans, CEO of Zope Europe Association, is a mechanical civil engineer with international experience in management of multinationals and SME's, as well as NGO and education projects.

Events: Organizational aspects of OSS communities

Arjen Hof

Innovation Manager City of Amsterdam

Netherlands
Events: Debate on innovation

Walter van Holst

IT legal counsel Mitopics BV

Netherlands

Abstract of presentation

OSS and reverse engineering legislation A lot of so called open source software (OSS) projects involve the (partial) reimplementation of proprietary software. This varies from simple hardware drivers, to even (partial) reimplementations of propietary software. It is not always possible to implement functionality or to make software interoperable with proprietary software without having to resort to so called reverse engineering. Copyright law in most jurisdictions forbids reverse engineering to varying degrees.

Another reason for OSS developers to resort to reverse engineering is license enforcement. The necessity is caused by the irony of OSS that the availability of the source code makes it technically very easy to misappropriate code. At the same time most cases of misappropriation of OSS involve the binary-only distribution of software without mentioning the OSS origins of the code, thus bringing any copyright owners in a difficult position in order to ensure that their code is not misappropriated. This paper explores the subject of reverse-engineering from two perspectives: to what extent does the current legislation impose restrictions on OSS development and to what extent does it restrict enforcement of OSS-licenses.

Bio:

Walter van Holst works as an IT legal counsel at Mitopics (http://www.mitopics.nl). As such he is regularly involved in IT contracts, licensing issues and intellectual property issues. He has published articles in peer reviewed law journals on issues such as the applicability of the GPL under Dutch law and the collision of property law with copyright law. Additionally he has published several articles in trade journal on open source software. He holds masters degrees in both law and business administration.

Events: 4 Quality Management/ 5 Legal Issues

Darco Jansen

Presentation together with Guido Fambach

Events: E-learning

Erik Josefsson

Spokesman FFII

Belgium

Erik Josefsson heads political communications for FFII in Brussels since 2004.

He has already worked on the software patent directive since 2001. Mr. Josefsson is a former member of the Danish-Swedish SSLUG (Skåne Sjælland Linux User Group) and Chairman of FFII.se. He was elected by NyTeknik (a Swedish IT magazine) as one of the 50 most influential leaders in Swedish IT 2004.

The European Commission's proposal for the software patents directive in February 2002 marked the start of one of the most lively debates ever in EU politics. Initial opponents mainly came from the Open Source, Free Software and academic worlds, but were later joined by SMEs, unions and consumer organisations. As software patent lawsuits continue to rage on in the US, even some large corporations have now voiced concerns about the latest version as submitted by the Council. It is clear that a different approach is necessary, one which is more in line with the way innovation in the information economy works. Cheap, narrow, fast and safe are the keywords that should form the foundation of this sector's exclusion rights. The topic of Mr. Josefsson's presentation is "Why the Software Patents Directive of the European Commission and the Council is a deliberate attempt to make software patents enforceable".

Events: Keynotes

Arjen Kamphuis

Abstract of the presentation

Over the last years we have seen a growing interest in open source and free software solutions. Both public and private sector seem to be more and more aware of the fact, that their IT infrastructure needs to “open” - which can mean anything: publicly accessible, without vendor lock-in, (partly) adhering to open standards or consisting of free or open source software. For some people, “free software” “open source” or is almost a religion.

However, it is our opinion that clinging to “free software” will bring you nowhere. In this session we will show, that for a healthy IT infrastructure, a less religious view on the matter is necessary.

Bio:

Arjen Kamphuis (1972) studied Science&Policy at Utrecht University and worked for IBM as Unix specialist, Tivoli consultant and software instructor. As IT-strategy consultant at Twynstra Gudde he was involved in starting up Kennisnet, the Dutch educational network. Since 2001 he is operating as an independant advisor of companies and governments. In 2002 he co-authored the unanimously accepted parlaiment motion to mandate open standards for all government IT. Arjen divides his attention between IT-policy and the convergence of IT, bio- and nanotechnology and it's social and economic implications. His customers include: Shell, Unilever, Pfizer, Stork, and various hospitals and insurance companies. Arjen teaches technology policy at Nyenrode University and various other places.

Events: Evolving standards

Wim Koolhoven

Abstract of the presentation

52North – Geospatial Open Source Technology for Research and Education

The role of geographic information and earth observation science play an increasing role for a broad range of issues in daily life. The education of the necessary skills is of major concern by the major educational institutes. While e-Learning or remote distance learning becomes more and more important, software tools have to be suited to match the new demands: Software components have to flexible enough to be used within different kinds of environments, both local desktop based and distributed. At the same time, the licence models shall allow making use of those components without minimal restrictions.

Open Source Software is one solution to match those demands. To achieve a high increase of value, interoperability is the keyword. The most promising activities in geoprocessing interoperability are those of the Open Geospatial Consortium. The open source initiative 52°North (www.52north.org), founded by the Institute for Geoinformatics (University of Münster, Germany), Con terra GmbH (Münster, Germany), and the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation ITC (Enschede, The Netherlands) addresses the creation of software that transforms the specification by OGC into ready-to-use products.

Bio:

Wim Koolhoven has a MSc Chemical Engineering of the University Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands (1985). Since 1999 he is head of the unit Geo Software Development, IT department of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) in Enschede. In this function he coordinates the software development for both research and education within ITC. He has many years experience as software developer and designer and was a.o. responsible for the architecture and project leader of the world wide used GIS/RS software package ILWIS.

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Matthew Langham

abstract of the presentation

title: Surviving the five year itch

Matthew Langham has been evangelizing Open Source to European corporations since 2000, the year he established an Open Source group inside a commercial German software company. Matthew will talk about how the "problems" of commercial Open Source adoption have changed in the last 5 years, how Open Source is climbing the enterprise stack and detail the mistakes made by many commercial organisations when trying to "get" Open Source. He will outline the structure of Open Source organisations and projects using the Apache Software Foundation as an example and hopefully convince commercial attendees to the conference that there is no need to panic. Yet.

Bio:

Matthew Langham leads the Open Source group at S&N AG (www.s-und-n.de) in Paderborn, Germany and spends most of his time convincing commercial entities to "get" Open Source. He is an Apache Cocoon committer and author of several books and many articles on Open Source and emerging technologies. Matthew speaks regularly at national and international conference and maintains a weblog at www.silentpenguin.com.

Events: Business models

Karl de Leeuw

Amsterdam School of ICT

Events: Gaming and education

Manon van Leeuwen

Director Information Society Fundecyt

Abstract of the presentation

Main objectives of the Stratos2 Project

The FLOSS Leonardo da vinci project addresses the issue of OpenSource and SME’s by the development of a training plan that will provide European SME managers with the competences necessary for the assessment and evaluation of the suitability of FLOSS applications and solutions for their organisations, and their posterior implementation.

Specific Objectives

Analysis of the barriers to the implementation of FLOSS applications and solutions in SMEs. Identification of those barriers that are the consequence of lack of information, skills and competences of SME managers.

Analysis of the training needs of SME managers to acquire the information, skills and competences necessary for the assessment and evaluation of the suitability of FLOSS applications and solutions, and for the implementation in their own organisations.

Identification of the training gaps, based on the current training offered. Development of a training plan that will provide SMEs managers with the information, competences and skills necessary for the successful assessment and evaluation of the suitability of FLOSS applications and solutions for their organisations, and their posterior implementation.

Realization of the corresponding training system, procedures and materials and support system. Execution of a pilot training with a limited number of SMEs managers so as to test the material with a view on improvement and correction of deviations.

www.stratos2.net

Bio:

Obtained her University Degree in Business Economics at the University of Tilburg. Se obtained a Master the European Community of the ICADE Madrid, and is realising her Ph.D. in "New tendencies in Company Management" of the University of Valladolid. She is currently Director of Information Society at Fundecyt and formerly has been Director of the Department for European Programmes of the Foundation University-Enterprise of Valladolid. As an expert on issues related to the Information Society, Knowledge Society and Knowledge Management she has been a professor and speaker on courses and seminars. She has been evaluator and reviewer in various occasions of the IST programme, both within FP 5 and FP 6. She has a large experience in the preparation, realisation and execution of regional, national and international projects, the projects are related to the new economy and the knowledge society, and are of technological and social nature, many of them addressing the needs of SMEs. Including a large experience in managing multidisciplinary and intercultural projects, as well as European Community programmes.

Events: EU Projects, (local) Policies & SME's

Manon van Leeuwen

Director Information Society Fundecyt

Abstract of the presentation

In 1997, The Regional Government of Extremadura planned two-phase a strategy:
Phase 1: Build a telecommunications infrastructure (the Regional Intranet.)
Phase 2: Developing the so-called Digital Literacy

In order to seize the opportunity the IT Revolution brings, we must:
- Guarantee that all citizens in Extremadura can access the Internet.
- Make citizens very little experienced in IT, feel comfortable with it.
- Promote the full evolution of Extremadura's economy towards a more modern service-oriented one.

Bio:

Obtained her University Degree in Business Economics at the University of Tilburg. She obtained a Master the European Community of the ICADE Madrid, and is realising her Ph.D. in "New tendencies in Company Management" of the University of Valladolid. She is currently Director of Information Society at Fundecyt and formerly has been Director of the Department for European Programmes of the Foundation University-Enterprise of Valladolid. As an expert on issues related to the Information Society, Knowledge Society and Knowledge Management she has been a professor and speaker on courses and seminars. She has been evaluator and reviewer in various occasions of the IST programme, both within FP 5 and FP 6. She has a large experience in the preparation, realisation and execution of regional, national and international projects, the projects are related to the new economy and the knowledge society, and are of technological and social nature, many of them addressing the needs of SMEs. Including a large experience in managing multidisciplinary and intercultural projects, as well as European Community programmes.

Events: Social Inclusion

François Letellier

Executive Committee Objectweb

France

Abstract of the presentation

Due to the economies of scale that are naturally achieved on information goods and because of huge network effects, commoditization of infrastructure software has dramatic consequences at the macroeconomic level. Incepted for ethical reasons, the FOSS movement thrived as a pragmatic and economically efficient way to carry on software commoditization while avoiding some unwanted effects of the traditional software publishing model. However, at any given point in time, commoditization does not operate on the totality of the software stack. Close-source solutions complement commodity FOSS with very specific features of significant added value. Around these open and close source solutions, companies of all sizes have opportunities to develop profitable business models. The open-source process also brings externalities such as opportunities for economical development based on services at a local scale and technology independence, which match the requirements for citizen funded public infrastructures. As FOSS reaches the mainstream, the software industry is ready for a new generation of open-source organizations. They would bring together academia, industry, government and individuals and leverage open-standards and the open-source development process to proactively foster the development of business ecosystems where each player could define its own open-source strategy.

Bio:

François Letellier has a master in computer science and 15 years of experience in software design, engineering and project management. François has been Product Manager in the field of Pharmaceutical EIS/DataWarehouse. He co-founded a software consultancy where he served 5 years as a Project Management Consultant for global corporations like France Telecom and Michelin. François is now appointed by INRIA, the French National Research Center in Computer Science and Automation, to ObjectWeb's Executive Committee and coordinates the consortium communication.

Picture: © INRIA / photo Jim Wallace

Events: Business models

Frank van der Linden

Philips

John Madelin

Director of business developement, EMEA RSA Security

Abstract of the presentation

The Liberty Alliance provides the technology, knowledge and certifications to build identity into the foundation of mobile and web-based communications and transactions.

Liberty is the only open body working to address the technical, business, and policy challenges surrounding identity and web services. Its output includes:
Open technology specifications
Business guidelines documents
Privacy controls built into the specifications
Privacy & security best practices
Enabled compliance with global privacy legislation and industry regulations (i.e. Article 29, HIPAA)
Liberty Interoperable Certifications that validate implementations and drive adoption
Liberty's specifications for Federated Identity and Web Services are available for public download.

Bio:

Having trained in public practice as a Chartered Accountant, John became a Management Consultant, before moving into the software Industry, where he quickly became Finance Director for the roughly $200m Legent EMEA region. John was responsible for planning one of the biggest software industry integrations between Legent and Goal, as well as building new business systems at a time when the industry was moving to more sophisticated value based pricing. Subsequently appointed Director of Business Development and Corporate strategy at Legent, John eventually moved on to undertake Senior Operations roles for small and medium Software Businesses, working collaboratively to build solid underlying growth which twice led to successful IPO. In the capacity of Commercial Vice President EMEA at Entrust Technologies John experienced the first burst of explosive growth in the security market first hand. As Director of Business Development – EMEA for RSA Security John has authored a number of articles, and is a sought after speaker on the strategic implications of Identity Management. John has also helped establish the AXIS forum, a network of C Level executives engaged in understanding the enabling implications of Security technology. John is a Chartered accountant with an MBA from Manchester Business School and has held advisory board positions for a variety of start-ups in the technology sector.

Stefan Manegold

Abstract of the presentation

MonetDB/XQuery: A scalable open-source XQuery processor

Since XQuery has been proposed as the W3C standard query language for XML data, both the database research community and industry have been trying to create systems that efficiently implement XQuery on large XML databases. This poses a non-trivial challenge due to the inherent tree structure of XML data coupled with the iterative and recursive nature of the XQuery language.

We present "MonetDB/XQuery", an open-source system that provides a full-fledged implementation of XQuery. MonetDB/XQuery does not only achieve query performance that greatly surpasses those of other known XQuery systems, but it also provides unsurpassed scalability: all queries of the XMark benchmark can be run in interactive time on XML input documents of up to 11 GB data size. Few other systems support this size, let alone in interactive time.

MonetDB/XQuery has been developed in the "Pathfinder" project, a cooperation between the University of Konstanz (Germany), the University of Twente (The Netherlands), and the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Using the MonetDB open-source RDBMS as its back-end, MonetDB/XQuery leverages mature relational query optimisation techniques as well as efficient and scalable relational query processing operators.

MonetDB/XQuery will be officially released on May 30 2005.

Bio:

Stefan Manegold received his PhD in computer science from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2002, and his MSc degree in computer science from the Technical University Clausthal, Germany, in 1994.

From 1995 until 1997, he was working as a research assistant with the Database Research Group at the Institute for Informatics of Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany. Since 1997, he has been working as a database researcher with the Database Research Group at the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

In his PhD work, Stefan Manegold investigated performance issues and cost modelling in main-memory database systems. During the past six years, Stefan Manegold has published a series of articles on various aspects of data management on modern hardware in prominent database journals and conferences. His research interests include distributed and parallel database systems, main-memory database systems, query processing, cost models, and storing and processing XML data using relational database technology.

Stefan Manegold was involved in growing MonetDB from a research prototype into an open-source system and is responsible for the automatic cross-platform regression testing environment that monitors and ensures the stability and portability of MonetDB.

Stefan Manegold has served as external reviewer for various database journals, conferences and workshops. Currently, he is co-chair of the DaMoN 2005 workshop and acts as a PC member for VLDB 2005 (Core Database Technology), DASFAA 2006 and VLDB 2006 (Demonstrations).

Events: High profile OSS applications

Benoît Müller

Director of Software Policy Europe Business Software Alliance

Belgium

Mr. Müller will also join the debate on software patents

Abstract of the presentation

The open source software movement reflects one of the most dramatic developments in the dynamic information technology (IT) industry of today. Notably, some commentators have sought to posit open source against proprietary software. To the contrary, this paper argues that although open source and proprietary software development models may be based on different development and distribution philosophies, neither is inherently superior. Moreover, practical experience demonstrates how each of these models serves the specific needs of individual customers at a given time, and the fact and effectiveness of these models coexisting and interoperating. BSA members unanimously believe that innovation happens best when all software solutions are permitted to compete on their merits. Ultimately, the development model should never be the sole or even the principle determinant of what constitutes “good” software. This paper proposes specific elements that are necessary to maintaining and further building a healthy, dynamic and competitive software ecosystem.

Bio:

As Director of Software Policy—Europe, Benoît Müller is in charge of the Business Software Alliance’s European software policy activities. Before joining the BSA, Mr. Müller, among other positions, served as Secretary General of the International Publishers Association. Mr. Müller holds law degree from the University of Geneva and was admitted to practice as an attorney at the Bar of Geneva.

Events: 4 Quality Management/ 5 Legal Issues

Benoît Müller

Director of Software Policy Europe Business Software Alliance

Belgium

Mr. Müller will join the debate on software patents

Bio:

As Director of Software Policy—Europe, Benoît Müller is in charge of the Business Software Alliance’s European software policy activities. Before joining the BSA, Mr. Müller, among other positions, served as Secretary General of the International Publishers Association. Mr. Müller holds law degree from the University of Geneva and was admitted to practice as an attorney at the Bar of Geneva.

Events: Software patents

Marten Metz

Mitopics BV

Abstract of the presentation

Best practices in European tendering This paper will explain how European tendering procedures for ICT work and how current practices create pitfalls and opportunities for OSS. The intendend audience are both tendering public sector institutions as well as ICT suppliers who intend to use OSS as part of their bids for such tenders. For that purpose an outline of current practices, which tend to have proprietary solutions in min, is given as well as general pitfalls and risks of European tendering procedures. Subsequently the creation of allotment criteria that take into account the specifics of OSS-licenses and OSS suppliers is explained. Curren European tendering practices tend to give both OSS solutions and OSS suppliers an unnecessary disadvantage that can be avoided. Finally this paper will discuss how OSS suppliers can manage tendering public bodies in order to prevent such disadvantages.

Bio:

Marten Metz has over a decade of experience in tendering procedures for the procurement of ICT as well as an impressive track-record in consultancy on improvement of procurement organizations. In addition to his experience in the procurement of ICT in the public sector, Marten has acquired a lot of experience in ICT contracts and conflicts.

Events: 4 Quality Management/ 5 Legal Issues

Rob Peters, Roel Titulaer and John Oldenhuizing

Rob Peters is Senior Advisor Zenc

Abstract of the presentation

Title: Linking Query articulation by citizens to controlled metadata; eGov Service catalogue or citizen speak?

There is no such thing as the wrong question. That’s the whole point of client driven eGovernment. While rethinking the strategy for www.overheid.nl, the Dutch National Government portal, we did some quantitative research on what people used as keyword entry over the last two years. This proved to be most illustrative for how citizens think while entering a query and what they seek in terms of service provision. Our Collegues in Den Bosch have investigated a standard people’s language to secribe the “feel” of town in terms useful to architects. Both inventories of “burger jargon” or “citizenspeak” are now being used as training list for the categorisation of eGovernment services. Earlier attempts of categorisation were useful to support the notion of client driven government. Civil servants had to make tasks more explicit and list them each as a separate item. The Dutch National Product catalogue is now taken seriously as a way to list the service portfolio of a large number of government agencies in The Netherlands. Other ways of categorisation on the demand side were similar to expert system design methods of the nineties. Some of them were named “life event” systems, based on the combination of services and tasks related to a certain requirement or obligation of citizens. This does not mean that the catalogue or even the expert system was really user friendly. A known problem of expert systems is the sequence of screens required to guide the user towards the desired end. It works in a stable world with predictable questions. Unfortunately the world changes and citizens are only moderately predictable. The FAQ approach used with templates (e.g. ask Jeeves) or just collecting answers to frequent questions and reusing those in a feed back loop has a proven track record. What we did with overheid.nl carries this approach one step further. This paper will describe the quantitative analyses, the method used for collecting citizenspeak and it will seek to explore the significance for semantic web applications in eGovernment. The claim is that Standardisation of eGovernment services towards categories, taxonomies and controlled vocabularies requires simple but frequent adaptation to the input side of what citizens appear to be seeking. Using the input side as leading for sophisticated information categorisation has been applied both for ww.overheid.nl and for participative government in the City of Den Bosch. Another type of citizen speak was applied in the “legal atlas” of the addwijzer project. All cases illustrate eGovernment service standardisation in more client centric ways. The query analyses or citizen speak approach is contrary to the common view on user need compliance based on requirements analyses and information system design. Earlier research applying Natural language processing for input in a website showed the reluctance of users to apply more than one or two keywords. Our research indicates more user friendliness at the input side achieved by simpler means.

Biography Rob Peters:

Rob Peters is senior eGovernment Consultant and PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam researching knowledge management processes around Open Source and Open Standards. Rob organized the first Dutch eCommerce conference in 1993. In 1997 he received the European Telework award supporting people with disabilities to work on the internet. As senior Project Manager he was responsible for the development of major websites like www.PortofRotterdam, www.overheid.nl and www.Unicef.nl . He has initiated three successful European research projects in ICT innovation. Currently he is project manager of the TRIAS Telematica project, covering the European eGovernment Skill set for civil servants.Rob published several articles on business models and reusable software architectures around Open Source. Currently he acts as EC liaison officer for MMBase and seeks to create Bottom-up European collaborative efforts with other Open Source Communities towards more professionalism and more Quality assurances for Industry.

Events: Open Government

Madanmohan Rao

Head of research AMIC

India

Bio:

Dr. Madanmohan Rao, a consultant and writer from Bangalore, is research director at the Asian Media Information and Communication centre (AMIC).

He is the editor of three book series: “The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook”, “The Knowledge Management Chronicles” and “AfricaDotEdu” (McGraw Hill). He is also editor-at-large of DestinationKM.com and contributor to the Poynter Institute blog on new media trends. Madan was on the international editorial board of the recently published book, “Transforming e-Knowledge.”

Madan was formerly the communications director at the United Nations Inter Press Service bureau in New York, and vice president at IndiaWorld Communications in Bombay. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with an M.S. in computer science and a Ph.D. in communications. He is currently the director of the InfoComm Observatory at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.

Madan is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit, and has given talks and lectures in about 50 countries around the world. He has worked with online services in the U.S., Brazil, and India. His articles have appeared in DestinationKM.com, The Economic Times, Electronic Markets magazine, Economic and Political Weekly, and the Bangkok Post. Madan is on the board of directors/advisors of numerous content and wireless services firms in Asia. He also participates in consultations at UNESCO, IDRC, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) foundation in India and Nepal.

He is the conference chair for India Internet World, India's largest annual Internet business conference, and serves on the conference committees of trade show group Messe Frankfurt in Germany, Singapore-based Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, and the global Internet Society.

Events: Social Inclusion , Debate on innovation , Opening and keynotes

Vasilios Retsios

software developer ITC

Abstract of the presentation

This article deals with the implementation of open source software for reading digital images of the earth that originate from Eumetsat’s MSG-1 satellite. These images can be received and stored with low cost hardware, and are useful for climate monitoring, land surface analysis and meteorological applications. Unfortunately, they are provided in a non-standard and compressed file format, thus conversion is needed. The choice of software for converting the images is very limited. There is expensive meteorological software available, which would cancel out any benefit of the low cost hardware, and a few affordable utilities that offer only basic conversion options, losing significant information in the process. To take advantage of all the available information in the image data, a team at ITC developed software for properly reading them. For several reasons it was decided to contribute the result to an open source conversion library called GDAL. The most important reasons are that in this way it was possible to avoid also developing code for writing specific file formats, and the final software solution is future-proof. The GDAL library was convincing as the number of supported file formats increased rapidly over the last couple of years, and the conversions are accurate. Several difficulties were encountered in the development process due to the lack of how-to guides and documentation of the GDAL framework. However, this is compensated by the long term benefits, as not only the conversion drivers are brought up-to-date faster than with any commercial software vendor, but also because it has stimulated cooperation with others in the same field.

Bio:

Vasilios Retsios is born in Athens, Greece, on 20 April 1972. In 1990 he moved to the Netherlands for studying Computer Science at the University Twente. In 1996 he acquired an MSc with specialization in system architecture. In 1997 he started working at the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), developing distance learning GIS and Remote Sensing courses. In 2000 he started working as a software developer in the department of Geo-Software Development at ITC, making major contributions to ITC’s Geographic Information System called ILWIS, and also developing geo-software components that establish research results of the institute. The most recent development is a component for reading and calibrating images from MSG-1, the most recent meteorological satellite launched by EUMETSAT.

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Gauti por Reynisson

TM-Software

Abstract of the presentation

Presentation together with Ívar Helgason

Topic of our presentation is open source in the medical community. Over the past years, software developers and other “computer centric” industries have benefited greatly from open source. However, applying this idea to other industries is a challenge. The key ideas are open communication and information sharing to the benefit of everyone in the community. Coming up with the theory is easy but applying it in the real world is what has to happen. One such opportunity is in patient medication management where physicians are doing more and more of their work with the help of computer software. However, in order to correctly configure medication treatments, physicians need to rely on a body of knowledge dealing with protocols, dosage adjustments, drug interactions etc. Building this body of information and gathering sufficient experience with it is a long process, one that will benefit from an open source community. Currently, this information is found in books and conference papers if the physician takes the time to publish it. However, this information is not easily accessible by the doctor working with the medication software on the hospital ward. Opening this knowledge up is what TM-Software aims to do by founding and contributing to an open source community and making tools available for physicians to share their knowledge.

Bio:

Gauti Reynisson holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Skövde, Sweden. Mr. Reynisson worked intensively with internet technologies at Cambridge Technology partners in Amsterdam before relocating to Iceland to work for deCODE Genetics where he got to know the world of clinical IT. Mr. Reynisson now works as a consultant in healthcare informatics for TM-Software in Europe, concentrating on finding ways to apply information technology at hospitals to improve patient care.

Events: Evolving standards

Dick Rijken

Haagse Hogeschool

Ton Roosendaal

Blender Foundation

Abstract of the presentation

The Blender Foundation's first goal was to find a way to continue developing and promoting Blender as a community based open source project. In July 2002, Ton managed to get the NaN investors to agree on a unique Blender Foundation plan to attempt to open source Blender. The "Free Blender" campaign sought to raise 100,000 EUR so that the Foundation could buy the rights to the Blender source code and intellectual property and subsequently open source Blender. With an enthusiastic group of volunteers, among them several ex-NaN employees, a fund raising campaign was launched to "Free Blender." To everyone's shock and surprise the campaign reached the 100,000 EUR goal in only seven short weeks. On Sunday Oct 13, 2002, Blender was released to the world under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Blender development continues to this day driven by a team of far flung dedicated volunteers from around the world led by Blender's original creator, Ton Roosendaal.

Bio:

Ton Roosendaal is Blender's creator, and the co-founder of NeoGeo, the largest 3D animation house in the Netherlands in the nineties. Ton founded Not a Number (NaN) in 1998 to market and develop Blender. In March 2002, he started the non-profit Blender Foundation with the goal of resurrecting Blender as an open source software project. A deal was reached with the company's investors to initiate a fund-raising campaign to buy back the rights to Blender, at a cost of €100,000. Thanks to an enthusiastic group of volunteers including several ex-NaN employees, along with donations from thousands of loyal Blender supporters, the €100,000 target was reached in seven short weeks. Blender was then freely released to the world under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Since 2002, Ton is working full time employed by the Blender Foundation to coordinate Blender projects, ranging from software development to manual publishing.

Events: Organizational aspects of OSS communities

Cristina Rossi

Italy

Bio:

Cristina Rossi is post doc researcher in Economics at the Laboratory of Economics and Management of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa. She got her Ph.D in Economics and Management of Innovation at Sant'Anna School in November 2003 (thesis title: The Economics of Open Source Software. Incentives, Coordination and Diffusion, supervisor: prof. Andrea Bonaccorsi)At present she collaborates also with the Department of Electrical Systems and Automation of the University of Pisa. Her research interests deal with the Economics of Open Source Software (OSS) and focus on profit-oriented firms that offer Open Source based products and services (Open Source firms). bout this topic, she has coordinated two surveys that provide empirical evidence on the involvement of the commercial world in the OSS. The first survey has been taken on 146 Italian OSS firms (ELISS I) while the second (ELISS II) has involved five European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain).Cristina Rossi's publications on OSS firms are available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=337876 Under a theoretical point of view, she is now exploring the issue of the motivations that lead individuals to provide a continuous stream of contributions to collective goods that are immaterial in their nature. She is investigating in particular the cases in which participation in the collective action is not in the form of monetary contribution (participation in OSS projects and participation in the scientific community).

Events: Business models

Charles Ruffolo

President RIBS

Abstract of the presentation

Charisma is generally difficult to transfer to the printed page, unless, of course, you are Charles "Ruf" Ruffolo, MPA, the self-proclaimed NetworKING, a Professional Networker, Speaker and Trainer known for his inimitable style and wildfire networking events held throughout the Netherlands. Ruffolo's first book, Network Your Way to Success, which he wrote with author and public relations consultant Shirley Agudo, both of whom are natives of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a basic but complete guide to the complete networking, A to Z... and then some, with a strong infusion of his infectious charisma.

Based on Ruffolo's very convincing premise that anyone can and everyone should and everyone already does network, he illuminates the whys, wherefores and wisdom of the power of networking for life. In an entertaining way, Ruffolo utilizes personal anecdotes from his wayward youth, 20-year military career with the U.S. Army and personal, celebrated road to success to illustrate how the average person can indeed change his or her life by learning how to network with conviction. Covered in-depth are ways to build, communicate to, expand, energize, motivate, enthuse, and lead your network, with a special section on the indisputable importance of Giving Back.

As one of the most enthusiastic proponents of networking, Charles Ruffolo is the founder and owner of three different organizations, RIBS (Ruffolo International Business Services) Network, under whose domain he trains and lectures about networking; Network Club, an on-line goldmine of networking opportunities for members, including sponsorship of a regular series of popular networking events held in all four corners of the country; and the Giving Back Foundation, a career-mentoring program for minority high-school students in Holland.

Hinged on a staggering data base of over 10,000 people, all of whom he seems to know intimately, Ruffolo has an international following of enthusiastic supporters, some of whom boast that they can remember the exact date when they met this genuine, caring wildcard of a success story who they claim has helped so many with his uncanny knack for connecting people from all walks of life. To those who know this" kind-hearted, genuine comedian of sorts" and have benefited from his training, advice and example, there truly is no other NetworKING.

Bio:

“Professional Networker & Trainer”

After Charles D.A. Ruffolo met his Dutch wife, Herma, the American soldier exchanged his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Nijeveen in the Dutch province of Drenthe. During 20 years of military (retired 1SG) service he earned his MPA degree in his free time and fine-tuned his natural talent for linking common interests. These items created the capital for RIBS (Ruffolo International Business Services) Network. Ruffolo is an active member of various business clubs and serves on numerous business clubs and boards (Membership Committee American Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands, President of the Amsterdam American Business Club, a member of the Advisory Board for the NFL European League and Founder of Foundation Giving Back). He has enriched our business environment with his talents as a Professional Networker. In fact, he has developed networking into a new science and the foundation of a flourishing company. In addition, he provides training courses in his field to groups and companies. Also, thanks to his knowledge of networking, which is one of the oldest professions in the world and to his inspiring enthusiasm, he is in great demand as a guest speaker. Charles Ruffolo has used the power of Internet technology to demonstrate that Networking is truly a business of daily necessity by starting The Network Club which has over 4000 members.

Charles’s has written a book on Networking – “Network Your Way to Success” and is available in bookstores or by ordering it from his web sites. Chares and Herma have been married for twenty-four years.

Events: Keynotes , Workshop Charles Ruffolo

Marten Schoonman

Vi@frica

My background: I am 30 years old and born in Afrika (Nakuru, Kenia) but I have Dutch parents and nationality. I have fulfilled a scientific study and started in project management in scientific research. Currently I am coordinator and project manager involved in e-business solutions. In my free time I am volunteer with the VI@FRICA foundation as the secretary. I am with this promising foundation for 1.5 years now. Successes are e.g. the VI@FRICA CLASSworks program; the main subject of the talk. Issues are maintenance and support and availability of OSS specialists in East-Africa.
Events: Social Inclusion

Michael Schulz

Technical Marketing Manager for Linux HP

Bio:

Michael Schulz is the Technical Marketing Manager for Linux at HP in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He's responsible for running technical programs and also helping customers understand the values and benefits of open source software. Michael joined Hewlett Packard in 2000 as a pre-sales consultant for Linux in the Competency Center for Enterprise Computing. Before this role he held different roles as Senior Consultant working with Top500 customers on implementing different technologies in their IT infrastructures. In addition Michael works with the various OpenSource projects in EMEA to be the liason into HP and helps with both financial funding and hardware. Michael has been a Speaker at events like GUADEC, OSCON and Linuxworld.

Events: Architecture Compliance

Valentijn Sessink

co-founder and director Open Office

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

Over the last years we have seen a growing interest in open source and free software solutions. Both public and private sector seem to be more and more aware of the fact, that their IT infrastructure needs to “open” - which can mean anything: publicly accessible, without vendor lock-in, (partly) adhering to open standards or consisting of free or open source software. For some people, “free software” “open source” or is almost a religion.

However, it is our opinion that clinging to “free software” will bring you nowhere. In this session we will show, that for a healthy IT infrastructure, a less religious view on the matter is necessary.

Bio:

Valentijn Sessink is an active member of the Dutch open source movement since 1997, when he first installed Linux. He is co-founder and director of Open Office, an open source IT company. He founded two Linux-newsgroups, nl.comp.os.linux.discussie and nl.comp.os.linux.installatie, wrote documentation (the ALSA-HOWTO). His first customer running solely on Linux is a law office which was migrated in june, 1999. The importance of open standards and open information processing / open source software has been on his agenda ever since.

Events: Evolving standards

Olivier Sessink

BlueFish

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation

There is more to open source than code with a licence. If one talks about an 'open source project' there is usually a group of people involved: a community. Without the community, a project is just some code on the internet. But how do you get a community? And perhaps even more challenging: how do you get the community to do actual work? In this talk, developer community issues will be presented from the viewpoint of the project maintainer.

Bio:

Olivier Sessink was born on December 30, 1975, in Venlo, The Netherlands. In 1994 he moved to Wageningen to study Bioprocess Engineering at Wageningen University. In Wageningen he took part in pilot tests for broadband internet. With a profound interest in technology, he learned much about the possibilities of the internet, including thepossibilities of many open-source tools. In 1996, this led to the start of a company, specialized on internet related projects. Lack of good tools made Olivier start the open-source "Bluefish web development editor" project in 1997. In 1999 he received his Msc degree in Bioprocess Engineering cum laude. The study was followed by a projecton development of web-based learning material for Food and Biotechnology courses, which turned out to be very successful. Olivier continued this research in a PhD project, which will hopefully result in a PhD degree by the end of 2005. Olivier started several other open-source projects, but Bluefish is still the largest and most well-known project.

Events: Organizational aspects of OSS communities

Carlos Silva dos Santos

Syntens

Events: workshop on SME's, Syntens [in Dutch]

Kimberly Simon

software engineer IBM

USA

Abstract of the presentation

Among the most noteworthy topics surrounding the recent widespread adoption of open-source software (OSS) are the convergence by governments worldwide to open standards and the ways in which open source embraces this convergence. There are continuing debates over the future of software and, in particular, the competition between OSS and proprietary software. Many studies by governments and by information technology analysts suggest that OSS and open standards are intimately connected and that the inherent value of open-source adoption may be attributable in large part to the embodiment of open standards in OSS. The government environment is changing rapidly in areas as diverse as homeland security and social services. Given the equally rapid changes in the information technology marketplace, the successful adoption of these new technologies by governments will depend on how well the strengths of proprietary software and OSS are understood and applied—especially with respect to the use of open standards to speed deployments of integrated capabilities that respond to emerging challenges. This paper evaluates the relative strengths of proprietary software and OSS as development techniques that embrace the open standards valued by governments.

Bio:

Kimberly D. Simon is a software engineer for Tivoli Security in Austin, Texas. She has a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering from Auburn University, Alabama. Her primary work and interests are in the area of IT security, ranging from LDAP and database protection to security/government certifications, identity management, and security system architectures. She is a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and volunteers for the Women in Engineering Program (WEP) at the University of Texas and Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering (EXITE) program at IBM.

Events: Open Government , Participation of women in the ICT-industry

Will Stephenson

Developer KDE

United Kingdom

Abstract of the presentation:

Instant Messaging has spread from the enthusiast, to the mass market, to the workplace. While growing in popularity, there is still some way to go before the software fully meets the needs of users, due to concerns about invasiveness and a lack of integration with other applications. In this talk we give an overview of the challenges and opportunities in making IM a productive tool, and present our work towards these aims.

Integration with email, personal information applications and the rest of the desktop lets users focus on their communication and not the software. We show how this integration can be achieved.

With the growth of IM in business, enterprise instant messaging systems have become available. We discuss the distinctions between enterprise and consumer IM and look at support for enterprise IM on Unix.

Like other forms of electronic communication, instant messaging is becoming subject to legal requirements regarding recording of communications. Ways of meeting these are presented. At the same time, this must be balanced with the individual's privacy. We examine ways in which instant messaging can effectively be made private.

We conclude with a presentation of our work addressing these issues on the Kopete IM client for the KDE desktop.

Bio:

Will Stephenson is one of the developers of the Kopete instant messaging client for the KDE desktop. He is responsible for instant messaging and personal information management software in his role as the KDE PIM maintainer at SUSE. He has previously presented in this area at the KDE developers' conference in 2004.

Events: Applications

Joost van Stiphout

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation:

In the Netherlands the Governmental Communities are starting to discover the world of Open Source. To stimulate this development, EGEM produced a personalized newsletter application. It’s a generic application built on Open Standards and Open Source and now online in the Community of Leiderdorp. Every Governmental Community in the Netherlands can use the application for free and is able to tune it into their own style and name. The source code will be donated to the MMBase Community.

Bio:

Joost van Stiphout (1960) has been working in de multi media sector since 1990 and changed to the government sector in 2001. Specifically, his work focuses on concept and development of web based services. In September 2003 he started working for EGEM as a project manager. EGEM is the Dutch organisation for information and communication technology in the public Community sector. EGEM’s goal is to contribute to the structural development of E-government.

Events: EGEM Mail

Wim Terpstra en Sjoerd-Melle van Dijk

Technea ,Actfact

Netherlands

Technea groeide als kool dankzij de toenemende aandacht voor milieu en energiebesparing, maar kwam in 2003 pijnlijk in aanraking met de grenzen van iCT.

Wim Terpstra ging op zoek naar een alternatief. Al snel bleek dat de organisatie (< 25 medewerkers) geen graag geziene klant was voor de gevestigde aanbieders. Meest storende factoren voor Wim waren:
-hoge aanschafkosten
-gebrek aan flexibliteit
-beperkt inlevingsvermogen bij z’n (potentiële) implementatiepartners
-totale lock-up vanaf t moment dat t contract getekend zou worden
al die dingen waar Wim zich als ondernemer onafhankelijk van had willen maken.

Sjoerd van Dijk (ActFact) wees op de mogelijkeheden van Compiere Open Source ERP/CRM.

Wim: “Compiere bood me de mogelijkheid om tegen geringe kosten de applicatie te testen op toepasbaarheid in de organisatie dankzij een verbazingwekkend snel ingerichte test omgeving”.

De eerste beoordeling was positief maar over CRM en e-commerce had Wim toch wel wat andere ideeen. Conclaaf met ActFact leerde dat PharmaNord in Denemarken een goede basis had gebouwd voor E-business die naadloos aan bleek te sluiten op Compiere. PharmaNord bleek bereid de code aan de European Compiere Community te doneren. Hiermee was de op één na laatste hobbbel genomen.

Wim’s ideeen over CRM werden door ActFact als haal- en betaalbaar beoordeeld. Toen een andere klant te kennen gaf samen met Technea op te willen trekken in de ontwikkeling ging t sein op groen voor Compier.

Events: High profile OSS applications

Ron Tolido

CTO Capgemini

Bio:

Vice-president and Chief Technology Officer of Capgemini for Northern Europe and Asia Pacific. Studied Dutch Language and Literature at the University of Leiden before earning a BSc in Information Technology at The Hague Polytechnic. Wrote books 'object-oriented modelling & C++' and 'IAD, evolutionary development of information systems'. Columnist for Software Release Magazine, Corporate .Net Magazine, Datanews [corporate]solutions and Business Consultant magazine. Frequently invited, vivid speaker on innovative IT subjects. Jury member of annual Benelux 'Development Tools' race. External examiner for Master of Science Course E-technology of Knowledge Centre Cibit / University of Middlesex. Member of Programme Committee of NWO 'Jacquard' IT innovation / stimulation programme. Member of the board of Gridforum Netherlands, member of advisory board of AlmereGrid. Mr. Tolido's interests include excesses in philosophy, literature and painting. His recent bundled columns ("De Zwarte Madonna's van de IT") were published in august 2004.

Events: Architecture Compliance

Mikko Valimaki

During a debate with contributions from BSA about the software patents Mikko will present his paper

Bio:

Mr. Mikko Välimäki teaches technology law at the Helsinki University of Technology. He is the author of a book on open source licensing, available from http://pub.turre.com/. Mr. Välimäki is also co-founder of Electronic Frontier Finland and served as its chairman between 2001-2003. His university website is at http://www.valimaki.org/

Events: Software patents

Joost de Valk

IC&S

Netherlands
Events: Applications

Mariska van der Linden

Buurtonline.info & Computerloods Amsterdam

Bio & Abstract:

My name is Mariska van der Linden. Engineer in Chemical technology and IT, 36 years old, living in Amsterdam with 2 kids, boyfriend and cat. I am project leader at the MDSO, a foundation which helps people with a low income in Amsterdam-East. One of aur aims is to enlarge the degree of social participation of migrants (mainly Turkish and Maroccan), senior citizens, unemployed people en women.

Some four years ago we started project "Buurtonline", ("neigborhood-on-line") a project to reduce te "digital gap" between the have's and the have-nots in this neighborhood. As a result by now over 1000 persons have followed introduction-courses in PC- and internet-use, and many more people have gained internet-access in one of our low-budget-internetcafés. In the last year we started promoting the use of Open source software amongst our visitors. We did so by offering free workshops in Open Office and Mozilla Composer (supported bij www.OSSL.nl ), and selling CD's with Open Source software (the DISC-CD, www.disc.nl ) (at production costs). We intend to organise many more end-user open source activities, because our visitors simply don't have the money to buy software.

Only last november we started project "Computerloods" (a word which means "computerhouse" and also "computer guide"). Participant in this project is Rednose, a company which gives courses in Open Office for individuals and for small organisations (www.rednose.nl ). Computerloods is a project with 2 objectives:
- Helping people which have been unemployed for a long time to find a job;
- Offering PC-services and advice: Selling and repairing second-hand PC's at low-costs.
PC's are being sold ready-to-use and installed with ONLY Open Source software (Suse, KDE, Open Office, GIMP) With this project we try to make people with a low income see, that there is a cheap, legal and good alternative to expensive software. Computerloods intends to develop as a knowledge-center to give information and advice on Open source, specifically for low-educated end-users and for non-profit-organisations.

Succes:
- EVERYBODY is enthousiastic about the "look-and-feel" of our demonstration-PC's with Suse and Open Office. They expected it to be less user-friendly than it appears to be.

Problem:
- Information on Open Source software is distributed among the higher-educated, and not very comprehensive for "the man in the street". There are few good and simple manuals in Dutch. Information available mainly on the internet; hardly accessible to people without internet-access. We aim to fill this gap for our neighborhood, and be an example for other projects in other neighborhoods.

For more info (in dutch, i'm afraid....): www.buurtonline.info
and www.computerloods.nl
.

Events: Social Inclusion

Dirk-Willem van Gulik

President Apache Foundation

preview of the the keynote

According to many people open software, open content and open standards have the future. Dir-Willem is going to speak about future challenges.

Bio:

Dirk-Willem van Gulik is President of the Apache Software Foundation, known from the Apache web server, Tomcat, etc. Dirk-Willem is also Senior Partner at the Tribal Knowledge Group. Along with his work at the European Commission, the United Nations, telecommunications firms, satellite and space agencies, Dirk also held both VP of Engineering and VP of Research positions with Covalent Technologies. At this moment Dirk-Willem van Gulik holds the position of President at the Apache Software Foundation where he was a volunteer since the days of NCSA. Van Gulik's work on Apache has revolved around large enterprise systems such as portals, entitlement systems and Web interfaces to legacy systems. He has worked with a broad range of international standards bodies, such as the IETF on metadata, protocols, URIs GIS and other Internet standards. He currently is a board member of the Apache Software Foundation, the not for profit entity behind the Apache web server, tomcat, and xml. Dir-Willem is also one of the founders of @semantics, a firm that’s going to make the ‘Semantic Web’ reality. (Tuesday, May 31).

Events: Keynotes , Organizational aspects of OSS communities , workshop on SME's, Syntens [in Dutch]

Stefaan van Hooydonk

Head of Healthcare Academy AGFA

preview of Stefaan's keynote

Stefaan van Hooydonk (Agfa): “Learning is Fun!”

Playful learning is hot. Younger generations have been raised with mobile telephones, internet and computer games. Due to the fact that learning will always be faster when one enjoys doing it, a transition needs to be made rapidly from linear knowledge transfer to interactive learning. Educational (“serious”) games, mobile learning, and Internet learning are topics Stefaan will introduce to us. He comes up with practical ideas and examples about the way edu-gaming is used in training programmes of innovative companies. With nine years of experience in the front-line of e-Learning, Stefaan van Hooydonk is the right man to talk about trends and development in this field. Open standards are a 'must' to him, as he sees open source software as “the future”.

Bio:

Stefaan van Hooydonk is head of Agfa Healthcare Academy and specialises in e-Learning, Management Development and Executive Education. He used to be responsible for these last two areas at the University of Vlerick Leuven/Gent in Belgium. Van Hooydonk has 15 years of international experience. He was responsible for executive education at the China Europe International Business School in China and used to be head of Nokia’s corporate University there. Afterwards, he worked a few years at Nokia headquarters in Finland as director e-learning worldwide. Stefaan will address the public Monday morning, May 30, and will chair a parallel session on e-learning in the afternoon.

Events: Opening and keynotes

Janneke van Kersen

Digitaal Erfgoed Nederland (DEN)

Events: Open Content

Victor van Reijswoud

EACOSS

Title of the presentation: OSS for development myth or reality?

Bio:

I am a Dutch living and working in Uganda. I am working at Uganda Martys University as head of the department Computer Sciene and Information Systems. Uganda Martyrs University is the one of the two officially recognized private universities in the country. The university is the first university on the continent that has adopted an OSS policy.

Next to this i am the chairman of the East African Center for Open Source Software and organization that promotes the use of OSS in the region by facilitating training and advice to people who want to use it. W also run a software mirror on www.eacoss.org.

Events: Social Inclusion

Gérard Vandome

Java Middleware Group, Bull Open Software R&D Objectweb

Bio:

Gérard has a long experience in networking, operating systems, distributed systems and object-oriented systems. He has been responsible for several important development projects in these areas for Bull, in collaboration with National and European Universities and Research Institutes. Gérard has introduce the use of the Java language for middleware development at Bull where he is currently responsible of the Java Enterprise Middleware team. He has been one of the founding member of the ObjectWeb Consortium. ObjectWeb is an international Consortium fostering the development of open-source middleware. Gérard is the project manager of the JOnAS (Java Open Application Server) which is the ObjectWeb open source implementation of the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) specifications. JOnAS is a certified implementation of these specifications.

Abstract of "ObjectWeb a pallet of middleware solutions"

ObjectWeb is an open-source international consortium hosted by INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control. Its goal is the development of open-source distributed middleware, in the form of flexible and adaptable components. These components range from specific software frameworks and protocols to integrated platforms. The consortium is an independent non-profit organization open to companies, institutions and individuals.The purpose of the consortium is to achieve strength through unity. ObjectWeb's ambition is to federate – not only developpers, but also users and projects. After two decades of proven success, the open-source development scheme appears as a major trend in the software industry. However, giving away the source code is not enough. To live and thrive, open-source projects need a complex environment, pretty much like plants in an ecosystem. ObjectWeb's ambition is to federate a coherent set of related projects, help them find their place in their environment, and ensure their durability as they gain momentum on their way to success. The presentation will give an overview of ObjectWeb and ObjectWeb projects, with a focus on two specific projects c-jdbc (database clustering) and joram (asynchronous messaging).

Abstract of "JOnAS, the ObjectWeb certified J2EE implementation"

JOnAS (Java Open Appliation Server) is an open source implementation of the Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE™) specifications. JOnAS provides support for EJB (Enterprise Java Beans), Web and client containers for J2EE™ applications, Web Services, clustering and scalability, Interoperability, distributed transactions, security, JMX based management, JMS (Java Messaging Service), J2EECA™ (Connector Architecture), built-in and user services, etc. JOnAS has been already downloaded by more than 300 000 users worldwide and is used with various operating systems (Windows*, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Novell, etc.), various Java Virtual Machines, various databases (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL server, DB2, ObjectStore, Informix, Interbase, Versant, etc.). JOnAS is used to develop large-scale enterprise applications like: e-commerce, e-portal, management systems, intranet application, document processing, inventory systems, reservation systems, banking applications, etc.

Events: Applications , High profile OSS applications

Kees Vendrik

Groen Links

Events: Debate on innovation

Jesús Villasante

EU Directorate General Information Society, head of unit: software development EU

Belgium

Jesús Villasante (EU)

Maybe we should change the (official) perception of open standards and head into a new direction. How could this be done. And more important why should this be done.

Who is Jesús Villasante?

Jesús Villasante has worked for Digital Equipment Corporation where he held positions as systems engineer, project manager for manufacturing industries and software advisor for the sales and business operations. He also worked for Telefónica and for the Computers in Medicine Section of the Air Force Hospital in Madrid in the analysis and design of medical applications and hospital information systems. In 1986 he joined the European Commission, Information Society Directorate General. He has worked in Analysis and Preparation of Programmes and the Telematics Applications Program. Prior to his current position he was head of the “eBusiness” Unit in the Information Society Technologies Program. (Monday, May 30).

Events: Debate on innovation , Opening and keynotes

Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales

Founder Wikipedia

USA

Bio:

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966) is an Internet entrepreneur and a wiki enthusiast, best known for founding Wikipedia.

In March 2000, he founded Nupedia.com, "the free encyclopedia," a peer-reviewed open-content encyclopedia. On January 15, 2001, Wales and a collegue set up Wikipedia, a similar wiki-based site intended for collaboration on early encyclopedic content before submitting it to Nupedia for peer review. Wikipedia's rapid growth soon made it the dominant project and "the free encyclopedia", and Nupedia was mothballed. In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization, to support Wikipedia and its younger sister projects. Since then, he has become increasingly involved with promoting and speaking about the foundation's projects. As of 2005, Wales is the foundation's president and chairman of the board.

In 2004, Wales had been quoted as saying that he spent around US$500,000 on the establishment and operations of his Wiki projects. By the end of the foundation's February 2005 fund drive, the Wikimedia Foundation was being supported entirely by grants and donations.

Published works

Robert Brooks, Jon Corson and J. Donal Wales, "The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion," in Advances in Futures and Options Research, volume 7, 1994.

Events: Open Content , Keynotes , Wikipedia

Peter Waters

ICTU ,Overheid.nl

Netherlands

Abstract of the presentation:

In the Netherlands the government can be divided in four primary layers: Central Government, the Province, the Community and the Waterboard. Each of them has by law the right to issue regulations. Currently, citizens who want to know which regulations are in place in their street or neighbourhood have to visit four different websites. A generic search engine like Google is of little help to the citizens. Anyone who uses Google to retrieve the regulations of the Community of Utrecht will be flooded with some 10.500 hits. Yet Utrecht only has 130 actual regulations.

It would be a great help for citizens if they could search across the government layers. That’s why the Dutch Ministry of the Interior has commissioned ICTU to develop a method for retrieving regulations with 100% precision and recall. That is: all relevant regulations and nothing else than the relevant regulations and irrespective of the government layer.

Key to the solution is the use of the Dutch webmetadata standard, which is based on the Dublin Core metadata standard. Some 40 local authorities have joined the project and are now on their way to publish their regulations according to the developed Internet Publication Model. The first results are now online and retrievable via a search instrument that has been trained to recognise the metadata.

Bio:

Peter Waters (1947) has been a senior policy official at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior. Specifically, his work focussed on the improvement of the accessibility and re-use of Public Sector Information. Later in his career he joined the Dutch branch of Ernst & Young as a senior consultant and interim manager. In December 2003 he started working for ICTU as a project manager. ICTU is the Dutch organisation for information and communication technology in the public sector. ICTU’s goal is to contribute to the structural development of E-government. Within this organisation Peter Waters is responsible for the development of the Dutch webmetadata standard and its implementation in the project Internet Publication of Regulations of Local Authorities.

Events: Open Government

Ruben van Wendel de Joode

Assistant Professor TU Delft

Netherlands

Bio:

Ruben van Wendel de Joode (Msc) is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft, University of Technology. He is part of the Dutch Institute of Government (NIG), the research school for public administration and political science. His research focuses on the organization of open source communities. He received two grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for research related to open source communities. The first grant was to study the interplay between intellectual property rights and open source communities. The results are published in Governing the Virtual Commons (Cambridge University Press, 2003). He has written numerous articles on open source, which have appeared in journals like Electronic Markets; Knowledge, Technology and Policy; and the International Journal of IT Standards & Standardisation Research. He is the guest editor of a special edition on open source in Knowledge, Technology and Policy.In September 2005 he will defend his doctoral thesis with the title “Understanding open source communities; an organizational perspective.”

Events: 4 Quality Management/ 5 Legal Issues , Organizational aspects of OSS communities

Guido Wesdorp

KUPU editor
Events: Web technology

Aart Wijnen

De twee Snoeken automatisering

Abstract of the presentation

De Twee Snoeken has played a role in bridging stakeholders’s interests in building since 1988. Software requires a language to describe objects. Constructors and architects have problems understanding each other, so how to expect communication with suppliers and their ICT databases or legal input of civil servants, or even worse: with citizens ? Aart wijnen will present the “Language of the city” project, which was a daring attempt to capture the notion of people’s experiences with streets, neighbourhoods and squares in towns into a ontology of citizen architecture. The reason was the fact that e-participation and democratic procedures concerning building and architecture in old towns became a neightmare for all stakeholders involved. So They sent 250 people out on the streets of s’Hertogenbosch, armed with camera’s and a notepad, to describe what impression one got in neighbourhood A and square C. All thousands of pictures and descriptive words have been linguistically processed and analysed into one short list of terms, the start of the layman’s taxonomy for what a town feels like. This Ontology could be the language for decision processes around city renewal and renovation and it is subject to discussion among Europe’s walled towns. They hope that in the future citizen input is understandable for architects, constructors, suppliers and civil servants. The notion of preserving Cultural heritage is more than saying “no” to all changes that might threaten the historical sights of those towns. This initiative is called the DNA language of the city and could be a guideline for design and architecture.

Bio:

Aart Wijnen graduated as Architect and Urban designer at the University of Eindhoven. He worked for several years as architect at De Twee Snoeken, a Leading architect company in s”Hertogenbosch. He became interested in ICT support for contructors and architects while working there. Together with Paul van Pelt he bcame founder and owner of De Twee Snoeken Automatisering. They becae architects of the Dutch standards for several expert systems in construction software.They are aso responsible for the standardisation around building objects and taxonimies in the supply chain of Dutch construction. This is the National initiative called “the digital house” Aart is involved in the walled towns project, an initiative to seek the best way to preserve Europe’s cultural heritage in Urban environments.

Events: Evolving standards

Alan Williamson

SpikeSource

Abstract of the presentation

Title: Open Source – Science or Religion?

Did the earth evolve around the Sun, or the Sun around the earth? Scientists and religious leaders were in disagreement regarding this. This was a major destabilising view that put fear into church; was this the end of their dominance? History has proven however, they didn’t have anything to worry about. But at the time, it was a major issue.With any good cult, you have your blind followers, your zealots, your doubters and those that will merely try it out to see if it suits their lifestyle. If you listen to some, you could be fooled into thinking this was the second coming of the software world, while others prophesize the end of commercial software as we know it, putting the fate of our industry into the hands of scruffy hackers who only work late at night.The truth however is somewhere in between. It is true that the software industry is going through somewhat of a Renaissance in terms of what we view as the commercial asset (or chargeable) component. Is Open Source the second coming? Or is there something more sinister afoot?This talk will look at the makeup of open source, dissecting every piece to see just what we mean when we say ‘open source’ and just who is actually looking at the source code. Our new cult is filled with many myths that are spreading in our circles and these myths if not addressed could misdirect the real power and beauty that open source has to offer.We will take a short history lesson charting some of the great open source projects, analysing why they are successful and will also look at some big failures of open source projects to see why they failed to capture the imagination of the populous. Is there a lesson to be learned here?The future of open source will be discussed and how, in our evolving eco-system, we can see that our new cult has a role to fill and doesn’t replace anything, but merely adds to the mix. Contrary to popular belief, the Computer Industry is not a trend setter, but a trend follower; other industries have gone through this same transition and survived. The problems facing companies today in our sector are problems that have had well trodden paths to their solutions.By the end of the talk, you can then decide for yourself, is open source a religion or has it matured to the lofty status of a recognized science?

Bio:

Alan Williamson is as much a veteran of the Java world as one can be with a language that is still very much finding its feet in the world. Alan has more than 15 years experience in the world of software development, graduating with full honors in computer science from the University of Paisley. He served on the original working group for Java Servlets that seen the birth of Java on the server side. His experience in developing high end enterprise applications is deep with credits including BlueDragon (a J2EE CFML engine) and Blog-City (one of the worlds largest blogging communities). His speciality is high-volume transaction websites. Alan has also worked his way up to the dizzy heights of editor-at-large of the world's largest Java magazine, Java Developer's Journal, in addition to being the founding editor of LinuxWorld magazine. Alan is presently working with SpikeSource, a new company dedicated to testing and certification of open source.

Events: Business models , Debate on innovation

Geert Wind

CIO city of Amsterdam

Geert Wind is the Chief Information Officer of the city of Amsterdam. He will welcome the visitors and speakers in Amsterdam at the first international Holland Open Software Conference. He will address the present situation in Amsterdam, the use of open source for web-applications and the pilot projects with open source software on the desktop. Geert Wind sees a growing necessity for growing transparency and the avoidance of vendor lock ins.

Events: Opening and keynotes

Radboud Winkels

Abstract of the presentation

see "Alexander Boer"

Bio:

Radboud G.F. Winkels (1959) is associate professor in Computer Science and Law at the “Leibniz Center for Law” (LCL) of the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.He started his academic career as a student in psychology at the University of Amsterdam. In April 1987 he received his Master's Degree (with honours) in Artificial Intelligence. Since then he has been working as a full-time AI-researcher at the University of Amsterdam, first at the department of "Social Science Informatics" (now Human-Computer Studies Lab) and since March 1989 at the department of Law and Computer Science (now LCL), where he is now senior lecturer/associate professor. In this last capacity he is also a participant in the research school SIKS and recently of Ius Commune. His research deals with Intelligent Learning Environments, and Artificial Intelligence and Law.In 1992 he received his PhD for a thesis entitled "Explorations in Intelligent Tutoring and Help" (published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, Washington, Tokyo), that describes the results of five years of R&D, mainly on a shell for building Intelligent Help Systems (EUROHELP), and an Intelligent Coaching System for Physiotherapy (FYSIODISC). Winkels has published more than fifty articles in national and international journals, conference proceedings and books on his research.

Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Theo Wittering

Portfolio Manager Ordina

Abstract of the presentation

Title: An Open Source development architecture

Successful Open Source communities have a management style that is orthogonal to that of a business driven organisation. Namely it is not marketing or financially driven but is driven by a social cohesion of worldwide talent and pride. It is driven by the individual. It is not possible to impact this management style with sponsorship or other more traditional business management concepts. The best way to embrace the community is to exist as part of the community. Ordina earns trust and involvement from these individuals simply because they understand the community dynamics. Theo Wittering Porttfolio Manager at Ordina will explain Ordina’s extention of the traditional Make or Buy paradigm. That is to Make, Buy or Open Source. In this way Ordina are assured of selecting ‘best of breed’ tools and components that are best suited for the job in hand. Further Theo will describe how portfolio and lifecycle management of Open Source products can be used to ‘ manage the value of Open Source’.

Bio:

Theo graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts as a Visual Artist. As a free-lancer Theo has developed wide-ranging experience in people and business development and has been an inspiration to the many companies and bureau’s he has been involved with. During the evolution of the internet in the mid nineties Theo sculpted his management skills by combining his creative talents in the area multi-media with internet technologies. Since then Theo has been instrumental in the management of many complex IT projects in the areas of media, telecom and finance. His energy, creativity and fresh thinking encourage and motivate his peers at all levels of an organisation.

Events: Architecture Compliance

Daan van Zanten

Ordina

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