I’m really behind on blogging about recent events, so I figured I’d start at the beginning: ApacheCon US 2009 which was held at the beginning of the month in Oakland California. Others have already done great roundups of the event. So here are just a few notes of my own.

Some of the highlights of the event for me was actually attending sessions. For the last couple of ApacheCons, I’ve been too busy with websites, board issues and other nonsense to actually be able to sit in on many sessions. This year I specifically made a point of sitting through the Hadoop track and NoSQL meet-ups. I also spent a fair bit of the conference getting my head around Apache Sling enough to start contributing back some documentation. If you haven’t checked out Sling, you should. While it’s still a little rough around the edges, Sling is a hidden gem at Apache.

I’ve also updated the slides of my Making Sense of Open Source Licenses talk which I think went pretty well.

ApacheCon US 2009 is this next week in Oakland. As usual, I have high hopes for all the things I want to do (but probably won’t have time for). I figure that if I publicly share them now, I might have a better chance of getting at least a few done.

Likely in anticipation of the Communist Party’s upcoming 60 year anniversary, Tor has been blocked. To get around the GFW, you’ll need to add a bridge:

• send an email to bridges.at.torproject.org (replace .at.) with only the message get bridges in the body.
• open your Vidalia preferences
• under the network tab, check “My ISP blocks connections to the Tor network”
• add one of the bridges addresses you got in your email response to the list in the preference dialog.

The email must be sent from a GMail or Yahoo! account.

Thanks to Billy for noticing the block and offering the fix.

In addition to BarCamp this last week, Hong Kong hosted the SIBOS financial conference this last week. That brought in a lot of visitors including Aza Raskin from Mozilla, Guy Kawasaki, and Jeff Barr from Amazon. The week was topped off with a TEDx event and Software Freedom Day on Saturday. Though a bit exhausting, the week was a lot of fun. Read on for some notes from Software Freedom Day.

We’re celebrating 10 years of the Apache Software Foundation this year at ApacheCon. As part of the party, we’re running a video contest. Simply share your 1 minutes Apache story by Friday, 2 October, 2009. In addition to the sheer joy that will come from sharing your love of open source software, you might also end up with a special invitation to the conference.

And if you happen to be in Hong Kong this week, you can join me at the Software Freedom Day event this Saturday at City University. I’ll be doing 2 sessions on Apache there.

BarCamp HK is one of my favorite events of the year. This year over 300 campers attended 35 sessions on 12 September at Turner International’s beautiful offices in Quarry Bay. Topics ranged from iPhones to ethics in social media. Microsoft provided an XBox which went to the most popular presenter of the day, Kin Ko for his session on mobile gaming in China. River Ho walked away with an iPhone 3GS from Pinpoint Asia.

But prizes aside, the whole day was fantastic and left me exhausted. This was definitely our best barcamp yet. Read on for links, photos, and notes from the day.

This Saturday is BarCamp Hong Kong and the following Saturday, 19 September, is Software Freedom Day. We’ll be celebrating in Hong Kong at City University starting at 2:00 PM.

Updated: I’ve included a *long* list of what those registering for BarCamp this year want to learn or share.

One question I am often asked is what to expect from BarCamp. It’s a difficult question to answer since no one knows! BarCamp is special because we invite everyone to participate. The first hour of the day is a brainstorming session during which we decide what sessions will be presented. Some people prepare sessions in advance. Others are inspired that morning.

The announcements and invites are starting to go out now: BarCamp Hong Kong 2009 will be held on Saturday, 12 September 2009 at the offices of Turner International. We’re expected as many as 300 participants this year, but that’ll only happen if you show up and bring a friend.

What happens when an open source product becomes closed source? There’s a fascinating example of this happening right now in the roleplaying game industry, a field completely divorced from the typical software examples. Anyone interested in the economics of open source should take a look at what’s happened with the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons and the new upstart competitor Pathfinder.