2009 Open Source China Summit

This was my third year attending the Open Source China, Open Source World Summit. The schedule was similar - a day packed of 20 minutes “keynotes” followed by a half-day round table (which I had to miss this year).

Despite being a regular attendee and occasional speaker, I have mixed feelings about the summit. Let’s be clear, it’s not a technical event. The speakers include CTOs and Directors of IBM, Sun, Intel, Google, Red Flag, and so on. Even Microsoft was there this year, demoing Windows 7 of all things.

The intended topic was open source for mobile and netbook computing, but somehow a fair bit of cloud computing made its way in too. Some of the talks were great. I think Mark Shuttleworth’s point about regularly scheduled releases is important. Others were little more than marketing show and tell.

Despite all that, I do think the summit has value. It’s useful to get these people together to compare notes, network and discuss strategies. Open source has grown up and this is part of that world, like it or not. And for those wanting a quick introduction into the state of open source in China, the summit’s worth attending at least once.

For those looking for the technical side of open source in China, there’s no better starting point than the Beijing Linux User Group. The BLUG puts most other user groups to shame and has become an incredible resource over the last few years. Seriously, it’s worth scheduling your visit to Beijing around one of their events.

One final note: a few of us at Apache are hoping to run another event in Beijing (and maybe Shanghai) again this year, likely at the end of November. Last year we did a single day of technical talks followed by a single day barcamp. We’re putting together ideas of what to do now. If we do another single day of talks, then I think we need to be a bit more focused on which projects or technologies to highlight. It’s hard to cover much in just a single day. Would half or full day training sessions be more interesting?

I’d also like to see an even bigger BarCamp in Beijing this year. I’m really surprised that a Barcamp community hasn’t emerged out of Beijing. Or maybe it’s just doing a really good job of hiding. Whatever the case, if you’d like to be involved in either an Apache developer event in Beijing or the 2009 Beijing BarCamp, please send me an [email][mailto:farra@apache.org].

2009 Open Source China, Open Source World Summit Schedule

I didn’t see the schedule published anywhere, so for the sake of posterity, here was the first day. Might help someone decide if they’d like to attend in the future:

• Mobile Internet and Open Terminal, Prof Lu Shouqun, Chairman of COPU
• The State of the Linux Ecosystem and Its Opportunity, Jim Zemlin, Director of Linux Foundation
• An untitled talk by Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu founder
• Community Matters, Louis Suarex-Potts, OpenOffice.org President
• Cloud Computing and Smarter Planet, Dr. Thomas Li, CTO of IBM GCG
• Create the Mobile Internet Future, Dr. Bob Lian, GM of Intel (AP) R&D
• Open Source Chances and Challenges for Nokia, Gunther Kottzieper, Director Open Source for Nokia
• Android Platform, James Su, Google
• Status of OSS and the Role of Public Services Platform, Dr. Qiu Shanqin, Director CSIP
• Open Source Cloud Computing, Andrew Hu, President of Red Hat Greater China
• Promoting OSS by Innvocation and Application, Han Nanping, GM of China Standard Software Co.
• Increate Efficiency with Open Source, Jia Dong, CEO of Red Flag Software
• Open Cloud Computing Platform, James Bai, Director Open Source Centre Sun Micro (China)
• OSS Represents the Direction of the Service, Hu Caiyang, GM Red Flag Chinese 2000 Software
• Openness at Microsoft, Dr. Sean Zhang, CTO Microsoft Greater China Region
• Open Source Work of the Daoli Project, Dr, Mao Wenbo, Director of EMC Research China
• Cloud Computing and IBM Cloud Offerings, Tian Yong, IBM Open Partnership Center
• Moblin: The Open Source Mobile Computing Platform, Dr. Elton Yang, Engineering Director of Intel OTC (China)