FSCONS Blog

First of all, we'd like to start off by giving a huge Thank you! to all speakers and visitors who made this year's conference all that it was! Thanks! The last days we have been trying to grasp reflections and comments on this year's FSCONS. Below follows an overview of some mentions and synergies; while the conference in Gothenburg officially ended last Sunday, we hope to have sparked a lot of new friendships and collaborations! We'd like to think that FSCONS has just started and that we'll all meet again in meatspace next year, for you all to present what progress has been made and present a plethora of new projects, experiences and connections. This year, microblogs like identi.ca or Twitter were used a lot more before, during, and, after the FSCONS week-end. Other reactions have come via blogs. Micke von Knorring wrote: "At FSCONS there were lots and lots of examples of fantastic ongoing projects. At the talks I visited, there were also four different new project ideas that came up. As far as I could tell, no communities were formed around them, which means you could be the one getting things rolling. Do we have any takers? " We would really like to hear from you, results and experiences from such projects that may have taken off during FSCONS. Another blog, this time from keynote speaker Glyn Moody notes: At the Swedish conference, which has been running successfully for some years, and now attracts hundreds of participants, I was surrounded by extremely positive, energetic and like-minded people. We like to think of FSCONS as different from other conferences in that speakers attend also as visitors and participants in the many discussions off stage, in the café and at the social events. Our aim is foremost to offer an open forum where people and ideas are brought together and every visitor is equal in the many rendez-vous and informal talks that gives the conference its character. The open-mindedness of both speakers and the audience, provides an opportunity for everyone attending to learn and get inspired. Kacper Wysocki blogs: What I hadn’t expected was the powerful impact that the people attending would have on me. Cyber heroes and heroines, freedom fighters, game changers, inventors, uncelebrated cryptoanarchists and everything makers were some of those that I got to know, that engaged me in dialogue, that dared discuss openly some (most?) of the hardest problems that we, the world, are facing today. With the full intent to do something about these problems. Christopher Kullenberg, who last year presented a note on net neutrality and surveillance, wrote about this year's FSCONS: This weekend I attended the FSCONS, and as usual it was a great experience. The conference is very informal and friendly, and there is plenty of time to talk to people from all over about projects and future collaborations. Rumor has it that one such collaboration is an effort to support IMMI and even expand and copy it to more countries, founded at the workshop on the subject. Quite naturally, Free Software was an oft referred-to topic during the week-end. Daniel Stenberg summarizes: My head is packed with impressions. I met lots of great people and friends, both old and many new ones. We had awesome discussions and I hope at least some of the ideas that were brought up will be turned into reality. I will post more about those here if/when they happen. The future for Free Software (in the Nordic region) is bright! And what better use for free software, than to build an open, distributed, and, decentralized Internet? Christian Villum elaborates: What perhaps thrilled me the most was to blend in with the audience that comprised several hundred dedicated other open culture advocates, developers and activists. Such a weekend really fuels ones belief in a future of an open, distributed, decentralized and just Internet. Speaking of Free Software, it seems an informal and spontaneous Nordic mini-conference on Ubuntu just happened at the venue. Søren Bredlund Caspersen blogs about that among other things: Besides a lot of interesting talks I also met up with Andreas and Anders for a miniature Ubuntu-Nordic meet-up to share stories and ideas. One thing the Swedish team is doing, that I hope we can start doing in the Danish team as well, is putting the translated Ubuntu documentation on-line in Swedish. Update 1: one more free software project mentioned together with FSCONS: Maloki describes the devul project on her blog. *end - update 1* Update 2: Veera Uusoksa, was inspired by FSCONS to write a guest post for She’s The Geek on the topic of Do Women Matter in Open Source. Also, please read Veera's review of her first day at FSCONS. *end - update 2* Of course there were quite a few mentions in Swedish as well, regarding this year's conference. We surely haven't found them all, but we'll present a few (with our rough translations) as follows. Kristina Alexanderson writes: "[D]agen har varit full med engagerade människor som alla pratat om sin passion, och jag måste tillstå att jag är imponerad samt mycket smickrad över att få vara här." The day was full of engaged people, all of which have talked about their passion, and I have to admit that I am impressed as well as very flattered to get to be here. In another post she goes on with a plea for action! Christina Gratorp, who gave a talk on Women in FLOSS, blogs about some thoughts touching the feel that something has started to grow: Det känns så jävla grymt att vi är på väg att bygga upp en litet med stabilt nätverk kring oss själva, och att jag liksom får vara med! It feels damn awesome that we are about to build a small but solid network among ourselves, and for me to, like, be a part of it! Mats Henricson notes: "FSCONS var nog den bästa konferens jag varit på. Inte för att jag egentligen pratade med så många, presentationerna var oftast för korta, och maten var inte så inspirerande. Inte heller egentligen på grund av all den coola teknik jag fick se. Det är när cool teknik förändrar världen som det blir RIKTIGT intressant! FSCONS är verkligen unik som konferens. Samtidigt som någon har en presentation med titeln "Gender, class and global flows" gör någon annan en presentation av GNU Parallel. Det låter som om det skulle krocka något vansinnigt, men det fungerar!" FSCONS was probably the best conference I ever attended. Not that I actually spoke with so many people, presentations were often too short, and the food was not so inspiring. And neither, really because all the cool tech I was shown. It's when cool tech changes the world, it gets REALLY interesting! FSCONS is truly unique for a conference. At the time someone presents on the topic of "Gender, class and global flows", someone else lectures on GNU Parallel. It may sound like an insane clash, but it does work! Micke von Knorring seems to have enjoyed it: "FSCONS 2010 har varit fantastiskt kul." FSCONS 2010 has been amazingly fun. Marcus Rejås agrees: "FSCONS är även i år en given succé." FSCONS is, yet this year, a certain success. Martin Bagge seems to have particularly enjoyed the keynote by Glyn Moody: "Söndagens keynote var en av helgens höjdpunkter, ”Ethics of Intellectual Monopolies”, där Glyn Moody berättade om IP (Intellectual Property) och varför det egentligen borde kallas IM (Intellectual Monopoly). Massor med historik och massor med intressanta fenomen kring problemet med patent och upphovsrättens skenande skyddstider. " The Sunday keynote, was one of the week-end peaks. ”Ethics of Intellectual Monopolies", where Glyn Moody informed us about IP (Intellectual Property), and why we really should refer to it as IM (Intellectual Monopoly). Lots of historical facts and interesting phenomena surrounding the problems with patents and the gallopping copyright terms of protection. Have you published anything about your experience from FSCONS? Please let us know, and send us a ping-back! And don't forget to tag your posts, images and videos etc with "FSCONS" :) There are lots of images available on-line, by the way. And don't miss to check out the slides from the presentations! Videos from the presentations will be published as soon as we're finished encoding them and we'll let you know where to find them. Finally, and once more, please accept our humble thank you, for making this week-end possible! Regards, FSCONS staff Original post: http://fscons.org/2010/news/fscons-2010-over-has-just-started