It is just over a week until FOSS4G will kick off in Bucharest. If things had gone to plan we would have been ambling our way to Bucharest via Prague and Vienna at the moment, but that is not to be unfortunately. So I won’t be running another Sales & Marketing 101 workshop or presenting on Product Management in OSGeo Projects (hopefully both will get a reprise later in the year) and I will have to follow FOSS4G from afar.
So here are a few thoughts from me as we build up to the workshops and then the opening plenary session in the magnificent venue.
To my friends who are organising FOSS4G, particularly Vasile and Codrina – you have done an amazing job building the excitement, attending to detail, constructing a brilliant program with lots of new features and innovations and the event promises to be another great milestone for our community. We don’t just write open source software we are on a mission to share the benefits of open geo with communities around the world and increasingly we are making our events accessible to more and more people. Last year FOSS4G in Tanzania was an opportunity to share with a community that are hungry for knowledge and opportunity, this year we will be in Central Europe with a whole new group of people able to learn, share, teach and enjoy open geo stuff. Over the last 3 years our Travel Grant Programme has helped hundreds of people to attend FOSS4G events (global and regional), I am proud to have worked with you on this year’s programme. My wish/advice to you is to relish every moment of your wonderful event, it will be over all too quickly once it starts.
To all of my friends who are attending FOSS4G this year, I am sorry that we won’t get the chance to catch up, learn together, share and party. FOSS4G is more than just a conference it is the annual gathering of the tribes that represent our community, it is where initiatives get conceived or re-energised, it is where code gets sprinted and where new friendships are forged.
Although I can’t make it to Bucharest I will be doing my best to share FOSS4G with you by following the live streams (where are they?) and chatting across twitter.
Have a great FOSS4G
May the FOSS be with you
Steven
