Open Source Day: A Day Dedicated to Free Software!

The Open Source Workshop, dedicated to promoting royalty-free technologies, launched the first edition of an Open Source Day. This workshop was open to all and started with the same spirit as the already organized workshops for Microsoft and Adobe technologies.

The event created by the students of the workshop (Guillaume Badin, Nazim Benbourahla, Rudolf Frederiksen and Jonathan Verrecchia) with the support of Gauthier Garnier (teaching open source technologies in the “Multimedia and Information Technology” specialization). The purpose of this event was to show that Open Source technologies are used by professionals, and they are just as powerful as their paid proprietary counterparts. Several personalities from the world of Open Source spoke at the lectures scheduled that day.

The Open Source Day was held Tuesday, November 16 in Amphi 4 at EPITA. The lectures spread from 10:00am to 6:00pm and a consulting space was available for those wishing to do a debriefing with the speakers after their intervention. Persons wishing to attend the conference needed to register on the events created via the site Amiando.

Presentation of the speakers and the topics

Didier Girard is an expert in the world of Java, and especially in Google technologies like GWT, Android and App Engine. He is one of the directors at Sfeir, an IT company. He presented these Google technologies, especially GWT and Android, which are Open Source products.

Jean-Baptiste Kempf is a member of the development team at VideoLAN, maker of the VLC media player. He discussed the life of an Open Source project from the inside, being an active member of this community.

Patrice Bertrand is the CEO of Smile, an IT company leader in the field of Open Source. He stepped in to present various Open Source licenses.

Serge Frezefond, just like Didier Girard is, is an expert in the Java world, specializing in MySQL. Now working at Oracle, he retold the story of the MySQL project during its various acquisitions by Sun and Oracle, which have greatly impacted the original Open Source character of the project.

Nicolas Pastorino and Roland Benedettiat of eZ Systems addressed how to manage an Open Source project as big as eZ Publish and how to manage its community.

François Le Droff is an expert in Adobe Flex, and explained how Adobe approaches its Open Source projects, specifically the Flex.

Dimitri Baeili represented eXo Platform (a content management system for enterprises). He is the vice president of eXo Platform and replaced the originally scheduled speaker of eXo Platform, Tugdual Grall.