Back from the first OSTTEurope
During the past 21st – 23rd September there was the first European edition of the Open Source Think Tank at Paris Hilton (I mean the hotel at Paris, not the public female-buffoon). I had heard so many good comments about its past editions at Napa Valley, CA, that I wanted to see it with my own eyes. And I was not disappointed.
I loved the format. It was an invitation-only conference gathering a relatively small group of 60-70 business people who belonged to companies strongly related to open source (vendors, system integrators, investors, end customers, etc). We were divided in groups of 6-10 people and had several brainstorming sessions during which we had to discuss a subject and to present our conclusions. It was an excellent way to learn and get everyone involved in generating the knowledge instead of sitting and getting a lecture. Moreover, the networking was much more effective, as during the brainstorming sessions you already had a glimpse on the other people’s ideas.
I learned a lot of business practices of other open source vendors and many opinions about the current situation and where we are heading to. The attendants were a mixture of Europeans and Americans so the variety of opinions was pretty rich, but anyway there were clear patterns and differences between both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe open source has a strong ideological meaning and it is seen as a way to avoid vendor lock-in and to foster local innovation; its adoption is lead mainly by the public sector; OSS vendors look for service-based models and have a channel approach to market. On the other hand, in America the open source adoption is lead by businesses wanting to cut costs; there is an obsession with license compliance and copyright issues; vendors have a product-centric approach to market and dual license is the de facto business model for open source. You can see an excellent summary of these differences in Larry Augustin’s blog, who was also in the think tank.
It was a good conference, one of the few where you can be sure to learn new things and make valuable contacts. I think I can already start booking for the next edition 
