OpenOffice.org Conference 2008 – everything is different

Attending the 6th OpenOffice.org conference is a special experience. This when I compare it with the three previous conferences I attended.

For the first time in the history of the open source project, the conference is held in a non European country. In this way, the project shows its world wide strength. Emphasize this strength, is something that can be trusted to be done the Chinese speakers. At least 8 representatives from (semi-) governmental organizations, IT-industry and education did so: "open source is important for the own industry and people". OpenOffice.org is closed into the hearts and the project fully supported.

Also, the use of open source software helps fighting software piracy. This was underlined by Prof. Ni Guangnan from one of the universities. The light tintling is his eyes revealed that he understands quite well, that this is not the kind of 'fighting' Microsoft has in mind...

As for my personal opinion, also has to be mentioned that every Chinese speaker emphasized the importance of protecting the environment and the desired role of ICT in this field. More directly related to the OpenOffice.org project, was the speech from Hu Caiyong, general manager from Beijing Redflag Chinese 2000 Software Technology Co. Ltd., short: Redflag 2000. Their product RedOffice knows a large adoption by national, regional and locale governments. With Redflag 2000 more than two hundred people work on RedOffice, which is based on OpenOffice.org. Last year Redflag 2000 and Sun Microsystems, the founder of the OpenOffice.org-project, signed an arrangement and from then on the cooperation intensifies, and people from Beijing and Hamburg work more together on areas as quality (QA) and development.

But let me stick to China for another moment. Beijing also is the location for the few hundred people counting IBM team that works on Symphony, the OpenOffice.org 1-based product in the Lotus-family. Symphony's version 1.2 has just been released and Michael Karasick, manager of the Symphony team, showed their road-map for integration of their work in the main OpenOffice.org 3 code line.

So there I sit, as representative of a small European country, looking at the impressive Asian presence. Louis Suarez-Potts, OOo-community manager, added a bit with the example of a Indian region, of which he found out recently that more than a million children at primary schools use OpenOffice.org. It is been distributed there on CD-ROM by the government. It is available in many Indian languages. The Malaysian government, to mentions something else, saved 9.5 million dollar in the last year, just by making the choice for the right office suite.
Here in the Netherlands all and everyone seems addicted to Microsoft products. Success stories do exist, but only after years the migrations really are starting up. Market in The Netherlands is much tougher that in Asia.

The contribution of Michael Bemmer, general manager at Sun Hamburg, however gave me more faith. The Sun developers work with a clear vision on the future of office productivity. Apart from the already existing possibilities for collaboration and document management, integrating with OpenOffice.org, work is continuing for easier integration with much more software, will the suite be modularised, are tool for web-document integration on their way, is the function for Extensions enhanced. etcetera. And this all for a program that already enables seamless working amongst different platforms, which can be extended by using a variety of scripting and programming languages, supports more that a hundred languages for end users, has more than 8 years history, delivers a quality release 4 times a year, … And that all apart from the independent document standard ODF, which is widely supported.

After the applause for the opening ceremony, I merge in the crowd counting more than four hundred attendants. That also is more than last years. And I meet friends and people I know from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, America, Japan, China, Indonesia, Sweden, … With them, I start coping the program, which with four parallel sessions gives many hard choices to make. And without any doubt, our Chines hosts will make sure that we get everything else we need, and more.

Now it is Sunday evening. And looking back, I can give not only credits to them, but also to the those who presented at the conference. People from Sun, RedFlag 2000, Novell, IBM, people from the various countries and projects, and independent developers working with the people from Sun, all did a tremendous job with interesting talks, that much can be learnt from. It was good to see the quality with which some Chinese speakers were able to do their presentation. Not all of them of course – it is obvious that English is quite difficult for some. On the other hand, in my opinion also the presenting skills from some of our western European friends can easily be improved; something to keep in mind. Finally, after three days of conferencing, a wonderful closing diner, with great artists to entertain us, there were two days of tours. Seen lots of beautiful things. Of course a bit in a rush, so not surprisingly our guide concluded that we should come again, and than not for work but on only for enjoying the country and the people. Which is a good suggestion. People are friendly, youth is sparking, much to enjoy.

Thanks to all who made this happen and many greeting from our Chinese friends,
Cor

Cor Nouws is active member of the Dutch/Flanders OpenOffice.org-community and also serves on the OpenOffice.org-Community Council. He is founder and director of a Dutch supplier of training/consultancy for OpenOffice.org.