All,
Others will write more about OOoCon 2008, and they should :-) There
will also be videos and many blog accounts, including my own. But I
thought I'd send in this brief summary of the 6th OOoCon, the first
held in Beijing, but I hope not the last held in Asia.
It was a success, at least if measured by the camaraderie created and
renewed, the interest value of the panels, the (possible) expansion of
the community.
Our hosts, chiefly Redflag 2000, and other members of the Beijing area
and Chinese NLC community, did a superb job of making us feel at home
and providing the attendees with excellent hospitality. We all owe
them our thanks for the honour shown us!
China is serious, very serious, about Foss and OOo. They see its
potential. The alternative is unacceptable. The problem, and I'm not
sure it's exactly a problem, is moving ahead so that their use of
Foss, and OOo, is sustainable. Put another way, consumption must be
coupled with production, but, like everyone else, they lack those able
to produce OOo, and China (to speak of a vast nation as a single
they), like so many other polities and regions around the world,
perceive Foss as implying an unfamiliar culture of production and
distribution.
Perhaps it does. But OOo is nothing if not very flexible and
international, and does not impose a single way of doing things. We
just want people to do things--collaboratively, and now. Time is not
pausing while we catch our breath and neither is anyone else. As I
said on the opening day: Act now.
My thanks to all who attended and my hope that those of you who could
not can catch the panels and discussions when they are posted and will
comment on the content. The conversations begun in Beijing must be
continued; what was said and done there should not be forgotten.
OpenOffice.org has a reached a milestone, where our maturity as an
application is recognized around the world (the numbers prove it) and
our format, which allows so many other applications to work with it,
gaining very quickly among governments.
And this all means we need to inform the adopters how to work with us,
to sustain the project; promote among users everywhere the idea of OOo
as something more than a mere commodity but as something that is
extensible, modfiable, and theirs, as well as a community thing. And
we need to act now.
Thanks to all, and thanks to Redflag 2000 and the Chinese Native Lang
Community!
Cheers,
-louis
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