Eben Moglen’s OSBC keynote

I’m so excited right now, because I just got Eben’s abstract for his OSBC keynote this May 22, 2007 (San Francisco). Eben will be joining Matthew Szulik (CEO, Red Hat), Marc West (CIO, H&R Block), Marten Mickos (CEO, MySQL), Rob Curley (VP, Product Development, Washingtonpost.com/Newsweek Interactive), and Lee Thompson (Chief Technologist, E*Trade) as OSBC keynotes, but Eben always stands apart in any crowd.

Here’s his session:

Copyleft Business Models: Why It’s Good Not To Be Your Competitor’s Free Lunch

Abstract: Now that the GPL wars are over, and we have two good GPLs to choose from, it is time to re-ask some fundamental questions about business models and software licenses. In this talk, I explain why smaller software-focused businesses will soon be deserting Apache- and BSD-style permissive licenses for GPL[2 3] and their successors.

Did you hear that shot over the bow? Or did you feel it? This is going to be an exceptional keynote, one that I hope will rival the one he delivered at last year’s Red Hat Summit.

If you haven’t heard Eben speak, you’re missing out, especially if you’re stuck in the mode of thinking him as an IP extremist. Listen to the Red Hat Summit keynote. The GPL is the ultimate capitalist tool.

While I’m talking about keynotes, I also just got Rob Curley’s abstract:

“Hacking the Newspaper”: How an Open Source Nerd from Kansas Is Revitalizing Journalism Hailed as the “hyper-local hero”by Fast Company magazine, Rob Curley is using open-source technology and an open-source mentality to keep newspapers relevant in an age of rapidly changing roles for mainstream media. He’s getting newspapers to think about creating relationships with their readers: on his sites, users can compare historical home prices, street by street or neighborhood by neighborhood; receive a text alert about a Little League rainout, the weather, or the fishing report;

click on a map to assess local hurricane damage; chat with the subject of a story or its reporter; check out a weekly high-school sports roundup and daily news video. One of Rob’s first Django-powered projects for The Washington Post — “onBeing” — brings ordinary people’s stories to washingtonpost.com via interactive video.

Real-world IT problems being solved by real-world open source software. OSBC has always been strong on vendor strategy, and now it’s strong on IT strategy. May 22-23, 2007. You should come.