The OSCON schedule is pretty aggressive: four full days of keynotes, sessions, and events with evening activities too. The fifth day is a "half day" with keynotes and sessions running up to noon or thereabouts. Yet it doesn't end at noon. There was a get-together (with lunch provided) after the wrap-up session and then informal conversations for as long as one wanted. I spent some time chatting with a fellow Nokia N800 enthusiast.
Keynote sessions today covered open source principles in federal government and "rewilding", the ability to value natural effects and refrain from controlling them. (Think wildfires on a natural schedule for stronger forests, but applied to many other areas.)
I attended sessions on HTML 5 and cloud computing. There are good things in HTML 5 and the major browsers are on board to implement the standard. Cloud computing still eludes me, but it is slowly coming into focus. Right now, I view it as commodity computing power for web servers, scalable up and down as you need it. There are competing APIs, just as there were competing standards in the early days of electricity. I'm confident that common standards will emerge; once they do I expect adoption to increase quickly.
Cloud computing also raises the bar for programming. One needs strong languages to work effectively in the cloud; transporting current applications won't work. Programs need to be designed for scalability and parallel processing (or at least multiple instances). Languages such as Ruby and Groovy are more effective; I'm not sure that Java or C# can do the job.
Looking back at the conference, I am impressed with the variety of projects. Open source has moved beyond the typical set of Linux, Apache, and Perl. (Of course, it expanded beyond those many years ago.) There are lots -- and I do mean lots -- of projects and new concepts in open source. It will take some effort to identify the relevant fraction and keep up with them. If you're not paying attention, then you are falling behind!
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