GOSCON is pleased to release a selection of its 2007 Conference presentations to the general public.

GOSCON 2007 recently closed with a compelling panel of experts representing the perspectives of Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, the Open Document Foundation and Sun Microsystems. Time ran out before the discussion did. We’ve invited our five panelists back to carry on the discussion and bring it here to share with you. The panel discussion focused on a single question: what should the user community do, what actions should they take in light of competing Open Document Formats? Each of our industry experts was asked to present their practical response.

• Drop in on Current Open Document Format Discussion.
• Watch the Video of the Original Open Document Format Executive Panel. .mov | .rm
• Download the Open Document Format Panel Introductory Slide Set.

Following a third successful year, the Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) has set its plans to return once again to Portland Oregon. Initiated in 2005 as a regional conference with a focus on the fundamentals, GOSCON has become a serious OSS conference for the public sector, drawing the participation of a range of government agencies, vendors, contractors and suppliers from the US and abroad. The conference will be held Monday through Thursday, October 20-23, 2008, expanding its schedule to include an international summit, a special community track and more networking and collaborative opportunities for management professionals responsible in this sector.

The blogroll from a few of our attendees:

Linux Today editor Brian Proffitt covers Linux Foundation's Jim Zemln's conference keynote following his pre-conference overview.

Attorney Jason Haislemaier debriefs on Japan's ossiPedia project at the Open Source Resource Center. Guest speaker and OSRC general manager Shuchi Tashiro presented on their well-resourced initiative in support of their new government policy. He also shares general impressions of GOSCON and his take on several keynotes from a posting several days prior.

This year’s conference will close with today’s most pressing issue for international governments; panelists from Microsoft, Sun, IBM and the OpenDocument Foundation to weigh in. The Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON), today announced details of its expert-studded Executive Panel on Open Document Formats.

The initial defeat of the OOXML standard has recharged the debate over open document formats in government. While OOXML backers prepare for the next vote and ODF and CDF stakeholders continue their own campaigns, government users are overwhelmed with contradicting messages about an issue that needs quick resolution. GOSCON is bringing together in one forum experts from every corner of the debate to translate the issue into information conference attendees can immediately act upon when they return to their offices.

Collaboration processes and tools pioneer Ward Cunningham returns to GOSCON to conduct an intimate interactive session at GOSCON 2007. Cunningham was a GOSCON 2006 keynote speaker on Large Scale Collaboration and was one of the most popular speakers to address the audience.

Titled "Talk Shop with Ward Cunningham", the session will include practical guidance and discussion  with newcomers and veterans of collaboration tools.  Topics will be drawn from audience interest at the start of the session.  Seating will be limited, sign-up will be available at the registration desk at the conference.

Ward Cunningham is best known as the inventor of Wiki. He is now the Chief Technology Officer of AboutUs.org, a Portland based growth company hosting the communities formed by organizations and the people they touch. Ward co-founded the consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc., has served as a Director of the Eclipse Foundation, an Architect in Microsoft's Patterns & Practices Group, the Director of R&D at Wyatt Software and as Principle Engineer in the Tektronix Computer Research Laboratory. Ward is well known for his contributions to the developing practice of object-oriented programming, the variation called Extreme Programming, and the communities supported by his WikiWikiWeb.

GOSCON 2007 is pleased to announce our guest speaker for this year's session of "Open Source Licensing 101" will be Jason Haislmaier. Jason is a Partner with the law firm of Holme Roberts Owen. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado School of Law. He has lectured internationally on technology and intellectual property issues, including the practical and legal issues surrounding the interpretation of open source licenses under the copyright and intellectual property laws of the US and EU. You can read his personal blog on open source and other technology law topics at "Thinking Open ". More information about Jason is available on the conference speakers page .

"Open Source Licensing 101" is designed as a primer to de-mystify licensing issues surrounding open source software. For more information on the session please visit the conference sessions page.

GOSCON 2007 has completed its call for speakers and is pleased to share the first round of accepted proposals, along with several invited speakers:

Registration is now being accepted for the Third Annual Government Open Soure Conference. The conference venue is limited and registrations are accepted on a first-come first-served basis.

This years conference will host another round of industry leaders gathered to inform, discuss, and debate the adoption and use of Open Source Software and its methodologies for public sector application.

Conference Industry Speaker Highlights for 2007 include:

• Dr. Daniel Frye, IBM Linux Technology Center on Today's IT Workforce Needs
• Skip McGaughey, Eclipse Foundation on Open Health IT
• Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation on Open Standards & Interoperability

Watch for more program updates here at www.goscon.org .

Call for speakers for the 2007 conference is now closed. We had a tremendous response - thanks for your submissions and referrals. We look forward to sharing the news of the quality speakers and new projects through conference site and mailing list throughout the month of August.

How we're building our program: