Away Mission - Upcoming in October

By Howard Dyckoff

Silicon Valley CodeCamp 09 -- Free

Oct 3-5, Foothill College, Los Altos, CA
http://www.SiliconValley-CodeCamp.com/Register.aspx

It's been running for several years and it's always been free. Lunch is provided by the sponsors, as well.

I confess that I haven't gone to the CodeCamp before (time conflicts), but have been to the related Product Manager's Camp, and it was worth the price of admission. I do know people who have gone before, and all report a positive experience.

Using the now-familiar unconference format, volunteer speakers sign themselves up for sessions and some slots are open for spontaneous topics. That makes the agenda a little fluid but you'd only be risking some weekend time.

Oracle OpenWorld 2009

Oct 11-15, San Francisco, CA
http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/

The Oracle behemoth keeps acquiring both major application brands, as well as open source companies. Previously, it released an Oracle-supported version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This year, it swooped up all of Sun Microsystems with its many open source gems, including Java, Solaris, and MySQL. What will be Oracle's next foray into the open source universe?

In September, ahead of Oracle OpenWorld, it announced the world's fastest database machine based on high-end Sun Microsystems X86 hardware. See a summary of its impressive performance in the News Bytes column, this month.

So far, Oracle has promised to keep Java free and open, and to also support MySQL. It now distributes both a Linux distribution and a version of Unix. It's been a major contributor to the btrfs file system, and now owns ZFS. What will Oracle do next??

The last Oracle OpenWorld handled logistics well, for an event with over 40K attendees, and offered a lot of content. It also offers a lot of value, with its Expo pass that includes keynotes, the expo, and the end-of-conference reception. The main conference is expensive, unless you can get a customer or partner discount.

See the review of Oracle OpenWorld at http://linuxgazette.net/159/dyckoff.html.

Agile Open Northern California

Oct 15-16, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
http://www.agileopencalifornia.com/registrationcampaign/promo001/

This event is organized by Dayspring, Inc., and is a very low-cost event at $250: two days of Agile theory and practice with 32 sessions, lunch, and a networking reception. Also organized like an unconference, this event uses the Open Space Technology framework to organize sessions.

Here's a link to the wiki for the 2008 proceedings: http://agileopencalifornia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Proceedings2008

eComm Fall 2009 Europe

Oct. 28-30, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam, NL
http://www.amiando.com/ecomm2009-europe.html

This is the first eComm conference in Europe, but the two preceding eComm events in the US have been stellar.

The mix of speakers goes from major telecoms to the very open, very alternative developers on the fringe. It's a challenging environment for both speakers and audience, with short 15 min. sessions and even shorter 5 min. bullet sessions. There is hardly a dull moment at eComm, and some conversations are just short of amazing. If you are anywhere near Amsterdam, consider checking this one out.

Here are links to content from the most recent eComm: http://www.slideshare.net/eComm2008/slideshows
http://ecomm.blip.tv/posts?view=archive

My earlier review is here: http://linuxgazette.net/159/dyckoff.html

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Howard Dyckoff is a long term IT professional with primary experience at Fortune 100 and 200 firms. Before his IT career, he worked for Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine and before that used to edit SkyCom, a newsletter for astronomers and rocketeers. He hails from the Republic of Brooklyn [and Polytechnic Institute] and now, after several trips to Himalayan mountain tops, resides in the SF Bay Area with a large book collection and several pet rocks.

Howard maintains the Technology-Events blog at blogspot.com from which he contributes the Events listing for Linux Gazette. Visit the blog to preview some of the next month's NewsBytes Events.