Bye Bye OSCON 2006 - Wish i could have stayed longer

Wow, talk about a week of "everything you wanted to know about Open Source, but didn’t know where to start or where to go from there." The tutorials were absolutely fantastic. The depth of knowledge the instructors had and their teachings styles were exactly in sync with what i wanted to learn and how I’ve been going about learing open source.

I attended the following tutorials and highly recommend these instructions…
Businesses Partnering with OSS Communities by James Howison
Just enough IP law to manage an OSS project by Cliff Schmidt

I also attended Doc Searls’ talk on "how to market to people who hate marketing" I’ve never seen a presentation given in that style before, so i’m eager to try it out back on redmond campus

One of my biggest takeaways, as least as i write this in the portland airport, is how receptive everyone was to me, a Microsoft employee learning how to do OSS. I think there were a lot more companies doing traditional closed software development in the same boat, taking the same classes, asking the same questions. Some of us had more knowledge and experience, and some of us had less, but we were all there to learn, which gave all of us something in common.

It’s going to take me a few days to write and post my trip report. So much good information. I feel like i’m back in college the week before finals, and i’m trying to cram in as much as possible. I’d love to do another Port25 video on how i’m going to apply my new knowledge of the FLOSS Development Cycle (note there are multiple approaches to this, and not just one school of thought) to the Power Toys.

Now i get to switch gears completely and attend BlogHer. Thankfully, i’m speaking on Saturday, so i have a few days to adjust and begin thinking about Katrina and Blogs (and poor Lewis Black who i made depressed)…