Delphi 2007 Handbook








February 22, 2006

About Open Space Conferences

Bruce Eckel is organizing an Open Space Conference on Web development. I wonder if I could find enough people interested in a Delphi-related one...

Bruce Eckel is organizing an open space conference titled Programming the New Web. The event is very interesting in itself and I'd consider attending if I were not living so far away.

What I find very interesting is also the "open space conference" model that you can see described in details in Bruce's page linked above: " a simple methodology for self-organizing conference tracks: it relies on participation by people who have a passion for the topics to be discussed". So I'm wondering if putting together a similar event for Delphi would make sense and where to organize it: in the US? in an Italian art city? somewhere else in Europe? If you have any idea let me know...

posted by marcocantu @ 0:23AM | 6 Comments [0 Pending]




 

6 Comments

About Open Space Conferences  

Marco, I appreciate your idea, but I am affraid that
Delphi, despite its excellent characteristics, is
going to die, and we ought to start considering the
post-Delphi era.
Since Borland announced its intention to sell its
development tools, the business world (or that part of
it that has not already left the sinking Borland IDE
ship, due to high prices, and recent buggy versions of
software) is becoming very sceptical about the idea to
invest in Delphi as the IDE. Now, we don't know (yet)
who will buy it (but will anybody?), it might be a
greater and more famous company that could give it new
life, but honestly, I doubt it...
It's impossible to compete with a Monopolist (with the
capital "M") who also happens to be the operating
system manufacturer, and you can see the global crisis
in the proprietary software industry. They are giving
away software for free to keep people using it
(Oracle, Microsoft, SUN, Borland, IBM,...).
Consider also the global economic crisis: our sector
cannot go well if the economy in general keeps
collapsing. And as in the Highlander saga, only one
will survive, the above mentioned Monopolist.
On the other side, we have free software, the only one
that gives the businesses some security of the
software quality and the ROI. That's why the
Monopolist is fighting it with all the possible
weapons (including very aggressive and suspicius
lobbistic moves with the law-makers). Only the free
software saves us from the absolute monopoly and
astronomical prices.
So, let's support the Freepascal and Lazarus
(www.lazarus.freepascal.org), let's help the project
to come to the Delphi level, let's give away some of
our time and code, it's just an investment like any other.
You are Italian, and should have learned some
historical lessons. Remember how the Venetian "nobili"
gave away all their wealth to the state in the war
times? They knew that if the "Serenissima" survived,
they would become rich again. With the Serenissima's
death, they would however loose their money and the
power they had.
I'm not a free software fanatic, I develope and use
proprietary software too, but the idea of a monolithic
future of only Monopolist's Palladium computers scares
me...I'd prefere leave the sector and become a fisherman.
In these actual conditions only free software can save
 us. So, yes, let's organize the conference, but let's
detach the dying body from the machines that keep it
virtually alive, let's forget the IDE platform in
which neither its mother (Borland) believes any more,
and let's free the software. Now.


Nikola

P.S. Sorry for my poor and error-prone English...
Comment by Nikola [] on February 22, 14:35

About Open Space Conferences  

some place exotic so I can write it off... greece,
italy, sure.
Comment by bob [http://lamecode.com] on February 22, 22:17

About Open Space Conferences  

Hello Marco, I would love to hear what you feel about
the comment posted by Nikola above. Will it be that
bad an idea to convert Delphi into an open source
project? We have seen enough examples of excellent
products emerging out of the Open Source community. We
should do everything possible to spread the reach of
Delphi, and what better way than making it Open
Source, something similar to Mozilla Firefox?
Comment by Proto on February 23, 20:29

Was about "Open Space" not "Open Source"  

Nikola and Proto I will post my ideas on Delphi and
open source in a blog post... but please refrain from
commenting in the wrong post. This post had nothing to
do with Open Source and the status of Delphi, it was
about a way to organize a training event. If you keep
talkback on focus (there were other posts, like the
dream one, it would have pertained) the blog will
remain more understandeable.
Comment by Marco Cantù [http://www.marcocantu.com] on February 23, 23:43

About Open Space Conferences  

While I'm not sure exactly how this would be done in 
practice, I'd be more than willing to particpate in 
sessions for such an event (as a speaker or modetator 
or whatever you would call it).
Comment by Bob Swart [http://www.drbob42.com/blog] on February 26, 10:40

About Open Space Conferences  

 Are you aware of any trainings or conferences taking
place the rest of this calendar year? On the US
mainland, but Hawaii would be great/work, too. Thanks.
Comment by Abbe Altman [http://cats.cdl.edu] on June 20, 22:16


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