FSOSS

The 9th Annual Free Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS, "eff-sauce") is coming up on October 28th and 29th, here at Seneca College in Toronto. This is a great event with a wide-ranging, eclectic mix of workshops and presentations.

I've been involved in planning FSOSS for the past few years, but stepped back a bit to catch my breath this year. Mary Lynn Manton has stepped up to the task of chairing this year's event with Rose Saliba, who is co-chairing for her third year.

FSOSS is still looking for interesting workshops and presentations on a variety of open source topics. If you're working with open source in any way, this could be a great opportunity -- please check out http://fsoss.ca and submit a presentation proposal right away!

The presentation slate for FSOSS 2009 has been finalized, and it looks like a interesting and diverse line-up including such topics as:

• Apache Qpid (AMQP)
• technical writing and documentation
• Mozilla Dehydra and DXR tools
• Processing.js
• open source in South Africa's universities
• communication in open source projects

...and more.

I'm looking forward to a great conference! If you're within driving distance of Toronto, please consider joining us on October 30. Advance registration -- and the corresponding discount -- ends this weekend as the Toronto Open Source Week gets underway.

Just a quick reminder: early-bird discounts for the Free Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) end on Wednesday. The discounts are 50% or more, so plan ahead and save! (Seneca students: remember that Volunteers get in for free).

For the eighth year in a row, the Centre for Development of Open Technology at Seneca College is holding the Free Software and Open Source Symposium. This year's event will be on Friday, October 30, with optional hands-on workshops on Thursday, October 29. We're expecting around 300 open source developers, community leaders, business people, and students from Toronto, throughout Ontario, and around the world.

Are you passionate about an open source project? Do you have new insight into open source (or open content, or open formats)? Tell the world: we've put out a call for great presentation proposals on the FSOSS website.

Registration for FSOSS 2009 will open in June... and yes, we pronounce it "eff-sauce"!

TeachngOpenSource.org has been running for two weeks now. So far we have:

• over 100 posts to the mailing list
• 81 mailing list members
• 51 members of the wiki
• a couple of dozen people who have dropped into the IRC channel #teachingopensource
• an active blog planet
• four projects under discussion on the list, three with some initial wiki content
• plans for a monthly conference call

TeachingOpenSource.org is a collaboration point. There are still many open source communities, schools, companies, and organizations with educational initiatives operating in isolation. If you're in any way involved with or interested in supporting the teaching of community-based open source, please join us -- and if you know anyone working in this space, please help us get the word out.

Greg, you've made some fantastic points, but now you and everyone interested in the teaching of Open Source need to get on the TOS mailing list so we can work on the solutions