Amsterdam: the city of openness

There are many reasons to love Amsterdam, from its beautiful canal-lined streets, to the bikes whizzing around everywhere and the bustle of Dam Square. It is known for being a city of freedom, but it is also increasingly a centre of Open Source in Europe. For these reasons, we feel that it is an ideal place to return to for ApacheCon Europe 2009.

For three years now, we have held ApacheCon in this beautiful Dutch city. We’ve seen an increase in attendance each year we’ve been to Amsterdam, and we are expecting a good turnout once again. The community has given us feedback that they love the city, and for 2009 we have more fun events planned for the conference.

The city of Amsterdam and the country of the Netherlands have been increasing their reliance on Open Source, including having a mandate that government offices use Open Source software over proprietary whenever possible (the OSOSS project). Last month, in fact, the Ministry of Education, said it will not subsidize proprietary software for the Netherlands Antilles. Prior to that, the Holland Open Software Platform was launched to bring together the entire Open Source community in the country and encourage its adoption.

There are a number of growing companies that are focused on Open Source with Apache ties that are based in the Netherlands as well. This year’s gold sponsor, Hippo, for example, and several of the members that work for it, is very active in both Apache and in bringing ApacheCon to the Netherlands. Its members contribute to projects like JackRabbit, Cocoon, Jetspeed and Portals among others. JTeam is also quite active with various Apache projects, and provides service for Wicket, Lucene, Solr and Maven among others.

Located in a world class city, filled with bright minds who believe in Open Source, it will be the ideal venue once again to bring everyone together under the feather of Apache.

Photo credit: J. Aaron Farr

ApacheCon launches its blog!

We've decided to start a blog to keep everyone up-to-date on ApacheCon news as ApacheCon Europe 2009 starts to draw closer. The blog will serve as a platform for the team behind ApacheCon to voice thoughts on the event, to feature speakers and sponsors, and to foster dialogue within the community.

ApacheCon is not like any other event in the Open Source community, and Apache is not like any other organisation. Our conference combines thorough training sessions and presentations from experts with unconference tracks, BarCampApache, Birds-of-a-Feather sessions, 5 minute Lightning Talks and a newly open Hackathon. The whole event is inspired by the Apache Way, encouraging two-way communication and collaboration.

With this in mind, we'd like to hear your ideas even before you arrive. We promise to read your comments here, and we'll respond too. More importantly, we promise to truly listen to what you want and to use it to shape this year's event, and future events. Tell us about your community news, your experience of past ApacheCon events, and what you think about holding the event in Amsterdam. As past attendees will confirm, ApacheCon is a massive success because of the way it brings everyone together.

Block out 23-27 March in your diary today, and register here!