{"id":1306,"date":"2010-10-28T16:19:09","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T20:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2d823b65bb.nxcli.io\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2010-11-06T11:00:03","modified_gmt":"2010-11-06T15:00:03","slug":"odf-plugfest-brussels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/odf-plugfest-brussels.html","title":{"rendered":"ODF Plugfest — Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago I was in Brussels to participate in the 4th ODF Plugfest.\u00a0 I planned on writing up\u00a0 a nice long post about it.\u00a0 But right when I started to draft this blog post, I came across an excellent article in LWN.net by Koen Vervloesem (Twitter @koenvervloesem<\/a>): ODF Plugfest: Making office tools interoperable<\/a>.\u00a0 Since his article is far better than what I would have written,\u00a0 I recommend that you go and read that article first, and then come back here for what meager additional scraps of insight I can add.<\/p>\n

Go ahead.\u00a0 I can wait.\u00a0 I’ll be here when you get back.<\/p>\n

The ODF Plugfest format is a two-day event.\u00a0 On one day engineers from the vendors work together, peer-to-peer, on interoperability testing, debugging, resolving issues, etc.\u00a0 This is done in a closed session, with no press present, and with a gentlemen’s agreement not to use information from this session to attack other vendors.\u00a0 We want the Plugfest to be a “safe zone” where vendors can do interoperability work where it is most needed, using unreleased software, alpha or beta code in some cases.\u00a0\u00a0 For this to work we need an environment where engineers can do this work, without fear that each bug in their beta product will be instantly maligned on the web.\u00a0 This would be anti-productive, since it would repel the very products we need most to attend Plugfests.<\/p>\n

I think customers would be proud to see their vendors putting their differences aside for the day to work on interoperability.\u00a0 Although among the vendors and organizations present there were several fierce competitors, two parties to a prominent patent infringement lawsuit and both sides of a prominent fork of a popular open source project, you would not have guessed this if you watched the engineers collaborating at the Plugfest.\u00a0\u00a0 A key part to this neutrality is that the Plugfests are sponsored and hosted by public sector parties and universities and non-profits.\u00a0 In this case we were hosted by the Flemish government.<\/p>\n

So that was the first day of the Plugfest, and for the details I can say no more, for the reasons I’ve stated.<\/p>\n

On the 2nd day we have a public session, with vendors, but also the press, local public sector IT people, local IT companies, etc.\u00a0 The program and presentations<\/a> are posted.\u00a0 My presentation on ODF 1.2 is also up on my publications page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A few leftover notes that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere:<\/p>\n