Speech on Open Source at the Annual IT Architecture Conference in Århus

I was privileged to be invited to speak on open source at Videnskabsministeriets IT Arkitekturkonference (The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation) this last Thursday in Århus. Those who attended my speech at Open Source Days 2008 will know that I have some points but my delivery can be lacking; I managed to overcome that this time with a bit of preparation. A video of the speech is embedded after the jump.

The hour long slot was divided relatively evenly between myself representing Ramboll and DSB as represented by Erik Haahr who is IT Arkitekturchef (Director of IT Architecture and Integration), i.e. the vendor perspective and the client perspective.

Here's what I think are the high points from this joint event:

• We managed to present a zealotry-free message from the vendor side, emphasising business value without compromising the intrinsic desirability of free source code
• For the most part, my speech was free of regurgitations of old things we all know already about open source; I focused instead on the practicalities of how a proprietary vendor can get on the open source train
• DSB gave a very balanced and pragmatic perspective on how they use open source (though I can't help but feel they could be doing more without compromising the drive for business results)
• The speaking slot ran quite late because the Q&A session evolved into a decentralised debate on the floow, with representatives of municipalities discussing out in the open how to share code, ITST interjecting with experience, and KL asking the good hard questions on open source in EU tenders
• Most importantly - this might have been because it was right after lunch - no one was quick-witted enough to draw connecting lines between delayed trains and the open source at the heart of DSB's infrastructure

Couldn't ask for more. Oh wait, yes I can. Keep watching this space, we have some cool stuff cooking. Here's a video of the speech (both myself and Erik) for the curious. If you work for a vendor or ISV, this might be worth passing around.

open source fordi det giver værdi - IT Arkitekturkonferencen 2009 from Josef Assad on Vimeo.

IT- og Telestyrelsen have the full gamut of recorded speeches up here. It also seems there was a flurry of conference-related twittering (I personally use identi.ca).