I just had a look at the program of EuroOSCON and tried to fix my agenda for the two days.

Day 1

Open Source 2.0: Tim O’Reilly

Attention, Please! Who Are We?: Tor Nørretranders

Open Source @ openBC: How, Why, and Where To?: Bill Liao

Channeling Open Source in Europe: Ranga Rangachari

Design Patterns for Positive Externalities: Marc Goldberg, Didier Beck

Open Data AWOL: Steve Coast

Journalism via Computer Programming: Adrian Holovaty

AllPeers: From Open Source to Open Media: Matthew Gertner

An Economic Interpretation of the Evolution of the Free/Open Source Software: Lorenzo Benussi

Making It Work: How to Build a Successful Open Source Project: Louis Suarez-Potts

Day 2

Make and the Re-emergence of DIY Tech: Dale Dougherty

Monitoring Large Scale Web Applications with Nagios: Pankaj Kaushal

How OSS Changed a Government Department: Walter Harms

The Secret Sauce of Robust Developer Communities: Denise Kalos, Andrew Kelly

The Creation Engine: Collaboration, Community and a Creative Commons in Second Life: Jim Purbrick

From Europe to USA: Culture’s Consequences on Open Source Communities and Businesses: Mårten Mickos

Lessons and Tips from the Ajax Frontline: Scott Dietzen

So, after some months, we have just opened the official ecenter solutions blog, which will be for a while our information and discussion platform.

Have a look! And let expect some cross-posting from now on ;-)

We have started with a Typepad platform, the pro level with a 30-days trial, specially because of the multi-authoring. The whole set-up and first adaptations of the design were very easy. Rendez-vous in some days for a detailed feedback.

[via Stephen Walli]

Some inputs concerning Oracle and Linux, I have missed this…

[…] The rumour suggests the Oracle version will be based on Red Hat’s distro. […] Oracle taking on its own distro rather than continuing to contribute to the community is engineering inefficient and a waste of shareholder money, and it doesn’t solve the customer’s problem any better. If Red Hat is unreasonably behind in delivering the platform to Oracle’s needs, they could better invest in the relationship than in undertaking to take on their own distro based on Red Hat. […] Oracle is still very like some other software companies, praising open source on the one hand around Linux, but with contradictory rhetoric on the other hand around such things as Postgres and EnterpriseDB and MySQL. Oracle Linux, or Oracle Red Hat Linux, would be bad business for Oracle.

Update: Stephen Walli is leaving Optaros to found a start-up. Exciting!

[via Seth Godin]

Giving good and efficient feedbacks is something essential … and not so easy. Some tips from Seth Godin.

In the interest of promoting your career, making your day at work more fun, improving the work life of your colleagues, and generally making my life a whole lot better, I’d like to give you some feedback on giving feedback. As usual, the ideas are simple–it’s doing them that’s tricky.

1. The first rule of great feedback is this: No one cares about your opinion.
2. The second rule? Say the right thing at the right time.
3. The third rule? If you have something nice to say, please say it.
4. If I haven’t intimidated you with my other rules, here’s the last one: Give me feedback, no matter what.

The mother-company of ecenter solutions is changing!

New name

The Helvetia Patria Group is now called the Helvetia Group (HEPN).

New logo

The old logo

The new one

New values

1. Trust
2. Drive
3. Enthusiasm

Celebration on Friday

About 1’800 people of the different Helvetia’s companies in Switzerland were celebrating on last Friday in the Zurich airport (a whole gate was reserved). Impressive!

Marc Goldberg invited me to co-deliver his presentation, which is a great honour for me , thanks! I will be in Brussels from Monday evening (September 18) to Wednesday afternoon. It is about the development of new business models, based on OSS.

If you want to meet, see you there or send me an email (didier DOT beck AT gmail DOT com).

Coming from Nick :-) I like this one very much … and I need to laugh this evening!

Helvetia, the European Insurance Holding ecenter solutions is integrated in, has published its (very good!) half-year results for some days. Have a look at the complete InfoKit.

Some financial highlights for the 1st semester 2006 (compared to the results for the 1st semester 2005):

• Profits: 163 mio CHF (116 mio CHF, + 39.9%)
• Gross premium written: 3’227 mio CHF (3’268 mio CHF, -1.2%)
• Investements (value per June 30, 2006): 27’852 mio CHF
• Net combined ratio (non-life): 95.6% (94.0 %)
• Return on Equity (annualised): 13.4% (11.0%)
• Shareholders’ equity (value per June 30, 2006): 2’368 mio CHF

[via BetaNews 1 & 2]

Robert Scoble has been commenting a lot about this very bad story for about a week (his first post – HP spies on its own Board members). The story is today moving on.

The Justice Department has launched a probe into Hewlett-Packard’s methods to uncover the source of press leaks. […] HP chairman Patricia Dunn authorized the move, which peered through the phone records of all its board members, and nine reporters, including those at CNET News.com, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

HP’s chairman will step down following the company’s January 2007 board meeting as a result of the press leak investigation she launched and the techniques used, which both the state of California and the U.S. Government are investigating as possible breaches of law.

Patricia Dunn has agreed to step down after the board apparently decided to ask her to do so. Dunn on Friday rebuffed shareholder calls for her to resign, but had indicated she would leave HP at the request of the board. […]

HP CEO and president Mark Hurd will assume Dunn’s duties, as well as retain his prior positions. Dunn would stay in the company, although as a director. In addition, the company appointed Richard Hackborn lead independent director.

In a statement, as she had in the past, Dunn continued to stress the importance of the investigation to uncover who was leaking confidential information. On the other hand, she did express dismay on how the situation was handled.

“Unfortunately, the investigation, which was conducted with third parties, included certain inappropriate techniques,” she said. “These went beyond what we understood them to be, and I apologize that they were employed.”

I am flying to Madrid – Spain this afternoon for our yearly CIOs Meeting. I will be there till Tuesday evening.
Take care!