The FOSDEM 2013 was a huge success and especially the Free Java room was a very interesting place to be. A report and pictures can be found in this blog.

The Belgian JBoss User Group organises its next event on Tuesday, October 9th 2012 from 18:30 in Kontich.

Topics of the talks are JBoss Application Server AS7 and the brand-new JBoss Enterprise Application Platform EAP 6.

Presented are these hot topics by Karoly Nagy, EMEA Senior Solutions Architect, Red Hat/JBoss.

Entry is free and no registration is required.

Address:
CRONOS n.v.
Business Park King Square
Veldkant 33A – 2550 Kontich

The date of the FOSDEM 2012 edition has been announced: 4th and 5th of February 2012. As usual, the call for paper, lightning talks and dev rooms will be proclaimed soon, and will be over soon as well. Stay tuned on http://fosdem.org.

For this special event, two well know Java people will come to Brussels one day earlier to speak for us: Ben Evans and Martijn Verburg. So we have a long WE in perspective: JUG evening, FOSDEM beer event, FOSDEM conference :-)

More on this wave soon….

A lot is going to happen this WE… :)

Software Freedom Day 2011 @Hackerspace Brussels
Sat 17 Sep 2011 14:00 till 17:00

Free Entry to celebrate Free Software to get Free People!

https://hackerspace.be/Software_Freedom_Day_2011

http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Belgium/Brussels/Hackerspace

Timing:

• Talk: Software Freedom: why?
  14:00 – 14:30
• Workshop: Walking through the Inkscape basics – making a basic design
  14:30 – 16:00
• GNOME, Present and Future
  16:00 – 16:30

PS. You can join the Freedom Not Fear 2011 manifestation just after this event.

As you already know, we have the BruCON next week on monday/tuesday (21/22.09) in Brussels and there still is room for volunteers. In case that you are interested, below you will find the link to register. Just pick some shifts and you are in, easy.

The video team needs some hands as well. Volunteering on the video team has the advantage that you can follow all the lectures and get to handle cool gear.

https://ssl.brucon.org/gabriel

You can also suscribe to the mailing list here: http://mailman.brucon.org/mailman/listinfo/brucon-volunteer

Free Software and Open Source – these are the topics of FrOSCon (Free and Open Source Software Conference). The computer science department of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (near Cologne), supported by LUUSA and FrOSCon e.V. are yearly presenting an exciting program with talks, workshops and an exhibition the third weekend in August. The social event, that takes place Saturday night gives you the opportunity to exchange opinions with other visitors, speakers or volunteers. 2011 the sixth conference will take place on August, 20st and 21nd.

It’s a bit late to be there, but you can follow the event on the internet.

http://froscon.org/

Video Live Streaming

http://twitter.com/froscon

The talks of 2010 can be found on http://froscon.tv (Streaming Mirror) for download here as a webplayer.

That we have a prestigious and very active Hackerspace in Brussels, some of you may already know…

Some of you may know as well about the relatively new Hackerspace in the wonderful city of Ghent…

More recent however is the creation of a new Hackerspace in Charleroi. The official inauguration took place the 2011-06-24, and now the space is open for all and the projects are starting off…

But that’s not all for our little country. There is also a space in Antwerp and even more is to come…

Hackerspaces aren’t a local movement. You can find spaces all around the world. And each place is different – concerning its organisation, its projects, its aims and its appearance. Common is, that they are all community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their hard, soft and social projects. Wanna to find out more? Just go to the global Hackerspace page and enjoy the journey.

More links:

• Hackerspace Brussels: https://hackerspace.be
• Global Hackspace movement: http://hackerspaces.org
• Hackerspace Brussels on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/hsbxl
• Hackerspaces | Flux: http://blog.hackerspaces.org/
• Hackerspace theory: http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Theory
• HackerSpaces: The Beginning – The Book (160MB zip)
• Earth is the Hackerspaces Planet – The global HS flux: http://earth.hackerspaces.org/

BruCON is an annual security and hacker (* see BruCON FAQ for definition of the word ‘hacker’) conference providing two days of an interesting atmosphere for open discussions of critical infosec issues, privacy, information technology and its cultural/technical implications on society. Organized in Brussels, BruCON offers a high quality line up of speakers, security challenges and interesting workshops. BruCON is a conference by and for the security and hacker(*) community.

The conference tries to create bridges between the various actors active in computer security world, included but not limited to hackers(*), security professionals, security communities, non-profit organizations, CERTs, students, law enforcement agencies, etc…..

BruCON is organized as a non-profit event by volunteers. A group of security enthusiasts decided that it was time in Belgium to have its own security and hacker conference. A lot of countries around the world have these kind of conferences to discuss and present research on computer security and related subject matters. We want to unite people who share the same passion and support the Belgian (research) communities, with BruCON as a yearly highlight. We are not professional organizers and started this as a non-profit organization. We all have full time jobs and dedicate a lot of our free time to this project. Everyone is welcome to join us and help!!

More info:
http://2011.brucon.org/
http://blog.brucon.org/
http://twitter.com/#!/brucon

Don’t miss it :)

PS. The team is also looking for Volunteers.

We know, it’s a last-minute-flight, but still… maybe you have nothing planned yet for tonight:

Join Creative Commons for a discussion on the value of copyright and open innovation in the digital age:

Launch Reception of The Power of Open

As the European Commission is in full speed implementing its Digital Agenda flagship initiative, the questions of open access are more pertinent than ever. To develop a “vibrant digital single market” in the European Union the European Commission has committed itself to the opening up of access to content. In order to allow for a broader reach to new and larger audiences, key action areas focus on finding easier and more uniform solutions to pan-European licensing, simplifying copyright clearance and collective rights management, to name a few.

Creative Commons is launching The Power of Open, a book that highlights the role of copyright, content sharing and collaboration in driving innovation in the digital age, featuring case studies of leading scientists, educators, artists and entrepreneurs who have benefited from Creative Commons’ tools. Copyright was created long before the emergence of the Internet, and can make it hard for Internet users to legally share content, and for content owners to protect their intellectual property on the Web.

Creative Commons is the non-profit organization behind a copyright framework and global standard for licensing that meets the needs of individual creators, companies and Internet users. It makes creative, educational and scientific content more accessible and usable on the Internet, helping to unlock the creative power of today’s connected world. Creative Commons licensing has been successfully translated into 23 European national legal frameworks, in only a few years.

At the launch event, Creative Commons will offer an introduction to The Power of Open, followed by presentations by Mark Patterson, the Director of Publishing for the Public Library of Science, on the importance of content sharing and collaboration for the digital economy and how PLoS is opening up and transforming research communication. The discussion will be followed by a hosted cocktail reception.

About Creative Commons: Creative Commons’ licensing has been widely adopted by organizations such as Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, GlaxoSmithKline, YouTube and Flickr, as well as dozens of governments, libraries, museums and galleries around the world. At present, over 500 million pieces of content have a Creative Commons license.

About Mark Patterson: Mark Patterson holds a PhD in genetics. Following a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship and four years as a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, Mark made the move into scientific publishing as the editor of Trends in Genetics. In 1999, he was appointed as the biology reviews editor of Nature and was subsequently involved in the launch of Nature Reviews journals as the editor of Nature Reviews Genetics. Mark joined the Public Library of Science (PLoS) in 2003. He established the European PLoS office, helped launch PLoS Biology and several other PLoS journals, and was appointed Director of Publishing in 2005.

Photo: Portrait of Cory Doctorow by photographer Jonathan Worth CC-BY-NC-SA

Where and when:

GooglePlex Brussels
Chaussée D’Etterbeek 180 1040
Brussels
Belgium
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (GMT+0100)

http://thepowerofopenbrussels.eventbrite.com/

To celebrate the release of the new Eclipse version 3.7 aka ‘Indigo’, Toulibre and Toulouse JUG invite everyone to join their afternoon Eclipsecamp, loaded with conferences and demos. The event is planned for June, 23 2011, between 13:00 and 20:00 in Toulouse.

The conferences are animated by multiple high profiles in the french open-source world, like Benjamin Cabé (committer on the PDE projects e4 and Koneki), Simon Chemouil (committer on e4), Etienne Juliot (Eclipse Foundation board member), Gaétan Morice (committer on Koneki), and more.

Two tracks are running in parallel and the event is concluded with a drink where you can chat with the referees. All talks are hold in French and the place to be is ENSEEIHT, 2 rue Charles Camichel à Toulouse (Métro Ligne B – François Verdier).

Some catch words about the program: Topcased, Osgi, RCP, EMF, EEF, SWTBot, Koneki, Orion, EGit and much more. Curious? Then visit the event web site at http://toulibre.org/eclipseparty.

The event is free thanks to the sponsors: Artal, CS, Obeo and OpCoach.

Registration: http://www.toulibre.org/eclipseparty#inscription

The Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting (FOSDEM) is a two-day event organized by volunteers to promote the widespread use of Free and Open Source software. FOSDEM is the biggest free and non-commercial event organized by and for the community. Its goal is to provide Free and Open Source developers a place to meet. No registration necessary. Participation and attendance is totally free, though the organization gratefully accepts donations and sponsorships.

The next edition takes place in Brussels, the 5th and 6th February 2011. Call for devroom and lightning talks still is open. And don’t forget, they need volunteers to run the event. So if you live in Brussels or nearby and you want to experience a great geeky weekend, join the troops :)

http://www.fosdem.org/2011/

On Nov. 13th 2006, Sun announced that Duke would become Free Graphics, just as the implementations of Java ME and SE became Free Software.

What does “Open Source Duke” mean? It means all you Duke fans have the original mascot for Java technology to play with. With your creative designs, you can give Duke a personal touch. See how Duke fares trying new pastimes such as hiking, base-jumping, skiing, Sudoku, or scuba-diving – or get Duke nationalized by adding your favorite flag.

Duke was originally created Joe Palrang to be the “agent” for the Green Project at Sun. Duke became the Java mascot when Java technology was first announced, right around the same time that the first Java cup logo was commissioned.

More information about the history of Duke can be found on the official Duke project page:  http://kenai.com/projects/duke/pages/Home. A lot of different Duke bitmap pictures and vector drawings are available at http://duke.kenai.com.

Unfortunately, there are no handy 3D models for FOSS applications available on the project site, so we decided to convert them into a format that was easier to use. We choose Art Of Illusion as renderer and, as the original files, the AoI meshes are free to use (BSD license, see Duke project page).

So here are 3 different AoI Scenes that you can use as base for new creations:

The base Duke Duke waving The Duchess (see jDuchess.org :-)

Quick start: Install AoI, open one of the files, CTRL+R, Enter, enjoy your first picture :)

The Duke mesh coloring is realized via the “body_mapping” (Procedural 3D) texture. The mesh and the texture are linked using three Texture Parameters (‘white’, ‘red’, ‘black’ – default). When you remove the texture from the mesh, the parameter values are reset within the mesh object. By this, when you re-select the same texture, all values are 0 and the Duke appears in black. In this case, you need to re-select points and attribute the respective color by setting one of the parameters to 1.

Some images we did for the Brussels JUG: Logo 1, Logo 2, Animated Logo (on YouTube).

We hope you enjoy playing around with the models and don’t forget to drop us a message to show us your best creations! :-)

The FOSDEM conference in Brussels was hold in February 2010, but as usual “Past the conference is ahead the conference”. Consequently: don’t forget to reserve a place in your calendar for the next FOSDEM (probably) in February 2011!

For all people wanting to get a retrospect of the FOSDEM 2010 conference, take a look at this:

Videos

• The official Youtube-Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/fosdemtalks
• The official download page: http://video.fosdem.org/
• FOSDEM dance: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/2010/02/the-fosdem-dance/
• Non-relational data persistence in Java using MongoDB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOP3w-9Q6lU
• NoSQL Track on Parleys: http://www.parleys.com/#st=4&id=102745
• The 3D printer in action (not filmed at FOSDEM): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flTVtZ4wFvY
• NOSQL devroom, nr. 6: Benoît Chesnau: http://outerthought.org/blog/news/blog/357-OTC.html
• Android und der Linux-Kernel: http://www.linux-magazin.de/NEWS/Video-Android-und-der-Linux-Kernel
• FOSDEM 2010 Video – Women in Open Source: http://crashopensource.blogspot.com/2010/02/fosdem-2010-women-in-open-source-and.html
• A lot of impressions in one video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcb9rIfGD64

Photos

• http://picasaweb.google.com/ziade.tarek/Fosdem2010#
• http://picasaweb.google.com/outerthought/nosqldevroom#
• http://www.asipto.com/gallery/v/fosdem2010/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/45838639@N04/sets/72157623238657843/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/lfoppiano/sets/72157623426101136/

Blogs

• Small FOSDEM 2010 round up: http://pilhuhn.blogspot.com/2010/02/small-fosdem-2010-round-up-with-pics.html
• FOSDEM X: http://jimpurbrick.com/2010/02/10/fosdem-x/
• First impressions of a free software event in Brussels: http://ileriseviye.org/blog/?p=2884
• NoSQL and content management: http://blog.technologyofcontent.com/2010/02/nosql-and-content-management/
• Report from FOSDEM 2010: http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2010/02/fosdem_2010.html
• Womoz (Women & Mozilla) at FOSDEM 2010: http://www.womoz.org/blog/?p=287
• A small Fosdem wrapup: http://blog.worldofcoding.com/2010/02/small-fosdem-wrapup.html
• Impressions: http://nxadm.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/fosdem-2010-impressions/
• Vitrivi-Mente: Part I – Let’s Dance
• Vitrivi-Mente: Part II – Impressions
• Vitrivi-Mente: Part III – The two days
• Vitrivi-Mente: Retour d’un visiteur anonyme