That title stands for “Computing Without Sending Money to Microsoft, and right here, with Java One and the Apple WWDC both happening here in San Francisco, we’re pretty well at the C-$2MS World Headquarters. Herewith some closing notes and pictures.
They say it’s the largest single developers’ event in the world, and I keep getting astonished at the size of things; here’s a view in the lunch/exhibits space:
This has kind of been a honeymoon, since I only came at the last minute I only had one or two meetings a day, so I went to a bunch of sessions (which I almost never get to do at conferences) and strolled the show floor. Best of all, I went to one of the hands-on Open Labs and took my time upgrading myself on a couple of obscure Java skills; here’s a picture:
No Microsoft here.
The conference program is up, down, and sideways; no business conference in the world avoids occasionally veering into boring-product-pitch territory, but they do a pretty good job here. What I like most is that there’s no flinching away from the hot topics. Everyone flaming away about Open Source? Let’s invite O’Reilly, Lessig, and Rod Smith, the IBM provocateur, and do a debate. Angst about SWT vs. Swing? Put ’em all on stage and let ’em work it out. It’s all about intensity, intensity, intensity.
And on another subject entirely, I snuck off for an hour and visited Technorati: here are Ian, Sunshine, and Dave, all looking happy.
