Arthur Francis Tyde III

It was an honor to be a featured presenter at the Intel Free and Open Source Government Forum in conjunction with the 2006 China International Software & Information Service Fair held in Dalian. In attendance were industry notables such as Javier Sola of the Khmer Software Initiative and Danese Cooper of Intel. Spending time with Javier, Danese, and Joya Chatterjee were the highlights of a very well organized event. Danese is an absolute font of information on all things happening in the space. She is a passionate industry advocate and it was interesting to hear her presentations on Intel's Open Source Strategy. Danese is capable of putting solid business logic together that give Intel executives the ammunition they need to support the FOSS agenda and remain true to their business building agendas. As the former CTO of the Free Standards Group I found Javier Solas work on translation issues related to the Khmer language fascinating from both social and linguistic perspectives. Javier is not just translating stuff into Khmer – he is putting together a standards based framework for supporting local language transition which is highly portable and deserves more attention. Javier and his team have made it possible for the Khmer government to plan a complete FOSS transition as part of their ICT master plan. Strangely, his presentation segued into mine rather well which isn't something I would have predicted.

My narcoleptic test (presentation) was called "FOSS Metrics, Migration and Support - Overview, Cost & Industry Statistics, Tools, Services." Pretty hard-core stuff detailing the analysis of an IT environment, the availability of tools, and the issues involved in migrating to FOSS solutions in medium to large enterprise business environments. Cost and statistic models were discussed in painful detail. A copy of the presentation has been uploaded to the Intel FOSS Government Forum Wiki, it's a pretty active forum. The Intel forums have been both successful and valuable across Asia. I base this observation on the number of people who have contacted me about migration issues after the shows are over. My hope is that organizations seeking to make a transition to FOSS do so with reasonable plans and expectations, such that the transition is painless and produces the greatest financial benefit. I remain available as an adviser to organizations considering such migrations. Ultimately, it's about running a leaner and meaner IT environment, doing more with less, and contributing to the Technology Sovereignty,” of your region.

A copy of my presentation can be found here!