The OpenSQL Camp 2009 web site is now ready for business, I've updated various pages and added some more information about the call for papers. I've also set up a Twitter account (no way without one nowadays, right?), which might also play an important role in the voting/rating of talks later on (Giuseppe came up with an interesting proposal for that).

So we're now seeking your input! Let me quote from the web pages directly:

OpenSQL Camp is a free conference of, by, and for the open-source database community of users and developers. The first OpenSQLCamp 2008 took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, …

As you may have heard, we're switching to a new release model with the upcoming MySQL 5.4 release.

If you are curious to learn more about what will change in the way in which future versions MySQL will be developed and released, make sure to attend our next MySQL University session about The New MySQL Release Model on Thursday, 11th of June, 14:00 UTC. Tomas Ulin, our director of MySQL server development will go through the planned changes and would also like to get your input and feedback on these changes.

We're using …

I will join the happy campers on Saturday, June 20, in Hamburg, and finish off the tour in Kiel the next day.
The event is open. However, for …

Today I received a confirmation that I will be giving a talk about "Working for a virtual company" in the main conference track of the Free and Open Source Conference (FrOSCon) in St. Augustin, Germany (August 22nd+23rd). Yay! I've been giving talks at every FrOSCon since its inception in 2006, so I am happy that I will be able to continue this tradition. FrOSCon is really a gem among the various Linux and Open Source Conferences in Germany — it takes place at a nice venue, the weather is usually warm and sunny and the conference organization is just great. And they of course always have a good lineup of speakers and OSS projects! As for the last years we (Sun/MySQL) will support the event by sponsoring and we will likely have a booth there as well. My colleague Joerg Moellenkamp also …

This Thursday (June 11th, 14:00 UTC), Tomas Ulin will give a MySQL University session on The New MySQL Release Model. Tomas is the MySQL Server Director, and will explain the new MySQL release model which has just recently been announced.

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a browser with a working Flash plugin. You may register for a Dimdim account, but you don't have to. (Dimdim is the conferencing system we're using for MySQL University sessions. It provides integrated voice streaming, chat, whiteboard, session recording, and more.) All MySQL University sessions are recorded, that is, slides and voice can be viewed as a Flash movie (.flv). …

The PHP BBQ Tour starts in exactly one week. The first barbecue will be held in Munich on Monday, 15.06, 19:00 CEST. The tour is an offering and a suggestion to the user group to come together for a barbecue instead of meeting in conference rooms in the middle of the summer, when the days are long. Everybody is invited to join the tour and to visit the PHP user group in his neighbor town. Tour dates: Munich (Monday, 15.06), Frankfurt (Tuesday, 16.06), Karlsruhe (Wednesday, 17.06), Berlin (Thursday, 18.06), Dortmund (Friday, 19.06), Hamburg (Saturday, 20.06) and Kiel (Sunday, 21.06).

Be a pioneer, sail together with the crew of Mayflower (thinkPHP) and the PHP locals into the Hirschgarten park for the first barbecue on the tour. If you consider to come, please add your name to the Wiki page at …

Infoworld has an article "The fight over open source 'leeches', about the failure of enterprises to contribute the changes they make to open source software back upstream to the project. "When it comes to open source communities, individuals are much better citizens than institutions. The enlightened self-interest that causes individuals to send back bug fixes, contribute ideas for new features, and write documentation is much harder to find in institutions," Dan Woods, CTO of Evolved Media, wrote in Forbes earlier this year. I have a very old article in my german language blog about Open Source Software and companies, and the infoworld article triggered me now to translate it:

Many companies do use open source, and that is a good thing. Most of …