It was ready for a while already, but now it's part of the official FOSDEM schedule as well: I am very pleased to announce the presentations and speakers of the MySQL & Friends Developer Room, which will take place this coming Saturday (5th of February) in Brussels, Belgium.

This year, our DevRoom will be located in room H.2213 (in the H Building), which has a capacity of up to 100 people and will be available to us from 13:00-19:00 o'clock. We have 12 sessions lined up, each will last 25 minutes (incl. Q&A). Without further ado, here's our schedule:

Just a quick reminder: the Oracle user groups of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia are organizing a joint conference, the Harmony. It will take place on May 19th-20th in Helsinki, Finland. I've met the organizers at the IOUC summit that took place at the Oracle HQ this week and they would love to have some more MySQL content. So if you have an idea for a talk about a MySQL-related topic, please submit it! The call for papers closes on February, 1st!

Greetings from the University of Latvia in Riga, where the local activities related to Software Freedom Day 2008 are in full swing! We've just finished the introductionary talk "Software freedom in Latvia"  by Evijs Taube (LATA) and Leo Trukš

Greetings from the University of Latvia in Riga, where the local activities related to Software Freedom Day 2008 are in full swing! We've just finished the introductionary talk "Software freedom in Latvia"  by Evijs Taube (LATA) and Leo Trukš

About 250 MySQL/Sun engineers are meeting in Riga, Latvia, for the annual internal MySQL Developers Meeting. 250 sounds like a large number. And a group picture is quite impressive.

Today is Software Freedom Day, which is organized at the local university, and includes talks by Mark Callaghan (Google), Mårten Mickos (MySQL), Domas Mituzas (Wikimedia Foundation).

The full program also mentions free beer, which is an irresistible combination!

Tomorrow (Saturday, September 20 2008) is Software Freedom Day, and we’re taking Latvia by storm! We’re hosting it at the University of Latvia, and we have an awesome schedule.

Why awesome? Because we have exciting speakers like you wouldn’t believe.

• Mårten Mickos, former CEO MySQL AB, current SVP Database Group, Sun Microsystems
• Kaj Arno, VP Community, Database Group, Sun Microsystems
• Mark Callaghan, Google Inc - he’ll be talking about running a database when your business depends on it - very cool stuff
• Domas Mituzas, Wikimedia Foundation and …

Are you a user of Microsoft Windows? Are you a user of a non-licensed copy of Microsoft Windows? Does it happen to be Windows XP Professional? Have you seen “blackouts“?

Apparently, from about the end of last month (August 27 2008, to be precise), users of pirated copies of Microsoft Windows XP Professional that also happen to be connected to the Internet will see their screens go black, and have no icons visible.

The esteemed folk at Microsoft Malaysia seem to think that there are 8.6 million users of Windows XP Professional in Malaysia (seems like a huge number, considering the population), and about three million will suffer from these “blackouts”. Only 35% of Windows XP Professional users are pirates?

Its a most interesting tactic. Annoy the user by allowing them to change their …

The best performer at the workshop will be awarded a very appropriate prize. A copy of …

The Software Freedom Day 2008 is approaching. The event will take place wherever you want. If you are interested, just register a team, gather a few friends, and start organizing that in your street, at a local pub, in your university, or wherever you see fit.

MySQL people are very conscious about open source, and we decided to participate to the event somehow. For starters, Sun is a sponsor, and that is a good sign that we care. But we need also to make our presence known. So the initial plan was that every Sun community would encourage its members to create a local Software Freedom Day team and participate.

However, on September 20, the designated day, 250 Sun/MySQL engineers will be in Riga, Latvia, in the middle of our annual developers meeting.

Not a …