It’s Open Source Week in Vancouver which means a series of events, conferences, and activities celebrating Open Source technologies are taking place around town.
Open Source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in. The non-profit Open Source corporation maintains standards for the good of the community (developers, software users, corporations and governments).
What this means to me is that platforms such as WordPress, that power millions of blogs and website worldwide, are constantly being developed and improved thanks to the contributions of the Open Source community.
As someone who owns a website development firm that specializes in WordPress development, celebrating and promoting its Open Source roots is key. I have done so through attending and speaking at WordCamps (conferences for WordPress users), liveblogging events (on Miss604.com), offering tutorials, promoting WordPress through blog posts and social networks, and organizing WordCamp Whistler (2009) and WordCamp Vancouver (2010).
As a part of Vancouver Open Source Week, there will be a WordCamp:Developers conference on Thursday May 5th, however this is just one of the many events.
The others include a Joomla Mixer Meetup Tuesday May 3rd, Drupal Mixer Wednesday May 4th, Linus User Group Meeting Thursday May 5th, Show & Tell: Storytelling for a Web Made World hosted by The Museum of Vancouver Friday, May 6th, and an HTML Meetup Friday, May 6th.
The week’s biggest event will be Make Web Not War (MWNW), a Canadian conference for designers and developers that has made its way to Vancouver for the first time. It will have a full day of sessions followed by an evening party, the details of which will be announced shortly.
All of the week’s events will offer networking opportunities and the chance to connect with the web community that drives Vancouver’s growing on and offline reputation for excellence in technology. Follow @WebNotWar on Twitter for updates throughout the week.