KEYNOTE: How to Lie with Open Source

Following in the fine tradition of such books as “How to Lie with Statistics”, “How to Lie with Charts”, and “How to Lie with Maps”, this provocative talk explores our most cherished myths, misunderstandings, and outright lies about Open Source software. Without a firm grasp of the truth, it is difficult to recognize FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) as “Facts Under Duress”. And if you don't know the truth, how can you lie about it?

The economics of free software are surprisingly nuanced. (“How can they stay in business when they give it away for free?“) The politics of free software can be positively Machiavellian in their intent and Orwellian in their vocabulary. (“When is free software not Free?“) The legality of free software – whether it's the myriad of licenses or the Byzantine doctrine of patents – forces technologists to moonlight as amateur lawyers.

Whether you favor open standards or fierce protection of intellectual property, come gather ammunition to bolster your arguments. This “Open Source” stuff isn't going away anytime soon, so you'd better be prepared to lie about it intelligently…

About Scott Davis

Scott Davis is the founder of ThirstyHead.com, a training company that specializes in Groovy and Grails training.

Scott published one of the first public websites implemented in Grails in 2006 and has been actively working with the technology ever since. Author of the book Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java and two ongoing IBM developerWorks article series (Mastering Grails and in 2009, Practically Groovy), Scott writes extensively about how Groovy and Grails are the future of Java development.

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