The 10th International Free Software Forum in Porto Alegre, Brasil ended today, and we have been there explaining eyeOS, and why Cloud Computing can be both a really good and a really bad thing. It’s now time to look back and write some lines about how it has been. The only word we can find to describe it is unbelievable. We know that comparisons are never fair, but FISL is totally outside the orbit. More than 7.200 people have assisted to the more than 300 talks this year. And everything has been perfecty organized by volunteers. From the CEO to every talk coordinator, they were volunteers and Free Software activists. Before continue reading this, please take 2 minutes to buy your tickets to Porto Alegre for this dates next year.
The first “thank you!” of this post comes for Marcelo d’Elia Branco, CEO of FISL and the Free Software leader in Brasil. He invited us, and it’s the second time eyeOS is on Brasil this year (first was on January for the Campus Party Brasil) because of him. The second one comes for Priscila and Tobias for supporting us so so much in everything inside FISL and being the best Porto Alegre guides out there. When something worries you in FISL just look for Priscila and be sure she can fix it.
The third thank is a bit special. Is for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president of Brasil. As Free Software activists, we thank him for coming to FISL, that was amazing and it’s not always possible to have the president of a country where a Free Software event is being held getting directly involucrated with it. And he didn’t came alone, but with some ministers and people from his government. But as the eyeOS people, we thank him for being in a private reception where people from Redhat, FSF, Linux International, Java, Openoffice, Debian and we from eyeOS’ were with him and had the oppotunity to meet him to talk about Freedom, Free Software and the different projects visions.
About our speech, we must say that after being talking in different places about eyeOS and Cloud Computing for more than three years now, this was the first time that the theatre had a buffer overflow and was not just totally full, but there was some people outside trying to hear the speech, even being three more great talks on the same time in FISL. That was incredible. Thanks to all of you for coming, and to Enrique Verdes for introducing the eyeOS talk and helping us a lot with portuguese.
Finally, about the videos we’ve being publishing this days, we have seen Stallman explaining us that he does not believes on the “cloud computing” term but the concept is acceptable when you control the server and the software is Free. Marcelo just after Richard told us that he sees eyeOS as the alternative to cloud services, and Maddog left us amazed after explaining that he’s thinking on eyeOS for his new projects. We have also talked to great people such as Juan Tomás, former president of Hispalinux, even not having a video yet.
But there is still one last video, and this is really special, since it’s from someone who’s not directly related in Free Software but he’s in Freedom in Internet. When we hear about him is usually because he’s sued by giant companies from different countris, while he keeps defending Freedom in Internet (some people call this just piracy). He’s Peter Sunde, founder of The Pirate Bay, but what’s more important, one of the nicest enterpeneurs you can find out there. Not because what he did, but because after doing what he has done (Bit torrent means +-80% of the whole Internet traffic and Pirate Bay has +-50% of that, so make your numbers), he considers himself as someone totally normal, doing something totally normal. This is what he told us about eyeOS:
Thanks a lot. Muito obrigado! (and see all you again in FISL 11 if not before).
El FISL 10 fué muy especial y volvió a ser una placer encontrarme contigo Pau!!!!!
Por supuesto que nos vemos en el siguiente FISL!!!!!