July 16 – 17, 1999
House of World Cultures, Berlin
The rise of free software — notably GNU/Linux — is the most
astonishing recent development in the computer world. The
consequences can hardly be forseen. Is the Linux boom ringing in
the sell-out of free software? Or are we now witnessing the
challenging of information capitalism which is based on
“intellectual property”? Is a truly new economy taking shape or is
open source simply the software business model of the flexible
service society?
Whether free software is only about the freedom of programming
code, or — as GNU founder Richard M. Stallman puts it — also
about the question what kind of society we want to live in, is the
subject of the conference “Wizards of OS” that will take place on
July 16 and 17, 1999 in the House of Worlds Cultures in Berlin.
Wizards of OS #1 is the first event in Germany to focus on the
culture, philosophy, politics and economics of free software. The
overriding theme is: Free software between a social movement and
the market economy. Two worlds meet. In the encounter of
cooperative and corporate cultures, there is more at stake than the
question of who is developing the better software.
The Wizards of OS offer presentations and public discussions on
the following subjects:
- Free Software Licenses versus copyright, patent and trademark
law; what sort of license models are available and what are there
advantages and disadvantages? - Open source cryptography versus “security through obscurity”:
which model is safer? - Free software and the fair exchange of knowledge between richer
and poorer nations. - Free software in education.
- What is the strength of open standards setting like on the
Internet, where are its limits? - How can the mechanisms of free software be applied to other
forms of knowledge, to text, images, music and multimedia art? - What kind of parallels to the privatization of public knowledge
can be found in the other digital revolution, in genetics? Seeds
have also been exchanged and further developed by farmers since the
beginning of agriculture, but today, chemical and pharmaceutical
companies such as Monsanto — which likes to refer to itself as the
“Microsoft of biotechnology” — claim property rights on the source
of life.
Furthermore, prominent free software projects will be introduced by
their developers: the free implementation of the X-Windows System
XFree86, the user interface KDE, the Web server Apache, the script
language Perl, and the other free Unix BSD.
This will be followed by presentations of companies that do
business with free software: the Linux distributor SuSE,
medium-sized Linux support firms such as Lunetix and Innominate,
the publishing house O’Reilly, the commercial software company
Intershop that offers its eCommerce solutions under Linux, the
daily newspaper “die tageszeitung” that is being produced on a
Linux-based editorial system, the equipment maker for building
materials, process engineering and wood processing technology
Babcock that utilizes Linux in its networks, and Apple and Sun that
have recently begun to allow people to peek into their source
code.
May the Source be with you!
PARTICIPATION FEE
one day DM 30 / two days DM 50
reduced fee: one day DM 15 / two days DM 25
In order to register, please make over the fee to: mikro e.V.,
Berliner Sparkasse, Account No. 720007038, Intn’l Bank Code (BLZ)
100 500 00, purpose “WOS” and send an e-mail with your name and
registration to: info@mikro.org
CONTACTS
program:
Volker Grassmuck <vgrass@rz.hu-berlin.de>
financial organization and execution:
Thorsten Schilling <info@mikro.org>
press contact:
Tilman Baumgaertel <tilman_baumgaertel@csi.com>
ORGANIZED BY
mikro e.V. — Institute for Computer Science, Working Group for
Computer Science in Education & Society of Humboldt University
Berlin — Institute for Aesthetics of Humboldt University Berlin —
Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM), Karlsruhe
in cooperation with:
House of World Cultures Berlin — Telepolis — Individual Network
Berlin — Berliner Linux User Group — Berliner NeXT User Group —
Interface 2000 — V2_Lab, Rotterdam — context m.
mind.media.development, Berlin
SPONSORS
Berliner Senatsverwaltung fuer Wirtschaft und Betriebe —
Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe — Oracle
Deutschland GmbH — O’Reilly Verlag Deutschland – – Intershop
Communications GmbH — Technologiestiftung Berlin/Protime — Midat
Maerkische Informatik & Datentechnik GmbH — Lehmanns
Fachbuchhandlung GmbH — V2_Lab, Rotterdam
Media Partners:
Telepolis — Mediacube GmbH
—
Florian Cramer <paragram@gmx.net>, PGP public key ID
6440BA05
combinatory poetry site: <http://permutations.home.ml.org>