Officials from Google, the Regional Transportation Authority of Chicago, TriMet and other related concerns are joining forces on a Transit Forum to present, debate and plan new potential open source transit projects at the second-annual Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON ’06), set for Oct. 12-13 in Portland, Ore.

Open source software is already having an impact on transit systems around the country, as developers and engineers seek to make systems more user friendly and efficient. Transit Forum attendees will learn how maps, trip planning accessories and scheduling are being enhanced through software that is constantly being evaluated and enhanced by the programming community globally.

“Google is happy to release code and otherwise support the open source developer community through a variety of programs,” Stephanie Hannon, product manager for Google Transit and a scheduled Forum Transit presenter at GOSCON. “Open data formats foster innovation, more choices of partners and lower costs. A product like Google Transit becomes possible through these open standards.”

Larry Augustin will share his wisdom through his talk on "Building Online Open Source Communities". One of the hardest parts of utilizing Open Source is building true community involvement. The benefits of Open Source only accrue when an outside third party community participates. Larry wil describe various ways to help engage a community around your Open Source project. His session is featured on Friday, October 13, at 9:45 a.m.

About the Speaker: Larry Augustin is an angel investor and advisor to early stage technology companies. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Fonality, Hyperic, Medsphere, OSDL, Pentaho, SugarCRM, VA Software (NASDAQ: LNUX), and XenSource. One of the group who coined the term "Open Source", he has written and spoken extensively on Open Source worldwide. Worth Magazine named him to their list of the Top 50 CEOs in 2000. From 2002 to 2004 he was a Venture Partner at Azure Capital Partners. In 1993 he founded VA Linux (now VA Software), where he served as CEO until August 2002 and led the company through an IPO in 1999. Larry can be found online at lmaugustin.com

GOSCON is pleased to announce that, through the courtesy and cooperation of its featured speakers, videos of key presentations from last year’s conference have been made available to the general public.

We are grateful to our speakers for their willingness to share their presentations not only with those who attended the conference, but to the public at large. GOSCON continues to distinguish itself as a non-profit educational conference in keeping with the collaborative spirit of open source, and in the spirit of public service to the audience we support and the public they serve.

The materials include a mixture of video streams and slides of the 2005 presentations. A partial list of videos include:

• Andy Stein, IT Director, City of Newport News, VA – CIO Perspective
• Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL – The Global Outlook for Open Source
• Linda Hamel, The Commonwealth of MA – OS Licenses
• Tom Rabon, Exec VP Red Hat – Opening Keynote
• more...

Presentation slide sets from other national experts such as Terry Bollinger from MITRE Corporation on OSS and security are also available on the 2005 Results section of the conference site.

We are pleased to report a crush of conference registrations this week along with requests to extend the early bird discount a few days. Please register now to reserve your seat at the conference, and don't forget to book your room at the conference hotel; a limited number of rooms at the favorable government rate have been set aside.

Early Bird Discount now closes on Saturday, September 23. If you need assistance with registration such as booking a large group or have special requirements, please contact Donna Williams by email or call OSU Conference Services at 800-678-6311.

The co-author of a bold new plan advocating more use of open-source software by the Department of Defense and related agencies is the latest nationally recognized speaker to join the lineup for this fall’s Government Open Source Conference.

John Scott of RadiantBlue Technologies, a Washington, D.C., firm offering specialized IT development and consulting for defense, national security, law enforcement and intelligence communities, recently co-authored the “Open Technology Development Road Map” for the Office of the Deputy Undersecretary for Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts. Released just weeks ago, Scott’s report has drawn widespread attention, particularly for its discussion of how to introduce open source products into the complex Defense procurement process – a major development for proponents of government use of such software. Because open source programs are typically distributed free of charge and shared widely among developers in the programming community, some organizations have struggled with how to consider them within procurement guidelines that hinge on purchase prices and proprietary rights.

We are very pleased to share that this year's program keynote will include Brian Behlendorf, CollabNet co-founder and Mozilla Foundation Director. Brian's co-founding and contributions to the Apache Web Server project are well-respected in the industry.

We've had lots of requests to open registration early this year. Visit the Registration section for details and access to on-line registration.