Speaker: Petr Baudiš (Charles University, Prague)
We shall begin by reviewing the past and the present of open source, free software and the surrounding culture. We will explain how open source projects are usually run, what it takes to contribute and how _you_ can get started with a little effort and slightly more patience. We will also take a peek into the future, as open source continues to spread to the physical world.
Petr Baudis got involved with open source software as a teenager, when he was dissatisfied by the quality of the computer opponent in FreeCiv. He has been hacking open source programs for more than ten years now, maintaining the ELinks text web browser, helping Git get off the ground and contributing to many other projects. Currently, he is also a maintainer of a GNU libc stable
branch and the lead developer of the world’s best open-source Computer Go program, pachi. Petr’s chief interest are open source software, system programming and artificial intelligence. He teaches a course on open-source programming at Charles University in Prague, and also co-founded brmlab, the first Czech hackerspace ( see http://brmlab.cz/ ).