My personal and professional life

2005-04-22

WebTech 2005

Today I was at WebTech 2005. I was there mainly to see and listen to Richard Stallman (the philosopher and the founder of GNU Organization ). I can truly say he is an remarkable man. Little careless for his look, but a really free man. His lecture was entitled "Copyright vs. Community in the age of Computer Networks". Although hi spoke for things I was already read or heard it was good to hear it from the men directly and when they are accompanied with his strange sense of humor you get rewarded for being there :-)

The conference at was not very good at all (this was only the first day). Only two other lectures took my attention:

  • Enterprise PHP with SRM by Derick Rethans;
  • How to make money from IT by Bulwork

The other two I have heard was the lecture of Robert Ivanov "PHP PEAR" spoken in poor Bulgarian but with presentation in English and the "lecture" of Teodor Kolev "XSLT in .NET" which was equal to a diploma thesis defend. I have expected more.

The organization was not good enough also. About 20 minutes we were in front of the hall and no one tell us what to do. Suddenly someone said that those who are not VIP can freely enter the hall and take place. Why? I also noticed that significant number of the VIP places were not taken. So why then the whole first 7 rows were reserved? I suppose there was not so much "VIP" persons or they are not serious enough. There were people standing and free places. Why?

My general rating of the conference is 5 from 10.