Open source in action--Xi'An

Last month, I had the opportunity to visit Xi'an Software Park with Sun Microsystems, Intel and Red flag for "Open Source In Action Day". It was my second time in Xi'an; the event also allowed me to better understand the development of software in this ancient city, which has a history of 13 dynasties. Of course, it's also a good chance to share more about open source technology to local software development companies, technical staff and students.

Open Source In Action Day is an event organized by China Co-Create Open Source Software Alliance, Sun, Intel, Red flag and Huihoo open source community. It's the largest first national open source technology exchange activities in open source world led by the Chinese government in 2008.

With the growing worldwide open source wave, more and more companies are joining the open source community, but in China, we seldom see enterprises and professional developers participate in the development of open source software. Do they still not know open source software or still have doubts about open source software?

With the objective of resolving all those problems, we started the Open Source In Action Day event at 14 Software Park. The purpose is to let more Chinese companies and technical staff understand the open source community, learn and use open source software, and contribute open source software. Not only enterprise can gain more returns on investment through communication with the open source community, but individuals can also improve their technology skills and better career development through participating in open source software development.

Here is a photo we photographed at the event...

You will see that there are more than 100 people who joined the event where there were no empty seats. As a representative of the open source community, I was lucky to be a speaker at the fantastic tour. Because too many people wanted to join in at the start of the meeting, we had to set up another room to hold the listeners.

You will see that open source is so hot here. There was also a moving story about students from Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications. Because their schools in Chang'an county is far from Xi'An Software Park, some students woke up around 5:30 in the morning and went on the road by bus in order to attend the event.

Such active participation in the spirit of open source... I deeply feel that culture of the ancient city on open source software, and the desire to gain knowledge on how to make open source software more powerful at the city which has the second largest number of universities in China. In the next coming months, we will have a local open source community in Xi'an that local developers can have regular communication platform for them to share open source technology and new ideas.

Xi'An OpenSolaris/OpenSource User Group has already taken the first step.

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Peter Cheng

Peter Cheng is a community strategist and open source evangelist, who is based in Beijing, China. In 2003, he initiated the Open Source University program to gather industry experts and help spread open source technology and culture to over 100 universities. In 2007, he organized the Open Source Camp in five Chinese cities, with the aim to enable the open source community to share and exchange ideas and to promote the technology in China. Peter currently runs TargetSource Tech, a company he founded to provide consulting services on enterprise open source software.