[wos-announce] WOS4 will rock

[Volker Grassmuck]

== please redistribute  ==

Wizards of OS 4
Information Freedom Rules
International Conference
14-16 September 2006
in Columbia Hall Berlin
http://wizards-of-os.org/

Not even 60 days to go before the Wizards of OS 4. This time it will 
take place in Columbia Hall [1], one of Berlin‘s greatest Rock 'n' 
Roll venues, so WOS4 is bound to rock. In fact, netlabels [2] and how 
they manage to make a buck with free bits is going to be one of 
WOS4's featured topics. Some of the most knowledgeable people in the 
field including book authors Janko Roettgers and Mo Sauer, and 
Magnatune's John Buckman will be discussing this fascinating new 
phenomenon. It will give us ample opportunity to rock your minds and 
bodies, not the least at the free music netlabel parties.

That's free as in speech, not as in beer. But even that old wisdom 
has become more complex since you will be able to *buy* free beer [3] 
as well. Now don't get me wrong, WOS is not turning into a beer 
conference, even though beer-to-beer networking will be as important 
as ever. WOS will stay firmly rooted in the universe of bits where 
Information Freedom Rules. But which freedom, and which rules? 
Freedom is essential. Money matters. It brings forth laws and 
licenses, social and cultural networks implemented in technology and 
in business models. On the opening key-note panel of WOS4, Cooking 
Pot Markets (Rishab Ghosh) will meet the Network Economy (Hal Varian) 
and the Wealth of Networks (Yochai Benkler). With all those rules 
framing freedom there will also be no shortage of unruly behaviour, 
more of which in the next announcement.

WOS4 will be three days packed with panels, workshops and parties [4] 
-- five days, in fact, if you include the workshops at Tesla, c-base, 
New Thinking and Humboldt University before and after the conference 
proper [5]. And there will be even more specials and projects like 
Wikipedia, Freifunk and Debian presenting themselves throughout the 
conference. 

A novelty at WOS4 is the "Show des Freien Wissens" [6]. The German-
language programme is directed at a mostly young audience of those 
curious about where all this free culture is coming from and what 
they can do for you. So if your kid brother, your neighbour or your 
mother keeps bugging you about these things, send them here. TV 
anchor Helge Haas will lead them through an entertaining and 
enlightening afternoon, addressing what they always wanted to know 
about free knowledge but never dared to ask.

Finally we are happy to announce that the video and audio 
documentation of WOS3 is now completely online [7]. You can revisit 
the 2004 highlights like the launch of the German Creative Commons 
licenses or the deep geek debate on the Unix paradigm and beyond. 
Maybe you want to download them to your mobile player for easy 
listening on the beach. In any case it's a nice opportunity to get in 
the mood for WOS4.

Don‘t miss it. Register now [8].

for the WOS team
yours Volker Grassmuck


[1] http://www.columbiahalle.de/
[2] http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2314
[3] http://www.freebeer.org/
[4] http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2159
[5] http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2800
[6] http://wizards-of-os.org/show
[7] http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=551&L=3
[8] http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2170&L=3