Alfresco European Community Conference, day 2 (updated)

(Yes, you guessed it, I’ve been tinkering with he Pompeu Fabra’s wifi network for half an hour and now we’re about to begin the sessions, so this looks like being brief).

Yesterday was supposed to be a rather closed day for partners and developers, which I attended by kind invitation. A rather interesting event, in many senses. To name a few:

• The people, of course. Some interesting developers, with either interesting stories, or connections, or business possibilities.
• The story. I already know Alfresco, but not at the deep-developer level. Some of the things getting done with it (integrations, mostly) are worth seeing, especially when explained by the authors. And the upcoming Alfresco 3.0 Community edition, with its huge emphasis on interface («presentation layer») and configurability («customization») while keeping the fundamentals (document model, backend) in place… was interesing.
• The open source. As an industry-conference habitual, it’s quite interesting to see how the Alfresco people interact with their developers and partner ecosystem. Not just integrating the most notable coding aditions into the main product (something, say, FileNet would have to pay for, or deal with very differently as a paid add-on), but actually drafting developers to help with the upcoming redesign. Doing it live, too, in the room.

That said, yesterday’s venue wasn’t right (lots of noise). I really can’t find any other thing to complain of :-). Today’s sessions, open to all, are more standard-looking. John Powell is doing the intro, and I have to save batteries, so next comment may come tomorrow (seeing as the wifi network and I get along :-)).

Update: well, three hours into it, it looks like I’ll be able to have a short talk with Mr Powell later on, sort of an interview. Will come handy for the piece I’m writing on Alfresco 3.0’s declared roadmap and intentions. If you have any question suggestions, do comment them here, fast :-). I’ll be doing it old-style, handbook and all: didn’t plan for it.