Here's an overview of the event from my recent blog posting. Please spread the word even further and help make this awesome event a success.

If you are a full time student there are a limited number of discounted spaces still available thanks to a several of our valued sponsors including Catalyst IT, Google, Internet NZ and Strategic Data.

For the rest of you we've put up a special for Geekzone members so can get NZ$50 off the regular ticket price by using the discount code 4232191480

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The Open Source Developers Conference (OSDC) has traditionally been held in Australia and is a non-profit volunteer run event aimed at IT professionals. This years event runs over 3 days from 21-23rd of October in Auckland, and is the first time it has been hosted here in NZ. The team has selected talks that highlight the business value in using Open Source tools and frameworks, without having an operating system centric focus like other similar events.

The focus for this years OSDC is Privacy and Security, and a number of speakers will highlight the benefits of using Open Source technologies in these areas. Highlights include identity management, protecting your data, secure programming and how to use the cloud in a secure manner. I’m particularly intrigued by the “I Know What You Did In The Koru Club Last Summer…” talk on Tuesday the 22nd.

Architects and developers using Open Source technologies as part of any Web 2.0 style environment will get a log of value from the Database, PHP, Rails, PaaS and AWS sessions. Fans of DevOps are also well served with talks on release management, continuous integration, automated builds and the benefits of targeting a PaaS.

We’ve got a lot of local companies talking about the befits their business has derived from building on Open Source including Catalyst IT, Propellerhead, Intergen and Theta. Open Source industry leaders are well represented through Red Hat, SuSE, Percona, WSO2 and Mozilla.

This all creates a mix of ANZ and international speakers, with social events on Monday and Wednesday which provide a great opportunity to network and make contacts. OSDC is a very grass roots event most speakers tend to spend the entire event at the venue and attend a variety of talks themselves. Tuesday evening is reserved for our break out sessions where attendee’s can organise ad-hoc discussions or development sessions.

Lastly we’ve got some great Keynotes, including Sam Minnée from local success story Silverstripe, and Vikram Kumar from Mega talking about their experiences on using Open Source in a secure manner. Tuesday has a panel discussion on Security and Privacy which is very timely given some of the recent law changes here in NZ.

Even if you only use Open Source as a small part of your business you should be able to get a lot of value out of this technical event. For further details see the conference website http://osdc.org.nz, and for ticket see http://osdc.org.nz/tickets/.