[lpi-discuss] [Fwd: IDLELO2 Exhibition of Open Source Technology 23rd-25th February 2006, Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi Kenya]

[Evan Leibovitch]

Ross E. Brunson wrote:

> I received this notice about a Kenyan Free and Open Source conference,

It's legit, and it's more of an Africa-wide conference than just Kenyan. 
Idlelo1 was held in Cape Town January 2004; Stallman and I were the 
keynotes. (We actually got along, even though I made it clear we would 
not change our name to G/LPI). LPI did an exam lab there, in fact that's 
when I trained our first African proctors from  the Shuttleworth Foundation.

IIRC, the original plan back then was to have Idlelo2 early 2006 in 
Addis Ababa, so I guess that location fell through but the timing is 
close enough. Alan, being that this is in Nairobi, Bill Kagai (a 
well-known regional FOSS advocate) probably has a lot to do with the 
conference's organization.

Idlelo1 was well attended by advocacy groups from almost every country 
in east Africa (ie, where English is the main international language). 
There were a few influential NGOs, but not much from industry or government.

One the the big agenda topics will be how to advise participants' 
governments on dealing with Microsoft's aggressive (and generous) 
African strategy.

As for the format of the documents, don't read too much into that. The 
conference is probably highly dependent on funding organizations for 
chunks of its infrastructure, and it's not uncommon that NGOs who might 
fund open source advocacy might not yet be using it themselves. :-P .

- Evan