Italian Industrial Association meets Open Source

Rotonda, Palladio (Vicenza)Confindustria Vicenza, the local chapter of the Italian manufacturers’ association, on the 13 of July hosted an event about open source entitled, “Open Source, a 360-degree view: pros and cons, legal implications and hence who can profit from it“.

The event (videos) was aimed to provide the audience with information about legal, organizational and technical impacts of open source adoption, among speakers a lawyer specialized in intellectual property laws (Luca Giacopuzzi), a researcher of the TEDIS center (Antonio Picerni), Confindustria Vicenza’s ICT manager Franco Battistello and myself.

Matteo Salinas opened the event welcoming attendees and introducing nicely speakers and topics.

Speaking about open source at large, I gave a presentation covering many issues, ranging from the dimension and growth of open source to the production of code and the open source community factor. How to find open source software and eventually how to choose the best open source tools were approached from a pragmatic viewpoint.

Picerni presented findings from a research about the Italian open source offering, sharing interesting numbers and figures.

Giacopuzzi’s speech covered all IP issues related to software production and distribution, bringing on the table real cases and examples.

Talking about desktop migrations I introduced the audience to the topic giving a picture of the whole process.

Franco Battistelli brought an interesting case study about their own migration from Microsoft office to OpenOffice.org. In numbers: 120 PCs, 263 document templates, and 50.000 €  in licensing savings (managed with internal resources)!

Giulia Marigo, ICT Manager at Coges Spa and member of Confidustria Vicenza’s ICT working group, closed the event showing a brand new internal forum aimed at sharing information about open source usage among associated companies.

Kudos to the organizers of the event!