Free beer, pizza and Linux at Investec on 20th Feb
Pizza and coding go together like pap en sous, and served with a side order of booze only makes the partnership sweeter. Which is why one of the highlights of the Joburg developers calendar is the quarterly Free Beer Sessions organised by programming powerhouse Obsidian.
Partly this is because the beer and the pizza, like the software discussed at such sessions, is free. Also because there’s always a panel of interesting speakers who’ve got unique insights and experience in the world of Free and Open Source Software to chat to and learn from.
You don’t have to be a developer to come along, of course, but a more than passing interesting in things like GNU/Linux and so on is probably recommended unless you want to fall asleep in your pizza.
Speakers this time round include Graeme Lockley, who’ll offer a bit of insight into how Investec uses open source software in its massive computing requirements, and Len Weincier from Cloud Africa – a relative newcomer to the South African hosting arena which is winning plaudits for its internal technology. More speakers will be confirmed closer to the event, we’re told.
Subjects that are likely to come up (and if they don’t, we’ll raise them) will be the planned reform of IP rights in South Africa, and how this might affect software developers who don’t use GPL licenses or similar.