But the term "Open" can mean a lot of things, and the differences between one "open" and another can be significant. This talk will examine the various aspects and uses of the term "open" as it relates to the current evolving mobile software space.

Where does open source code make sense? Is simply being open source sufficient? Does openness necessarily mean fragmentation, and if so, what's the best way to forestall that? There are many platforms based on open source code to greater or lesser degrees, many "open development platforms" and a number of initiatives--LiMo, LiPS, GNOME Mobile, the Open Handset Alliance, and others--dedicated to putting open source software, in various forms and to various degrees, on mobile devices.

What are the differences between them? Are they competitive or cooperative?

This discussion will describe the landscape, identify the players and contrast the approaches being taken, comparing their strengths and weaknesses and describing the opportunities and challenges in the mobile space for the open source community.

Speaker Bio:
David "Lefty" Schlesinger is Director of Open Source Technologies at ACCESS Co., Ltd., working principally on open source strategy and community relations, and representing ACCESS in a number of industry and community initiatives. Lefty is responsible for open source licensing compliance practices within ACCESS, and is the author of ACCESS' internal "open source best practices" curriculum. He also specializes in intellectual property issues, including licensing and patent strategy as well as acting as the administrator for ACCESS' main open source release, the "Hiker Project" (www.hikerproject.org), a suite of application service components for the development of seamlessly interoperating mobile applications. Lefty's paper on the Hiker Project was published in this year's "Proceedings of the Ottawa Linux Symposium".

Lefty is a key participant in a number of industry initiatives and consortiums: he is vice-chair of the Architectural Working Group of the Linux Phone Standards Forum, Chair of the Linux Foundation's Mobile Linux Working Group, and a member of the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board and the GNOME Mobile Initiative. He has also participated in the Linux Desktop Architects' meeting for the past two years, and leads the mobile computing interest group there.

Lefty's background is in system software programming and networking: before taking on his current position, he was director of the Core Technologies department, where he managed the engineering team responsible for delivery of the kernel, drivers and low-level middleware for the ACCESS Linux Platform. Prior to joining Palm in 2001, Lefty worked for ten years at Apple Computer, where he managed the Mac OS 9 Networking group and was instrumental in the development of technologies such as Open Transport and Bonjour (Apple's standards-based zero-configuration networking technology).

Lefty is well-known in the open source community and is a frequent presenter and panelist at open source-related conferences, and has spoken this year at the Finnish Centre for Open Source Software's Verso Business Series, FOSTEL (the Free and Open Source Telephony Conference), the Ottawa Linux Symposium, the GNOME Users' and Developers' European Conference and a variety of other prestigious open source venues. He was the keynote speaker at this year's Northwest Technical Conference for Undergraduates at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Lefty was educated at Bard College and New York University, where he majored in Mathematics with a specialization in Computational Math. His hobbies include photography and digital artwork; he speaks both French and Japanese.