Larry Augustin's Weblog:

My Events

You can find me at these upcoming events
2008-09-21 to 2008-09-23 2008 Europe Open Source Think Tank.
The first Europe Open Source Think Tank will be Sep 21 - 23 at the Paris Eiffel Hilton Hotel. This is an event that I wouldn't miss for anything. Contact Olliance Group if you are interested in attending.
2008-09-24 to 2008-09-25 Paris Capitale du Libre.
I will be keynoting at Paris Capitale du Libre Sep 24 - 25 in Paris. This is my first time at this event and I'm looking forward to it.
2008-09-30 to 2008-10-01 Sierra Ventures CIO Forum.
I am speaking at Sierra Ventures Annual CIO Forum in Palo Alto Sep 30 - Oct 1.
2008-10-02 First Annual Collaborative Healthcare Forum.
I am the opening keynote at the First Annual Healthcare Forum October 2 at the W Hotel in New York City sponsorted by Medsphere and Hewlett-Packard.
2008-10-13 to 2008-10-14 Linux Foundation End User Collaboration Summit.
Oct 13 - 14, 2008 I will be at the Linux Foundation End User Collaboration Summit at the Desmond Tutu Center in New York City.
2008-10-29 LSI Open Source Workshop.
Oct 29, 2008 I will be lecturing at the Law Seminars International (LSI) Open Source Software Workshop at the Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston.
2008-11-17 to 2008-11-21 Linux Foundation Japan Symposium.
The week of Nov 17, 2008 I will be in Tokyo Japan for the Linux Foundation Board Meeting and the Japan Symposium. My schedule for Japan fills up quickly so please let me know ASAP if you would be interested in meeting that week.
2008-12-10 Transforming Healthcare through Open Source Innovation.
As part of the 4th Annual World Healthcare Innovation & Technology Congress scheduled for December 8-10 at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington, DC is will be speaking at Leadership Summit on Transforming Healthcare through Open Source Innovation.
2009-01-14 to 2009-01-16 Red Herring Global.
I will be speaking at Red Herring's annual Global conference in January in San Diego featuring their top-100 startups.
2009-01-20 to 2009-01-22 Open Source Meets Business (OSMB).
I have a keynote presentation and will also be moderating a panel discussion at the Heise OSMB event in Nuremberg Germany Jan 20-22, 2009.

(Some of) My Favorite People

Chris DiBona
Chris is a just plain great person and stand-up guy. He's also the Open Source program manager at Google.
Doc Searls
Doc is the senior editor at Linux Journal and one of the four authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, the iconoclastic web site that became the best-selling book.
Matt Asay
Matt is the founder of OSBC, and currently runs business development at Alfresco.
r0ml Lefkowitz
The r0ml is one of the most entertaining and insightful commentators on the state of the IT industry that I know.
Stephen Walli
I first met Stephen when he worked at Microsoft, and I organized a dinner at OSCON between Eric Raymond and a number of the Microsoft Shared Source team. I liked him even then so that should tell you a lot.

My apologies for the poor quality, but here's a shot from my cell phone camera showing Linus receiving the 2008 Computer History Museum Fellow Award. The other 2008 Fellow Awards went to Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) and Jean Bartik (one of the first programmers of the ENIAC).

There for the award ceremony tonight were long-time Linux developers Ted T'so, H. Peter Anvin, and James Bottomley. It was great seeing some of the old crowd. All of us have been involved with Linux for many years and I always enjoy a chance to catch up.

My Companies

I am involved with these companies as an investor and board member.
Appcelerator
Open Source platform that provides everything you need to build rich web, mobile and desktop applications. News
Compiere
Open Source Enteprise Resource Planning (ERP). News
DeviceVM
Embedded virtualization for consumer devices. News
DotNetNuke
Open Source framework for building websites and web applications on Microsoft ASP.NET. News
Fonality
Open Source VoIP PBX based on Asterisk. News
Hyperic
Open Source systems/application management. News
Medsphere
Open Source Electronic Health Record (EHR). News
Pentaho
Open Source Business Intelligence (BI). News
SugarCRM
Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. News

My Other Investments

I am an investor in and/or advisor to these companies.
Dasient
Dasient is an an early-stage company that is solving next-generation security problems for the Internet.
Eloqua
On-line lead generation and marketing automation. News
Funambol
Funambol's vision is to make push email and mobile content/PIM sync easy between the largest number of smart & feature phones, the Internet cloud and popular desktop apps.
ITerating
Wiki-based directory with reviews of Open Source and commercial software. News
MuleSource
Mule is then world's most widely-used Open Source ESB and integration platform. News
Novara Clinical Research
Novara Clinical Research operates dedicated facilities for conducting Phase II to Phase IV patient studies for the pharmaceutical industry. News
Ohloh
Mapping the open source world by collecting objective information on open source projects. News
SpringSource
SpringSource builds Java infrastructure software which eliminates the complexity of enterprise Java. News
VirtualLogix
Real-time virtualization for mobile devices. News
Vyatta
Open Source router and firewall. News
WSO2
Next generation Open Source Web services platform. News
Zend
The PHP company. News

My Exits

These are companies that I was previously involved with as a Board member or investor. (Successful "exits" in venture investing parlance.)
JBoss
JBoss was acquired by Red Hat Software (NYSE: RHT) for $420 million. News
SourceForge/VA Software/VA Linux
The parent company of Slashdot and SourceForge. VA Linux (now SourceForge)(NASDAQ: LNUX) went public in December 1999 with the largest first day gain ever in an IPO. News
XenSource
XenSource was acquired by Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) for $500M. News

My Current Reading List

Robert Jordan: Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, Book 11)
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm still reading Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. When he passed L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth decology I could have cried. Maybe WoT will be made into the worst movie of all time? Still, I've been following the saga of Rand al'Thor for more than a decade now, and I want to see how it ends. Rumor is that the next book, Memory of Light, will in fact conclude the saga. To borrow a phrase, "There should have been only one." (**)
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
My family got me Quicksilver for Christmas. I'm not far into it, but it's clearly a Stephenson book: lots of historical connections, multiple timeline unfolding simultaneously, meticulous historical detail, 100 pages in the plot is still a total mystery, big "thud"factor... Should be a great read.
Chris DiBona: Open Sources 2.0
Anything edited by Chris DiBona is worth spending the time to read.
David Kahn: The Codebreakers : The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet
I'm just getting started with this one, but so far it's a fascinating account of the history of cryptology. It's a massive 1200 pages, so it may be a while before I move on to something else.