 Okay, thank you for attending this meeting. I'm from the Open Technology Assembly, which is a non-profit organization, and our president is also in the room here. So the topic of this talk will be the open-source support program that we will be announcing today. So the mission is, as you can read, to support open-source software and any kind of open-source solution project. It doesn't have to be software-only, it can also be hardware. Before we go in details on what we will do and how we will do it, how we would like you to do it, let's talk a bit about the open-source and the Open Technology Assembly non-profit organization, which we are, where did we came from. We came from the Belgian Unix users group, and it was founded in the last century in 1987. So a very long time ago, as you can see on my gray hair, it's been a long time already in that organization. I think one of the most points that we realized in Belgium at least, is that we started the internet. That was together with the University of Leuven. And then, further on, it went into UNET. It was a profit organization, for commercial organization afterwards. It was a bit sold. And from that we got a lot of money, in fact, by doing that. But Belgium Unix users group did more than internet-only. We also promoted the Unix in the last century. It's like CynOS, Solaris afterwards, HPX, Ulterix, all the Unixes that were around. And they were all different flavors. And we held meetings, conferences, to meet people, to organize a lot of talks about it. And one of the steps that we did afterwards was, in fact, to promote open source software, something was created called Linux. It was in 1991. And we jumped on that wagon very early to organize Linux meetings, to promote it, in fact, and also promoting the open source. You can see it in this diagram. This is a bit the history of the Belgian Unix Unix Group and the Open Technology Assembly. As you can see, found in 1987. And from 1992 to 2003, we did a lot of Linux SIG meetings, special interest group meetings. That was typically on Saturday morning. A couple of hours that we did a lot of talk about topics, which were very brand new, sent mail, all these kind of topics that were very hot in the beginning of the 90s, where we have speaking. It's a very long time ago already, but okay. And another thing was, because, as you know, internet now, we have a very big pipeline to download everything what you like and a few seconds where we are speaking, but back in the beginning of the 90s, that was not the case. The internet was just starting up and I still remember that I used the internet with an X25 modem. Does somebody still know the protocol X25? Okay, still one. Very good. So as you see, internet involved a lot. But at that time, the pipelines were not there but the Linux system on CD-ROMs. It was a big hit, the fact, because it was very loved by the people, and by the members of the Belgian Univiews group and afterwards the Open Technology Assembly. That's passed away in 98. I think that was the last time that we created the CD-ROMs because at that time, the internet got more and more used and also the download was left-needed, the fact. In 96 also, we renamed the Belgian Univiews group to the Open Technology Assembly and because we were more and more going towards the open source and to promote open source projects and stuff like that and also the meetings and the conferences that we did at that time and we thought the Open Technology Assembly is a good name. Well, time will learn. But of course, in the 20th, afterwards like to say, let's begin in the 2000s, 2010, there was less interest in conferences around linings because the internet was... everything was there. You could just download, find everything, so we did not do any conferences anymore. And that was just last year that we decided, yeah, we have still money left from the old times, from the internet effect that we started up. Let's do something with it and fund open source projects. And that is the goal of this talk effect. So now you know the history a bit, where we came from. That's one of the pictures that I just took about the seed realms that we created. I think the best seed realm, there were two seed realms that were very lovely. There's one that contained the museum of the Weblover. That was a kind of context that I did with the guys from the Louvre itself that said, okay, if you can copy it on a CD, it's okay. And we did it. I took a lot of time for it. I wrote a kind of lint program to find all the interlinks that were working on the seed realm. So you could just browse the seed realm through the complete Louvre. That was one of the seed realms effect. It was a fun project. And another one was the Linux 95. Linux 95, by the way. That's big history, but still have the seed realms. So what's next? Because you're now here for the next topic effect. It's the open source support program. Okay. What is the goal? The goal is, as you can read on the left side, is that we would like to sponsor people and projects around open source. And the hardware can be software, can be even conferences or lectures like that. And even pay for hosting. That's also a possibility. If you say we have a project, but I don't have the money to host something, we can provide you with a cost for that. If you want to do some hardware prototyping, that's also a possibility. And what we already did since last year is the sponsored conferences. FOSDOM is not sponsored by us, but tomorrow there is a conference in Ghent, the conference management camp. We are one of the sponsors. And we did last year also some other little conferences around Linux and open source in general effect. So it should be community-based. That's clear. We will not sponsor anything about closed software. It should be open source. If you create something, fine. We would love to sponsor you about it, but it would be even nicer that for example next year you give a lightning talk about it here. Why not? So that we can at least see, okay, somebody did something useful with it and then we are very glad to be part of that. So everything that we gave away now should return to the community. So that's one of the fundamental ideas. Important, we will never pay for people. We will not pay labor hours. We will not pay you for following any training, of course, of education. And commercial programs are out of the question. That's the fundamental ideas. And this is the most important URL for submitting your proposals. We have a special website that will be published right now. It's published, says me. So if you have a proposal, this is the place to be. You can submit it. And this is the process. There are two things that we would like to find. We would like to find members. Members to be a jury, to guide people who submit something, to say, okay, this is okay. This is not okay. You should go in that direction. And then it should be an open community. If you submit something, a proposal, it should be open and in the clear. Why is it accepted? Why is it not accepted? For example, what is missing? And stuff like that. So we need two full people. We need projects, of course. We need also people who act together with us as a jury. That's also interesting, I would say. But the process is the same. You just submit a proposal, an issue at Hitchcock. And somebody from the other members will own the issue. And then it is an open discussion. And well, at the board meetings, probably we will decide how we will do the funding and stuff like that. So we're just starting up. So don't expect that we can give you all the answers today that we are working on it. And one of the things is, I will show you the website. It should be online. Let's refresh it. And here is the website. It was just released by Young for a present. And you can just see here, if you scroll by, what the bit of the history is there, where we came from. You see the ROM's history is there. Well, it's just the initial start of the website. More to follow, of course. But the most important thing is the funding, the OTA. Let's see. Here is the proposal. If you have something, you can submit it over there. And from there we can start. I think, in general, I've discussed everything what's required for this talk. Still have some time left for questions. If there are any questions, please come forward. I will try to answer it. Any questions? In the back is the one. Thanks. Great initiative. On the website it says only for Belgium, not for profit organizations. Also the funding of hosting. I mean, that might limit the scope a bit. Yeah. Initially, we were thinking about sponsoring effect for the Belgian community. But we're still not 100% sure if it's the direction we're going. If there is enough interest or not enough interest, let's say that in Belgium for projects, we can take it outside Belgium, of course. But it is a bit a Belgium organization. That's true. And we would like to see a lot of Belgian projects. But everything is open for discussion, of course. Here you can submit it. Any other questions? No? I would say if you have something, you can always ask the questions towards us as an issue or send a mail afterwards. OK. I still have time left. Still have one question probably. I think it's a very nice initiative. I just was wondering, I couldn't get all the lists. Are you planning on sponsoring educational events or initiatives like the, how is it called, the mentally code initiative or the 100 hours of code or something like that? I think it's sponsored by the European Union. Or some things of this for young people. Well, what we said in the previous slide was that we would not sponsor education as such for your personal reasons. We can support educational programs if it's for a group. Let's say, like a kind of talk, something like that. But not if you say I want to follow in the Java course, for example. No, that's not something that you have to come for us. But you say I want to like to give a training in a conference. Yes, that's a possibility. OK. I hope that's a bit clear. Any other questions? We still have one minute left. So it is your chance, if not. And we thank you for your attention. Thank you very much.