I’ve just arrived back home from the eLiberatica conference 2007 in Brasov, Romania. The conference itself was great fun: The organisers were extremely good hosts and the crowd engaged in the presentations and discussions during and after sessions.
Furthermore, Brasov is right in the heart of the Southern Carpathians in Transylvania and around the corner from Dracula’s castle.
Unfortunately we did not get to visit the castle, because everyone was so engaged in Free Software discussions that Friday flew by like nothing. All I saw of the area was the city of Brasov at night, which is a very beautiful old town with lots of places to sit outside and have a beer with friends.
But from discussions with many people I realised that Romanians seem to have a strong tendency to embrace the new and I’ve certainly never seen so many EU flags outside Brussels. It is great that people in the new EU member states are so enthusiastic about the EU. Those of us who had to deal with its problems for so many years sometimes forget what an amazing project the European Union actually is.
Another thing I learned is that there are some very interesting projects in Romania, for instance Yate, which seems to be a very mature and easy to configure telephony engine for Voice over IP based on a very powerful design that I will have to test out.
All in all I’ve decided that I should definitely go back there and spend a few more days to discover this extraordinary country and its people.
