FOSS – The Free! Summit – May 11, 2009 – San Mateo, CA

Free Open Source Software developers will have a soapbox in Silicon Valley this week with TechDirt’s sponsorship of the Free! Summit May 11th in San Mateo. According to the website, the conference is already sold out with no more seats available. Mike Masnick CEO of Floor64 and founder of Techdirt will act as the conference MC and moderator while Chris Anderson, editor in chief of WIRED, is the Keynote Speaker. The conference is being produced by SageScape.

“As the digital economy drives down the marginal costs of technology and a generation of young consumers grow accustomed to giveaways, it’s no longer a question of ‘How can you compete with free?’ but a matter of ‘How can you afford not to compete with free?’”

“At the same time, the current economic crisis is making the need to turn free into cash more critical than ever, and some argue that free is doing more harm than good to content creators who rely on ‘traditional’ business models to pay the bills. The recession has proven that it takes no prisoners, and some companies won’t survive unless they can figure out how to monetize free – and quickly.”

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