Wizards of OS is a Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

-based conference.

Its topics are the cultural and political potentials of free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

, software technology, digital networks and media, and more generally information freedom and open cooperation in the creation and proliferation of knowledge. The conference is interdisciplinary and aims to be a platform of exchange between, chiefly, scientists, engineers, social researchers, scholars from the humanities, artists and activists.

The name is a word play on Wizard of Oz

Wizard (Oz)

The Wizard of Oz, known during his reign as The Great and Powerful Oz, is the epithet of Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, a fictional character in the Land of Oz, created by American author L...

. The acronym OS stands for operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 (not open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

).

WOS3

The first Wizards of OS conference took place in 1999, the third conference in 2004 had the topic "The Future of the Digital Commons" and featured, among others, the launch of the German translation of the Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

 licenses.

Wizards of OS 4 - Information Freedom Rules

The Wizards of OS 4 took place from September 14 to September 16, 2006. Some of the topics were the future of Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

, open music

Open music

Open Music is music that is shareable, available in "source code" form, allows derivative works and is free of cost for non-commercial use. It is the concept of "open source" computer software applied to music...

 and the compensation of artists and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 legislation

Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...

. Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger

Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger is an American philosopher, co-founder of Wikipedia, and the founder of Citizendium....

 announced an initial proposal of his project Citizendium

Citizendium

Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....

.

External links

• http://wizards-of-os.org
• archive of video and audio recordings from the sessions