Jeff Waugh
bio/photo (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract/Inerview: No info
Kathy Sierra
bio/photo (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract/Inerview: No info
Norbert Bilbeny
bio/photo (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreAbst
Inerview: No info
Federico Mena Quintero
bio/photo (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreAbst
Inerview: No info
Simon Phipps
bio/photo (edited): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreAbst
Interview:
1. Provide a bit of background about yourself.
I've been a systems geek for as long as I can remember - at school it was electronics construction that became assembler programming (6800), at university it was electronic engineering that became operating systems design, and at work it has been communications, networking and systems software. Not that I get to do much programming these days, sadly. I'm proudest of introducing Java to IBM and of getting blogs.sun.com off the ground - both of which I did with teams of others, of course.
2. What are your role, daily tasks, and motivations?
I'm responsible for devising and implementing the open source strategy that's gradually transforming Sun Microsystems. I believe businesses have the choice of whether they do good or bad things in the pursuit of profit, and I want Sun to choose good. That includes winning in ways that don't make others lose, innovating in ways that grow the market and not just the company, and participating in communities for mutual success.
3. Why do you think you were invited to GUADEC?
I've recently joined the Advisory Board and I think folk are fascinated to know whether Sun finally "gets it" about open source. The answer is "yes" by the way 
4. What do you think are the main challenges of software today?
I'll be talking about this at the conference, but as the world switches to social production businesses that rely on controlling the right-to-use, their know-how will increasingly come under pressure, both social and financial. Software businesses are no exception. In the process of change many will try to subvert and use the F/OSS methods and we need to be vigilant.
5. Any predictions for the coming year?
The Java platform will go open source.
6. Care to give us a sneak preview of your GUADEC keynote?
I'll be exploring the social drivers of F/OSS and explaining the "thinking tools" I use at Sun to help our business and technical staffs transition to the new world that awaits them.
7. What difference do you think you've personally made over the last couple of months, both for Sun and the wider OS community?
It's early days - the change I hope to catalyse will take several years. But since I started my job, Sun has been much more recognised as an open source leader, has taken steps to reduce license proliferation including retiring the SISSL license, has used the GPL to open source the UltraSPARC T1, has relicensed Java SE to be able to ship with GNU/Linux, has donated T1000 servers to all sorts of projects (including GNOME) and has started on the path to an open source Java platform. All of those affect the wider F/OSS community, but I'm most pleased with the invisible work of ombudsman@sun.com, which has been solving real problems for real people in the F/OSS community quietly and in the background. All of those things are the work of many people, not just me - my role has been to symbolise the change of the attitude Sun has towards the F/OSS communities.
Jim Gettys
bio/photo (edited): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreAbst
Interview:
1. Provide a bit of background about yourself.
My bio has a sketch of my professional life. I'm also happily married, with an 8 year old son and an 11 year old daughter. I used to play with big telescopes, enjoy hiking, and occasionally scuba dive when I get a chance.
2. What are your role, daily tasks, and motivations?
Oh, my.... My role is to figure out what we'll need and sort through the possible software solutions. So my daily task range from community relations and formation, worrying about whether device drivers will be available when we need them, what software we'll need for distributing software and content, whether power management will work, and encouraging the community to focus in neglected directions.
3. Why do you think you were invited to GUADEC?
You tell me ;-). Just kidding... People are very interested in the OLPC project, as we will be using software from the community as its base. It is one way we can repay you for all of your tremendous work.
4. What do you think are the main challenges of software today?
There is a major confusion that using memory is a good trade-off to make; usually, it is the other way around. We have all become very sloppy and much of our software is hugely larger than needed, with the result of poor and/or unpredictable performance. On modern systems, it is often better to recompute a result than to save it.
5. Any predictions for the coming year?
I expect continuing progress in the free desktop; I think the rate of use will continue to increase. We hope to ship between 5-10 million machines into many countries; as large as this number is, the potential demand of children is at least 20 times higher. To provide perspective: there were 47 million laptops manufactured last year,
6. Care to give us a sneak preview of your GUADEC keynote?
You can get a taste of a piece of it by looking at my talk at FISL this year; but I intend to cover issues that are specific to Gnome, and come at these needs from a very different direction.
José Ángel Díaz
bio/photo (edited): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreAbst
Interview:
1. Provide a bit of background about yourself.
I'm a computer lover and a fanatic of the GNOME environment. I started to work with the computers since 5 years old, when my father give to me an beautiful MSX 8 bits. After that I started my studies in the Merida's University of Informatic. In 1997, I founded an little ISP in my town, Almendralejo, based on the Debian platform. In 1999, I started to work in AUPEX (Popular Universities of Extremadura Asociation) for the local government, Junta of Extremadura. I started to work in the Digital Literacy Plan and in 2002 I got involved in the development of the gnu/LinEx Distribution, a Debian derivative distribution. In 2004, I helped create the first GUADEC-ES in Extremadura, and there we founded the GNOME-Hispano Asociation. Since this time I have been the President of GNOME-Hispano Asociation.
2. What are your role, daily tasks, and motivations?
I am Chief Manager of the Digital Literacy Plan since 2000, and I'm working in the gnu/LinEx team. I hope to get all the people in my region to work in GNOME under gnu/LinEx. And from the asociation I hope to get all the spanish comunity to join in the hard work to benefit GNOME.
3. Why do you think you were invited to GUADEC?
I think the project gnu/LinEx in Extremadura was a new point of view for the Free Software Comunity. A government of one region decided to bet for free software. Extremadura has 68,000 computers deployed over the Region's educational centres and the Intranet nodes, 440 computers in the Digital Literacy Centers, Computers in all the Health Systems, and all of these with free software, with gnu/LinEx and with the GNOME Desktop. I think we have a big experience with the end user in the use of GNOME. In the Free Software part of Digital Literacy, we have some new concepts betwen the user and the GNOME evironment
4. What do you think are the main challenges of software today?
The software environment is very hard and unpredictible, but today all the efforts in the free software comunities are in the end user desktop, and in the new GL Desktops. We are working in the sign of e-democracy with free software tools, promoting the free vote and the use of free software in the town halls, making the union citizen-city halls closer.
5. Any predictions for the coming year?
My predictions, it sounds like a Nostradamus, jejej. Well, I think we must work on the effort to integrate all of society in the Society of the Information. What about these? Well, we must break the big barrier in the desktop for the Accesibility Porjects, we must look at the part of a novel user in the desktops making the evironments easier, and I think we must break the line of the informatics, the freakies of informatics and the end users that want to use Free Software and GNOME.
6. Care to give us a sneak preview of your GUADEC keynote?
I'm going to speak about the new gnu/LinEx 2006 version based on the Debian Project and GNOME, and talk about what we need from the GNOME Comunity to get all of our users happier!!
Antonio Jose Saenz Albanes
bio/photo (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreSpeakersBio
Talk abstract (draft): http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC2006/PrintedContent/CoreAbst
Interview:
1. Provide a bit of background about yourself.
I have been involved in Free/Libre Open Source Software Projects since 1995 inside my organization. From my position of CTO I have directed strategies towards aligment of business and political (Andalusian regional government) objectives on F/LOSS. I also helped the GNOME community in Seville Guadec and Dublin Guadec. Today my main objectives are Educational Strategies involving F/LOSS and F/LOSS business models.
2. What are your role, daily tasks, and motivations?
I am CTO of Isotrol, S.A. My daily tasks are:
- Strategic Technology Management
- Free Software Strategic Planning
- Enterprise Development Reengineering and Strategic Planning
My motivations:
- Free Knowledge
- Collaborative environments
- Efficiency
3. Why do you think you were invited to GUADEC?
A great opportunity to share knowlegde about Large Scale Linux/Gnome Deployments focussed on Educational Envioronments
4. What do you think are the main challenges of software today?
I think we need commitments on
- Quality
- True and proved components to be use as building blocks
5. Any predictions for the coming year?
The year of Open Standard Format Documents. Beginning from Governments and spreading among contractor firms.
6. Care to give us a sneak preview of your GUADEC keynote?
Large Scale Educational Open Source Networks are strategic for the future of F/LOSS, so we need to care that the children and educational community have a pleasant experience. So in the future we could "dominate the world". But is not enough to have good intentions; we need planning, methodology, and professional work. We want to share our experience and demand help from Gnome and F/LOSS community.
No info
Kathy Sierra (session asbstract/inerview)
Norbert Bilbeny (Catalan speaker) (inerview)
Federico Mena Quintero (inerview)
Jeff Waugh (Talk abstract/Inerview)