As mentioned by Ted Leung, this weekend the OSCON folks have organized the Free/Libre Open Source Software Project Summit. A big “thank you” goes to Allison Randal for all of the work to set this up.
The first day was focused on intros, overviews of organization, governance and funding. It was very interesting to see how many different ways the problems of creating a community and a foundation have been dealt with. Every single foundation is subtly different, and every single one is marked by the history and distinct personality of its community. Perhaps not surprising, but quite striking when you see it all in the same room at the same time.
One of the projects I found particularly interesting was the work done the OSL/OSU and the general buzz around open source in the Portland area. There is a lot of focus from industry, academia and local government to create open source companies and projects in the Portland area. I am going to see what I can do to help create some similar efforts in the Ottawa area when I am not traveling 
