The history of FOSS can be traced back to academic origins: distributing source code under a permissive license was the de facto rule in academia in the 70's. Since then, FOSS became a wide spread paradigm throughout the software industry, and its alignment with academic goals tended to be forgotten.

The fOSSa (Free/Open Source Software Academia) Conference is mainly focused on academia and research centres needs but it's open to industry as well, since in many cases academia needs industrials and vice versa. The conference reviews Open Source fundamentals (Business models, licenses, collaboration, communities, promotion, exploitation, sustainability, european projects) and presents innovating Open Source projects as well as communities experiences.

Confirmed speakers include Clement Escoffier (Apache Community), Ralph Mueller (Director of Eclipse Foundation Europe), HP Fossology, INRIA (Luc Grateau and Jean Bernard Stefani), Arnaud Laprévote (Director R&D Mandriva), Roberto Di Cosmo, and many more.

The fOSSa Conference (where Open Source meets Academia) is co-organised by INRIA and OW2 Europe Local Chapter and takes place in the World Trade Center building in Grenoble, France (Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Grenoble) on 17th and 18th November 2009. Registration is free. Details about the Conference is available http://www.ow2.org/fossaconference