DORS/CLUC 2024: A Week of Open Source in Zagreb
DORS/CLUC 2024 brought the open source community to Zagreb's Algebra University for a multi-day event spanning business networking, conference sessions, and a weekend hackathon. The conference featured 40 presentations, including talks from CYBERTEC's team on PostgreSQL performance and the pitfalls of running databases in Kubernetes.
From Networking to Technical Sessions
The event kicked off with Open4Business, a semi-formal gathering where local organizations in Croatia's open source ecosystem connected. CYBERTEC used the opportunity to discuss data management strategies for modern infrastructure.
The main conference days offered a broad selection of talks, making scheduling a challenge. The chosen sessions covered topics ranging from the history of women in tech and open source networking to unikernels for the cloud and biomedical research transparency. A recurring theme across the technical presentations was PostgreSQL's growing presence, with many roads leading back to the database in one form or another.
Observations and Takeaways
Beyond the technical content, the conference provided useful historical context for modern computing concepts. The origin of "thread" in computer science traces back to Jacquard's loom—the same mechanical weaving device that inspired Charles Babbage's early computing designs and Ada Lovelace's work. Similarly, the term "bug" has roots in an actual moth that shorted a relay in an early computer.
The event also served as a meeting point for both new connections and familiar faces from the PostgreSQL community. The organizers, led by Svebor Prstačić, put together a well-run program that balanced technical depth with community building. CYBERTEC plans to participate again in 2025 for the conference's 30th edition.
