The Telco industry is heading towards a very interesting phase. Open source (OS) deployments are looking very promising. On the one hand there is the delivery of more flexible, simpler and agile deployments. On the other hand, the success of the current business is based on high quality solutions based on standards. There is no doubt that the success of the Telco industry will not attain the high current level without standards. ETSI, 3GPP, GSMA, etc. have done a great job.

But it is also clear that the way standards are created is evolving and taking on board the best of the open source community methods. An important discussion is how can both camps learn from each other.

Deutsche Telekom hosted a Conference on this topic at DT Headquarters in Bonn, on 9 and 10 September. The conference took place ahead the ETSI ZSM#8 workshop. The supporting organizations were ETSI, Linux Foundation and Telecom TV. Open Source Networking (OSN) Days of Linux Foundation were also embedded into the conference.

The purpose of the event was to discuss the enhancement of the collaboration and cooperation between SDO and OS. ETSI and LFN are good representatives of both parts of the industry. TM Forum (TMF) was invited as well.