# First OSS-Get Together in Paris

> Explore highlights from the first Open Source Software Get-Together in Paris, where Vincent Massol united French developers to share their exciting projects.

Author: [Guillaume Laforge](https://glaforge.dev/) | Published: 2004-06-07 | Topics: java, oss | Canonical: https://glaforge.dev/posts/2004/06/07/first-oss-get-together-in-paris/


For the first time in Paris, an **_Open Source Software Get-Together_** was organized by [Vincent Massol](http://blogs.codehaus.org/people/vmassol/) of [Cactus](http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus/) fame and author of [JUnit in Action](http://www.manning.com/catalog/view.php?book=massol) book. It was a lot of fun to meet him and other French OSS developers. I though we weren't numerous to work on Open Source projects in France, but after all, it seems I was wrong. Moreover, I was stunned to meet someone working for the same company as myself, and I didn't even know him! The world is such a small place indeed.

We talked about our different projects on which we are working at night, on our free time. Almost half of us were [Maven](http://maven.apache.org/) developers or contributors (Emmanuel Venisse, Arnaud Heritier and Vincent Massol), the other developers present were working on [EasyStruts](http://easystruts.sourceforge.net/) (Emmanuel Boudrant), [Twister](http://www.smartcomps.org/twister/) (Matthieu Riou), [JCaptcha](http://jcaptcha.sourceforge.net/) (Marc-Antoine Garrigue) and [Groovy](http://groovy.codehaus.org/) (myself the Groovy Despot).

For this first meeting (others will come soon) Vincent invited us at the headquarters of [Pivolis](http://www.pivolis.com/), an innovating _pivotal provider_ providing offshore development. After that, we went to a restaurant near _les Champs-Elysées_. We like this concept very much: revamping the world while eating and/or drinking is somewhat part of the French culture.

I was really glad to meet you all guys, and I'm longing to meet you again soon. Now, for the pictures, please click on the _more_ link just below:

  
![](/img/ossgtp/MAG-VM-Pivolis.jpg)

![](/img/ossgtp/EV-AH-Pivolis.jpg)  
Emmanuel and Arnaud

![](/img/ossgtp/EB-MR-Pivolis.jpg)  
Emmanuel and Matthieu

![](/img/ossgtp/EV-VM-AH-Hippo.jpg)  
Emmanuel, Vincent and Arnaud

![](/img/ossgtp/EB-MR-Hippo.jpg)  
Emmanuel and Matthieu

![](/img/ossgtp/MR-GL-Hippo.jpg)  
Matthieu and Guillaume (doh! that's me!)