Ladies and gentlemen, honourable participants, dear guests,

On behalf of HrOpen (Croatian Open Systems Users' Group) and myself I warmly welcome you and wish you a fruitful and nice stay in Zagreb. The motto of this international conference is "Open to the WWWorld" (with 3 capital WWWs). Originally it was started as EurOpen conference organised by and for EurOpen national groups. It ended up with HrOpen being the main organiser and EurOpen being the main sponsor. Locally we call it DORS97 (in Croatian - Open Systems Days) and there is a connection with the real d(oo)rs to enter the open world.

Last year's (DORS'96) participants will remember I spoke about open systems and the air plane (Boeing 777). Today my favourite is automobile industry: The history of microcomputers is about 25 years old. "If the automobile had progressed as quickly as the microprocessor, the average car would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour (16,093km/h), get 1,200 miles per gallon (510 km/l) and cost 12 cents (less than 1 kuna). If the auto industry had the same quality levels as those needed to produce today's microprocessors, only 8,000 cars in the USA would need repair each year. Imagine how this would change society - a 12 cent car that the majority of drivers never needed to repair! This auto fantasy translates into reality in the microprocessor world" (M.E. Levitt, Microprocessors Lead the Way in Complex Design, IEEE Design and Test of Computers, Vol.14, No. 1, January - March 1997, pp.8-9). Do not even blink or you will miss the hottest advances in technology!

What could have happened if the automobile industry had progressed as quickly as the microprocessor is what is happening today to us in the computing era and in a wider sense has impact to every corner of our lives because we can' t isolate, separate ourselves from the environment where we live. For more than 20 years I have been in this field and every day I feel like I am at the very beginning (always page one, but each time another manual). So I stopped reading manuals. But - and I am sure everybody will agree with me - if you do not read manuals you need open systems.

If you were on a longer trip (or ill) it's perfectly normal that you know nothing about and have never heard of: CORBA 8/95, JAVA 5/95, ATM mid/95, CDE, Win95 /95, Pentium Pro/95, PowerPC /95, Office /97, Netscape, NC and so on. At the same time not knowing what the above means, means it is time you start looking for a new job. There we are again: "Do not blink your eyes or you will loose your job!"

We build more and more sophisticated computers, networks, software packages in order to help people become more productive. We think us people will need to know less and will be able to make more. That is not true. The reality is people create more but at the same time need to know even more. Almost every day. We need to work more toward openness of technology but also openness between people, computer users from all over the world. That is why we need conferences like this one. Not everybody will agree with my point of view and this meeting is an opportunity to express different opinions.

The main characteristics of this conference are:

• very hot topics like: SECURITY, DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING, JAVA, UNIX, LOW COST UNIX, MULTIMEDIA, BROADBAND NETWORKS, INFORMATION SOCIETY and tutorials: "HTML Starting Course" and "Security for Software Developers: How to write a code that withstands Hostile Environments" - several years ago some of the topics did not exist at all,
• in the same time practical solutions from the topics were used in organising the conference,
• more than 2000 emails on the organiser side (it takes time to read, it takes even longer to write, and it would be impossible to use conventional mail without increasing man power),
• we have all been using email these days (organiser, participants, guests, HrOpen members, tourist agency) we have all been wired and I am particularly proud of this fact although there would probably be more participants here today if we had been using conventional ways of communication,
• all the information about the conference was from the very beginning on the Web (topics, titles, timetable, registration forms, tourist information, travel agent information, short speakers' biographies, links to other locations, on-line camera view of Zagreb, daily activities, etc., etc.,),
• all the exhibitors in the hall as well as we here in the conference room are connected to the Internet
• parts of the conference will be transmitted over the 155Mb ATM network to some other locations in Croatia,
• all materials regarding the conference, proceedings are in HTML format and (well, almost all) are available on the Web so we can say this conference is at the same time a Green conference.

The above mentioned characteristics are only side effects of the previously mentioned automobile fantasy that becomes computing reality.And do not worry, coffee breaks, lunches and that sort of stuff is still real and will not be served over the wires, but in the future who knows.

Open to the WWWorld is a small effort to help improve solving the above mentioned problems. Lectures and tutorials are given by specialists from all over the world. Our thanks to EurOpen, to USENIX Association, our thanks to the speakers. It would not have been possible to organise this event without the help of FER with all technical facilities, CARNet, the logistics support of Globtour tourist agency, the media support of InfoTrend and Computer World journals, the nice bags, CD-ROMs, pencils of the Dutch UNIX Users Group, the pencils made by TOZ and last but not least the group of HrOpen enthusiasts and young members - students together with close collaborators (you will recognise them by blue badges). Thank you guys. Here we are again, remember: "Do not blink your eyes or you will miss this conference". Thank you.

DORS'97 Open to the WWWorld Conference Chairman
Mario Zagar