Photos: Techies gather at MashupCamp

The age of the mashup is upon us, with software developers quickly adopting new techniques for custom-building Web applications. One sign of their enthusiasm was the crowd at the first-ever MashupCamp, held Monday at the Computer History Museum in San Jose, Calif. The grassroots movement has sparked interest at companies small and large: Among the attendees were folks from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Intel, Amazon.com and eBay.

Casting itself as an "unconference," MashupCamp had an open-ended format underscored by some downright Zen inclinations.

Ward Cunningham, creator of wiki technology, pitches his session on mashups and sharing.

Stanford Law professor Larry Lessig explains the intersection of mashups and copyright law.

Adam Gross (right) of Salesforce.com, which specializes in customer relationship management (CRM) services.

Eleanor Kruszewski of Yahoo Developer Network leads a session on monetization and business models.

A table with two of a geek's favorite pleasures: a laptop computer and a basket stuffed with free candy.

MashupCamp co-organizer David Berlind talking to participants while sitting on the stage, an emblematic moment at the so-called "unconference." (Berlind is executive editor of business technology for ZDNet, which is owned by News.com parent company CNET Networks.)

A long line of MashupCamp participants fill out pieces of paper on which they write the name of sessions they plan to lead.

Two MashupCamp participants discuss the time and place of their session.