Present: Tony Linde (chair), Randy Metcalfe (OSS Watch manager), Sebastian Rahtz (OSS Watch director), Ross Gardler (OSS Watch), Chris Cartledge, Phill Camp, Matthijs den Besten (pp Paul David), Andrew Charlesworth, Brian Kelly. Andrew Savory arrived at 11.56am
Apologies from Ann Borda, Mike Banahan, John Norman, Mike Fraser, Sally-Anne Saull, Scott Wilson, Stephen Tanner.
TL opened the meeting at 11am, and welcomed committee members, who introduced themselves.
The minutes were agreed to be an accurate record. TL thanked OSS Watch for the circulation of monthly reports, which he said were proving useful. He requested that the reports show future meetings, as well as past; and that URLs of resources be included.
Bill Olivier was to investigate the Ithaka report, to see what JISC was doing which was comparable. BO not present, so action postponed.
RM described the progress of OSS Watch since the last 6 months; most of the issues had been described in monthly interim reports.
There was discussion about the project which Ramón is primarily working on, looking at OSS deployment across institutions, speculating about the extent to which useful results will be obtained. His initial target, however, is to create a catalogue of JISC open source outputs. OSS Watch's progress on this topic should be of great interest.
AC asked about Christine Reid's work the Lambert Agreements; details at http://www.innovation.gov.uk/lambertagreements/
TL asked about taking part in Google Summer of Code (GSOC); RG said he had worked as mentor for Apache on GSoC projects and administrator of Apache's participation in GSOC prior to joining OSS Watch , and could give some advice.
There was discussion of the trial OSS Watch ‘planet’ (http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/planet/), and it was stressed that if it was not simply an OSS Watch aggregator it needed clearer disclaimers (AC suggested ‘Planet KDE’ has a good example; see http://planetkde.org/) and branding; it was not yet clear what its focus should be. More feeds were needed, but there was not an immediate consensus as to which ones were appropriate.
Ross Gardler presented his initial approach to JISC project support. He outlined his past work on open source (he is an established member of the Apache Software Foundation, and is their main administrator for GSoC work), and then presented his first view of 23 JISC-funded projects he had selected to analyze. Only one of these could really be classified as ‘open development’ from an outsider's perspective, although a reasonable understanding of open source licensing is visible, and the projects tend to regard themselves as ‘open source’.
The effect is that most JISC projects are unlikely to attract interest from people outside their project. RG would now start to look at how he could help projects move towards more openness.
There was discussion over the extent to which the JISC projects can spend time on community building; and whether the ‘community’ is one of developers or of users — although increasingly these are fairly arbitary points on a general spectrum. PC noted that there are many points to tick on a JISC SLA — is there enough credit given there to community building? CC questioned whether the workpackage-and-deliverable structure is suited to bringing in outside volunteers. There is a tension between the need to finish the specified work, and to make the scope broad enough to be sustainable.
What about education? How do programmers learn to develop open sustainable software? Should OSS Watch run a summer school on code development? RG described how Google Summer of Code works, as an example of how student internships in OSS can be very helpful; a concentrated version of the apprenticeship system recognized in open source studies. BK suggested that JISC fund prizes for small innovative ideas or projects would be an interested way to proceed. There was a feeling that JISC is sometimes too heavyweight in its approach, and that a lighter/smaller touch can be effective. Paying developers to work on established projects may also be a good way to proceed. RM noted that Oxford University Computing Services' annual report listing OSS involvement by staff (http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/internal/annrep/annrep0506/index.xml?ID=service#index.xml-div-id2418820) is a good example of how recording the current involvement of staff can assist in culture change in this area. The amount of change needed is large, however!
What can OSS Watch do next in this area? How does it reach the developers? It has to keep educating the community, and will start work on a project registry, using DOAP (an XML/RDF vocabulary to describe open source projects — http://usefulinc.com/doap/).
RM circulated a summary of the JISC-funded Sustainability Study, an in-depth look at a set of important OSS projects and the lessons which can be learnt from their history. This study was managed by OSS Watch, which will start publishing the material after the material has been approved by JISC.
Committee members were invited to perform a live detailed review of a selected OSS Watch document. This resulted in a set of annotated printouts which will be used to improve the documents. It was felt to be a useful exercise for the committee members to get engaged with OSS Watch material. Next time, it was requested that documents be circulated in advance, and the meeting used to discuss feedback.
Committee members had been asked to look at tech transfer in their institutions. Not everyone had remembered their homework (gasp), but a useful round-table discuss took place. RG noted that the explict recognition of OUCS' encouragement of open source on its web pages had been a positive recruitment factor him. RM and SR explained that they had worked carefully within Oxford to get this policy straightened out for staff.
RM described the relatively new specification ‘community investment’ as a measuring point for universities' performance. This should make engagement in OSS more attractive for institutions, as it has positive benefits in the required reporting rather than simply being perceived as a loss. OSS Watch will be producing briefing material on this subject.
MD noted that more contact with research councils and the DTI would be useful; RM agreed, saying that a UKRC-wide OSS policy would be a desirable outcome, and had been discussed. BK pointed at PPARC's policy at http://www.pparc.ac.uk/rs/rgh/rghDisplay2.aspx?m=s&s=6; what effect this had had is unknown.
ACTION. TL requested a progress report on these OSS Watch tech transfer activities at the next AC meeting; RM and SR readily agreed; TL suggested that Rowan Wilson be invited to the meeting to address the topic.
RM gave a list of OSS Watch engagements for the coming months; various conferences and workshops were in train, and the concentrated worksession with Pia Waugh in March.
ACTION. BK agreed to talk at the next AC about community engagement work undertaken in the JISC User and Innovation Programme.
CC asked about whether it was a good moment for OSS Watch to push information about Open Document Format. SR said that TechWatch are commissioning a report on this, and that he would be one of the reviewers.
CC expressed an interest in work on Linux on the desktop, and some discussion ensued about OpenOffice compatibility.
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