OSS Watch Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes, 25 February 2004
by Randolph Metcalfe on 1 February 2004
Introduction
Attendance and Action Summary
Present: Paul Browning, Michael Fraser, Nicole Harris, Alex Hudson (substituting for Andrew Savory), Randy Metcalfe, Sebastian Rahtz, Caroline Halcrow, John Norman, Rowan Wilson, Stuart Yeates
Apologies: Mike Banahan, Julian Bream, Phill Camp, Chris Cartledge, Paul David, Alan Robiette, Andrew Savory, Ronnie Scott, Stephen Tanner, George Vernon, Roger Whittaker, Scott Wilson
Chair: Paul Browning
Action Summary:
- it was agreed that OSS Watch should produce a flyer which might be distributed at events and in response to requests
- all members to consider questions to be addressed at the IPR workshop
- a preview of the catalogue system to be circulated to the Advisory Committee for comment
- all to make comments and suggestions on the FE Roadshow proposal via email
- all to pass on opportunities to publicise OSS Watch or involve OSS Watch in conferences, newsletters etc. to the OSS Watch team
- as a working practice to ensure substantial turnout at advisory committee meetings, members should be invited to send substitutes when they themselves are unable to attend
Welcome and introductions
Members introduced themselves together with a short statement of their interests in Open Source. The Chair reminded members that their role includes reviewing and reflecting on work done; commenting and advising on future plans; and acting as ambassadors for OSS Watch.
Minutes from previous meeting
The minutes from the meeting of 16 September 2003 were accepted.
Matters arising
Actions from the 16 September meeting:
- Comments on scoping study - done
- Comments on inaugural conference plan – done
- Raising awareness of OSS Watch – this item considered later in the meeting
Manager’s Report
Financial report
Sebastian explained that the financial summary should be considered notional. Expenditure is approximately going to plan.
Work completed to date
Randy summarised the key activities and outputs to date including:
- launching the web site
- completing and releasing the scoping study
- inaugural conferenceWeb site: distinct hosts peaked in November but generally are on an upward curve.
Email list: used as an announcement list for OSS Watch activities with over 400 subscribers.
Enquiries: It was noted that the service does not receive an over-whelming number of enquiries though the number of enquiries from institutional managers appear to be increasing. This was observed to be a good thing.
Presentations: OSS Watch had participated in a number of events, both national and international; both HE and FE. Notable events include the Common Solution Groups (US); the ALT Workshop; and a range of events with RSC involvement. It was noted that OSS Watch is reactive to invitations but gradually being more proactive in submitting proposals to targetted events. With respect to FE the RSCs are proving to be the most effective point of contact. It was recommended that OSS Watch develop an events plan. At the moment the OSS Watch briefing paper is distributed in lieu of a flyer, together with branded CDs.
Action: it was agreed the OSS Watch should produce a flyer which might be distributed at events and in response to requests
Scoping Study: It was noted that the response rate was good for this kind of study, especially since it was targeted at institutional managers. Key points from the survey included the differing concerns between HE and FE institutions; the fairly immediate concerns about licensing. The Committee recorded their thanks to David Tannenbaum for the excellent work undertaken within difficult time restraints.
It was noted that some institutions appear to have an explicit strategy of not considering OSS as part of their IT procurement. Smaller institutions which have purchased a total solution from a single supplier were more likely not to consider OSS solutions. The reasons behind opting for a single solution are complex and cannot be extrapolated from the survey data. The summary of recommendations was considered useful and had been considered by the JISC development committee via Nicole Harris. Nicole noted her intention to bring the survey to the attention of other relevant JISC Committee’s.
Inaugural conference: The conference was fully booked and the presentations are available online. The evaluation report proved to be positive, largely meeting attendees’ expectations. Particularly positive were the list of actions that delegates claimed to be undertaking as a result of attending the conference. It was agreed that this data will be helpful in measuring the impact of the service on the JISC community. The popularity of TheOpenCD was also noted, especially as a good introduction to Open Source applications. There is the potential to include OSS on CDs which are often distributed to students at the beginning of term, for example. The Committee commended OSS Watch on a successful inaugural conference.
Other developments: These include experimenting with the production of a Knoppix distribution which includes, for example, a copy of Bodington; liaising with the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute (OMII); meetings with the e-Envoy’s office.
Future Plans
IPR workshop: The scoping study showed a concern that institutions developing OSS had not fully considered the licensing and IPR issues. The planned IPR workshop will comprise an introduction to IPR and discussion of issues aimed at developers. It was noted that the issues of OSS licensing should be considered from both sides (developer and customer) even if the event is primarily aimed at developers, helping people to understand the purpose of the licenses to enable an informed choice. Identifying intellectual property; protecting it; licensing it; and then enforcing it are key issues in the process. Choosing the license involves considering the needs of the customer as well as the developer or institution. It was noted that deliverables from the workshop will include a manual of good practice and a longer document setting the license issue in context. Whilst it was thought useful to obtain legal guidance it was also noted that legal advice can be expensive. However, the workshop will comprise informed participants. It was also recommended that participants be aware of their own institutional IPR policies (sample policies might be included as part of the briefing documents). A recent e-Science study might also include useful material. Participants for the workshop include academic legal expertise (e.g. Andrew Charlesworth). The committee urged that there be representation from individuals with ‘real world’ experience. It was noted that whilst JISC does not claim IPR, conditions of funding now strongly encourage the release of software under an Open Source license (see, e.g. JISC Circular 01/04).
Action: all members to consider questions to be addressed at the IPR workshop.
Software catalogue: the catalogue will emphasize software deployed within the HE/FE community and focus on user feedback from within the same communities. OSS Watch will provide moderation but it is intended as a community resource with links to relevant resources on Freshmeat and other sites. The underlying system will be based on Zope/Plone. An email alerting system will be considered, possibly including the ability to be alerted to changes on any given page. This functionality has been implemented within other Plone sites. It was observed that the catalogue would need to operate at different levels of granularity (e.g. from Apache web server through to an Apache module). It was further noted that the community catalogue was distinct, though related, to a forthcoming catalogue of software developed within UK HE/FE. The unique selling point of the community software catalogue should be its UK focus. All agreed that CETIS is a good role model and indeed has been perceived as a better dissemination mechanism for IMS materials than IMS itself.
Action: a preview of the system to be circulated to the Advisory Committee.
Open Source FE Roadshow: The proposal for an OSS FE Roadshow had been put together in consultation with Julian Bream, RSC manager. The primary audience is intended to be FE IT/ILT support staff and managers. The event focusses on deployment rather than development with local case studies. It was noted that the event had fairly modest venue demands. Each event would be hosted by an RSC. Some venues would offer the potential for hands-on sessions. The workshop is more of an opportunity for staff development rather than aimed at the IT strategy. The types of software to be demonstrated has yet to be decided. It was recommended that the service liaises with each RSC. The proposal would be further circulated to the RSC technical committee. It was recommended that the proposal include more detail on the content of the presentations. There was some discussion about how the events should be branded and whether participation from outside the FE sector should be permitted or encouraged to attend. It was agreed that each RSC has to be committed to the hosting and marketing of the event (as well as participation in the event itself).
Action: All to make comments and suggestions on the proposal via email.
Support and training conference: A one-day conference planned for June would focus on the support and training opportunities/models available for OSS. It was recommended that the four themes described should be balanced.
Interoperability and migration workshop: A one-day workshop planned for September will focus on mixed environments, legacy data and related issues.
OSS Watch Briefing conference: To be held in December and to focus on institutional IT strategies (including public sector/government representation).
It was noted that the themes of planned events derive from the over-arching themes of deployment and development. The specific topics are an outcome of the Scoping Study.
Other developments: There is the possibility of a JCALT study on the total cost of ownership of OSS which may have reported by Autumn 2004.
An OSS Watch RSS newsfeed was also outlined which would publicise the development of a repository of nuggets of information and news. The backend system for the repository was not yet decided but Plone was a possibility. It was recommended that OSS Watch newsfeeds should not be aggregated but rather topic-based, leaving it up to the end-user to aggregate as appropriate.
Top-ten tips: It was agreed that this was a useful document which could be re-purposed within institutions, both relating to reasons for choosing OSS but also to assist the documenting of software selection decision processes.
Open Source Foundation: A meeting held in Bristol in Feb 2004 revealed a lack of clarity about what OSS is and what the expectations concerning its support etc were. The idea of an OSS Foundation was analogous to the OMII as an organisation which might hold or manage IPR, promote research and seek funding, software development. It was noted that sustainability of projects funded by JISC was an on-going issue. In addition, projects do not always develop within a desirable OSS model nor tend to collaborate with other projects on development. JISC cannot support business models to become commercial ventures. The OMII is funded by the research councils as part of the e-Science programme but on a larger scale to similar activity within the JISC. It was recognized that it was not part of the OSS Watch remit to develop such a foundation, although the proposal was certainly interesting. It was hoped that the OMII will publish studies relating to business models for the successful, sustained development of OSS. The e-Envoy’s office will be looking at unified access to software released under the OSS default route (where an alternative is not specified) for publicly-funded projects, for which a consultation report will be forthcoming. It was agreed that such activities were within a ‘watching brief’ category for OSS Watch.
AOB
Advisory Committee Ambassador role: The Chair reiterated the need for committee members to raise awareness of OSS Watch when the opportunity arises. Especially important here is looking for opportunities in conferences for presentations from OSS Watch, or articles in newsletters and such. Members are encouraged to let OSS Watch know of any opportunities they feel relevant.
It was noted that OSS Watch is already making some headway establishing appropriate connections with other efforts, nationally and internationally. For example, the UK JASIG meeting, which also discussed the Sakai project, observed the significance of the UK’s policy on national initiatives. There is interest in linking up European competence centres including the UK Open Advantage centre (with national computing centre). OSS Watch and Open Advantage were noted as analogous to the EU competences centres. The FLOSSIE conference revealed the growing interest in OSS within education especially regarding the overlap between development and deployment. The Chair noted that the British Universities Finance Directors Group - Financial Systems Sub-Group has invited him to speak on the differences between monolith and modularised/interoperable systems. The Chair is also on the organising committee of Pan-Europeans Portal Congress (19-20 July 2004) with a deadline for abstracts 15 March. A uPortal/Zope/Plone session may be organised and OSS Watch might consider a presence.
Action: members to pass on opportunities to publicise OSS Watch or involve OSS Watch in conferences, newsletters etc. to the OSS Watch team
It was proposed that organisations should be able to nominate substitutes or alternates on the Jiscmail list.
Action: as a working practice to ensure substantial turnout at advisory committee meetings, members should be invited to send substitutes when they themselves are unable to attend
Date of next meeting
15 September 2004, Bristol (JISC offices). 11:00 – 15:30 with lunch provided.