OSS Watch Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes, 24 February 2005

by Randolph Metcalfe on 1 February 2005

Introduction

Attendance and Action Summary

Present: Ann Borda, Phill Camp, Chris Cartledge, Brian Kelly, Randy Metcalfe, John Norman, Sebastian Rahtz, Alan Robiette, Andrew Savory, Stephen Tanner, George Vernon

Apologies: Mike Banahan, Julian Bream, Paul Browning, Paul David, Mike Fraser, Caroline Halcrow, Roger Whittaker

Chair: John Norman

Action Summary:

  • further comments on the policy need to be received by Alan asap

Welcome and introductions

The Chair welcomed all present, especially the new faces: Ann Borda, OSS Watch’s JISC Programme Manager (maternity cover for Nicole Harris), and Chris Cartledge, University of Sheffield. Chris gave a little background to his connection with and interest in free and open source software.

Minutes from previous meeting

The minutes from the meeting of 15 September 2004 were accepted.

Matters arising

Actions from the 15 September 2004 meeting:

  • consult wtih JISC Communications on possibility of a senior management briefing paper - done
  • develop communications plan - done
  • circulate plans of software catalogue to committee for comment - done
  • circulate revised policy document to committee for comment - done

Manager’s Report

Discussion of the report was integrated into its presentation. Actions have been noted.

New Project Plan

Sebastian noted that in late September 2004 JISC confirmed a substantial increase in OSS Watch’s funding. This funding is for two years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006. It supports a rolling programme of roadshows and an increase in staff from 1.25 FTE to 3.2 FTE. The revised project plan includes the following workpackages.

Workpackages: 2004-2006

  • briefing material
  • conferences
  • evaluation
  • international conference
  • project support

  • reports to JISC

  • collaboration
  • FE roadshows
  • demonstration software
  • survey
  • website
  • workshops

Staff

The staff involved in implementing the project plan are:

Sebastian Rahtz
Manager (0.4 FTE)
Randy Metcalfe
Communications Manager (1.0 FTE)
Rowan Wilson
Research officer (0.5 FTE)
Stuart Yeates
Research officer (0.5 FTE)
Barry Cornelius
Research officer (0.5 FTE) (from March 2005)
Judy McAuliffe
Administration
Hannah Dunnington
Events Officer (0.3 FTE)
Elena Blanco
Author (freelance)

Briefing notes since September

  • What is version control? Why is it important for due diligence?
  • Where to go to try out some open source software
  • 5 essential open source tools for the sysadmin
  • Linux Standards Base: what is it and why is it important?
  • OSS Watch KNOPPIX 3.6
  • Dual Licensing: A threat to Open Source Software?
  • Standards and Open Source
  • Assessing the Role of Libre/Open Source Software for European Industry, The Hague, 19 November 2004
  • Open Standards and Libre Software in Government, The Hague, 18 November 2004
  • 4th International System Administration and Network Engineering Conference, 30 September 2004

The committee made useful suggestions about further topics for briefing notes.

Published articles

Conference: Open Source: national frameworks

OSS Watch’s 3rd national conference, 20 January 2005, focused policy and practice both in the UK and across Europe. Speakers included:

  • Alan Robiette: developing JISC open source policy and practice
  • Marc Bressers: OSOSS - open source and open standards in The Netherlands

  • Rishab Ghosh: open source across Europe

  • David Casal: open source business across Europe
  • David Rayers: open source and the BBC
  • Michael Coen: _investing in proprietary, in-house or open source software or services _

Evaluations from the conference were very positive. For example, when asked whether the content is at the right technical level for the audience, the opinion is overwhelmingly in support of OSS Watch getting it about right.

The conference also generated a degree of press interest with articles appearing in the following online news sources:

  • UK local government lags behind in open source, ZD Net UK, 21 January, 2005
  • British public bodies say no to open source, Techworld, 24 January, 2005
  • A repeat of the Techworld article: PC Advisory. 25 January, 2005
  • A repeat of the Techworld article: IT World Canada, 29 January 2005

  • A repeat of the Techworld article: Computerworld Australia, Australia - 24 Jan 2005

  • A repeat of the Techworld article: LinuxWorld.au, Australia - 24 Jan 2005
  • A repeat of the Techworld article: PC World Magazine, Australia - 24 Jan 2005
  • A repeat of the Techworld article: CIO Magazine, Australia - 24 Jan 2005
  • A repeat of the Techworld article: Open IT World - 24 Jan 2005

draft JISC open source policy

There was good discussion by the committee on the draft JISC open source policy. Alan Robiette noted that the policy was currently before the JISC committees. When finally approved, the policy will be published on the JISC website.

The draft policy was endorsed as it stood by the committee.

Action: further comments on the policy need to be received by Alan asap.

Collaboration and support

OSS Watch has participating in the following opportunities for collaboration or consultation with the following groups.

  • Aberdeen University: visit for advice on procurement practice
  • Oxford University: advice for projects on licensing
  • Bodington VLE: support on community building
  • Open Forum Europe: support on specifying Open Source Competency Framework
  • SIGOSSEE, Barcelona: Framework 6 European collaboration on open source in education
  • LAMS: licensing issues
  • UK Unix Users Group (UKUUG): Knoppix customization

Presentations

OSS Watch is invited frequently to make presentations on a variety of subjects at events organised by others.

  • = organized by OSS Watch

  • 2004/09/24: Moodle Specialist User Group, RSC London.
  • 2004/10/12: VLE/Intranet Developers Forum - RSC South West
    • 2004/10/14-15: Interoperability Workshop
  • 2004/10/18: JCALT study
  • 2004/10/20: DPO talk at OUCS - Building Open Source Communities
  • 2004/11/01: SIGOSSEE
  • 2004/11/10: NILTA Technical SIG, London
  • 2004/11/12: Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
  • 2004/11/18: FLOSSpols conference, Open Standards and Libre Software in Government, The Hague

  • 2004/11/19: Bodington Publicity Day, Oxford

  • 2004/11/19: Calibre conference, The Hague, http://www.calibre.ie/
  • 2004/11/30: NLN Post-16 Conference, Manchester
  • 2004/12/10: Open Forum Europe meeting, Oxford
  • 2004/12/13: South Yorkshire Technical Group
  • 2004/12/16: Meet with LAMS project lead, James Dalziel
  • 2004/12/22: Meet with LAMS project lead, James Dalziel
  • 2005/01/13: Open Forum Europe meeting, Oxford
    • 2005/01/20: OSS Watch’s National Frameworks Conference
  • 2005/02/14: Open Forum Europe meeting, London
    • 2005/02/23: RSC East Midlands Roadshow

Roadshows

The OSS Watch - RSC Roadshows were trialed in summer 2004. A rolling series of roadshows has begun as part of new project plan.

  • Offered to RSCs in October 2004, but no slots before Christmas
  • January show (Eastern) rescheduled by RSC
  • Three shows scheduled for February & March (Northern, North West, East Midlands) The feedback is very positive.

Software CDs made available

  • Customized releases of Knoppix 3.6 for

    • OSS Watch general release (Moodle, Reload, etc) — 2001 copies
    • Bodington demonstrator (VLE)
    • Text Encoding Initiative Members meeting (XML tools)

  • TheOpenCD 2.0 (December 2004) — 600 copies

Workshop

October 14-15: Migrating to open source: interoperability issues

The management of IT systems involves constant change. New software is continually being introduced, and new demands are being made by users of the system. A decision to adopt open source software should not be a major upset for an organisation which is always prepared for change.

The aim of this workshop was to explore one aspect of this preparedness, that of software interoperability. We discussed:

  • issues of open standards
  • data formats
  • system integration
  • examples from open source migration projects

Website

Sebastian concluded the report on activity with an analysis of who appears to be visiting the OSS Watch website and filling in the participation form there.

Future plans: March to September

Briefing notes: future plans

  • Book reviews
  • Detailed technical topics
  • Software experiences Summer 2005: reorganize notes into reading lists, as a coherent Guide to Open Source

Conferences: future plans

July 2005: Open source communities

December 2005: Learning frameworks and open source

Evaluation

(May/June)

International conference

Oxford, March 2006

Project support

  • Steering group for JISC web site
  • Steering group for JISC mirror service
  • JISC e-learning programme
  • JISC legal workshops on IPR
  • CETIS discussions on licensing and patents

Collaboration

Open Skills Council competency framework

Scheduled Presentations

  • = organized by OSS Watch

  • 2005/02/26-27: Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting
    • 2005/03/01: RSC Northern Roadshow
  • 2005/03/03: JISC legal IPR workshop, Leeds
    • 2005/03/03: OSS Awareness Day, Oxford
  • 2005/03/11: RSC London, Moodle Special Interest Group
  • 2005/03/14-15: Coimbra Group, Edinburgh
    • 2005/03/15: RSC North West Roadshow, Oldham College, Greater Manchester
  • 2005/03/15: RSC West Midlands Regional Conference
  • 2005/03/16: Models of Success, RSC Wales, Cardiff

  • 2005/03/22: JISC legal IPR workshop, Bristol

  • 2005/03/30-04/01: Open Minds - Open Source, http://www.openmindsopensource.com/
  • 2005/04/03: JISC e-Learning Programme conference
  • 2005/04/07 or 08: Computer-Implemented Inventions Directive (Patent Office)
  • 2005/04/11-12: JISC Conference, Birmingham
    • 2005/04/11-14-15: Integration Workshop
  • 2005/06/20-24: EUNIS, Leadership & Strategy in a Cyber-infrastructure World
    • 2005/06/??: Communities Workshop
    • 2005/07/??: Communities Conference
  • 2005/07/11-15: 11-15 July, The First International Conference on Open Source Systems, Genova, Italy

Roadshows

  • Three shows being organized for April–July (London, South West and South East)

Survey

  • October-November 2005
  • targetting UK HE and FE
  • data to be comparable to 2003 survey
  • liaise with Coimbra Group re European parallels

Website

Plans for web redesign, software catalogue wiki, and blog:

  • Software Catalogue - end of March
  • Wiki - end of April
  • redesign - end of May

Workshops

April
Integration and the SysAdmin: Authentication and Interoperability
June
Building software communities

AOB

There were four items of any other business.

Creative Commons licence
There was a discussion around the possibility of moving to a Creative Commons UK licence for OSS Watch documentation outputs once this becomes available. The committee agreed that moving to a CC-UK licence would be appropriate.
Oxford Licence Workshop
This workshop brought together university research services, legal services and ISIS Innovation. These groups represent a potentially new stakeholder group for OSS Watch. The commitee agreed that such institutional facilitation was worth pursuing beyond the Oxford trial.
Sebastian on extend leave
Sebastian noted that he would be on extended leave during April and May when he will be in East Timor writing a book. During his absence Randy Metcalfe will be serving as acting-manager.

Date of next meeting

12 September 2005, University of Bath. 11:00 – 15:30 with lunch provided.