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
1. 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.
2. Minutes from previous meeting
The minutes from the meeting of 15 September 2004 were accepted.
3. 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
4. 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
4.1. 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)
4.2. 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.
4.3. Published articles
- Software Choice: Decision-making in a Mixed Economy,
Randy Metcalfe, Ariadne, Issue 42, January 2005
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/metcalfe/
- December 2004, RSC South West newsletter, "Critical Choice: Which
Software You Choose and Why?", page 5
4.4. 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
4.5. 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.
4.6. 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
4.7. 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
4.8. 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.
4.9. 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
4.10. 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
4.11. 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.
5. Future plans: March to September
5.1. Briefing notes: future plans
- Book reviews
- Detailed technical topics
- Software experiences
Summer 2005: reorganize notes into reading lists,
as a coherent
Guide to Open Source5.2. Conferences: future plans
July 2005: Open source communities
December 2005: Learning frameworks and open source
5.3. Evaluation
(May/June)
5.4. International conference
Oxford, March 2006
5.5. 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
5.6. Collaboration
Open Skills Council competency framework
5.7. 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
5.8. Roadshows
- Three shows being organized for April–July (London, South West
and South East)
5.9. Survey
- October-November 2005
- targetting UK HE and FE
- data to be comparable to 2003 survey
- liaise with Coimbra Group re European parallels
5.10. Website
Plans for web redesign, software catalogue wiki, and blog:
- Software Catalogue - end of March
- Wiki - end of April
- redesign - end of May
5.11. Workshops
- April
- Integration and the SysAdmin: Authentication and Interoperability
- June
- Building software communities
6. 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.
7. Date of next meeting
12 September 2005, University of Bath. 11:00 – 15:30 with lunch provided.
It is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 England & Wales licence.
OSS Watch is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee.