Speaker and Session Details

by Amir Nettler on 8 September 2009

Introduction

Scott Wilson

10:40 - 11:35 Life of a Wookie

Abstract

At the University of Bolton we recently moved a component of a publicly funded research project into the incubator at The Apache Software Foundation. Apache emphasises community, and in this talk, I explain the value of community to Wookie. I discuss what the value is of external contributions, how the project is run so as to allow external contributors to become part of the core project, and the reasons behind some of the “bureaucracy” that prospective contributors sometimes don’t understand.

Biography

Scott Wilson is Assistant Director of CETIS, the JISC’s innovation support centre for interoperability and standards in the UK higher and further education sectors. As well as working on Apache Wookie (Incubating), Scott is a contributor to W3C, the Open Web Foundation, CEN and other standards organisations. Prior to working in CETIS, Scott worked in the commercial software sector, in areas such as CRM, Business Intelligence, and Criminal Intelligence.

Dr Ian Boston

11:45 - 12:30 Be careful what you wish for with Open Source

Abstract

Using Open Source is easy. Selecting, based on a sensible criteria is harder, but influencing a sustainable community based on meritocracy requires a different mindset. Sakai 3 is currently under early development within the Sakai community. It is based on Apache Sling, Felix, Jackrabbit and Shindig. In this talk I’ll explore the decisions I made, the dilemmas those decisions presented and how I became engaged with the Apache communities as a result of my activities within Sakai.

Biography

Dr Ian Boston is Chief Technology office for Caret at the the University of Cambridge, Chief Architect for the Sakai Foundation, and a PMC member at Apache Sling and Apache Shindig. He leads the development of Sakai interacting with a diverse community of contributors in Higher Education and contributes to both Apache Shindig as Apache Sling as a member of the committer team.

Ian has a background in mechanical engineering and parallel computing. First degree being in Engineering Design and Manufacture. He holds a PhD in parallel computing and engineering stress analysis. Following his PhD he joined Professor Tony Hey’s group at the University of Southampton to lead research projects in High Performance Computing. In the mid 1990’s he became interested in the startup activity in Silicon Fen around Cambridge and became actively involved in startup companies, sitting on a number of Boards as investor representative and technical innovator. One of those board positions became full time and he became CTO of Procession plc a London based Software House supporting enterprise processes in large organizations world wide. With arrival of a family he joined Caret at the University of Cambridge as CTO, although he still maintains an active involvement in some of the earlier startups. In his spare time he enjoys offshore sailing, windsurfing and surfing.

Mark Johnson

13:30 - 14:15 The Line of Code That Could

Abstract

How does one contribute to an open source project? What are the thoughts, conversations and actions that lead to the creation of a contribution, and then, how does it get accepted into the project? This talk follows the creation of the speaker’s first patch to the Moodle core code, showing the Open Development model from a first-hand perspective. It will then discuss the advantages of this process to the developer, his employer, and the community as a whole.

Biography

Mark Johnson is a recent Web Design & Internet Technology graduate currently working as an in-house Web Developer for Taunton’s college in Southampton. Working mainly with the Moodle Course Management System, Mark is a keen member of the open source community with a passion for accessibility, usability and open standards. He also enjoys heavy metal, real ale and redbush tea.