The Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) announce Tuesday, 30th May 2006 as the date for the 2006 Annual General Meeting (AGM), plus main event – Open Source Question Time with expert panelists to include Glyn Moody author of Rebel Code, Alan Cox of Red Hat, Mark Taylor – President of the Open Source Consortium, Andrew Katz a Solicitor with specialist legal firm Moorcrofts, to be held at the British Computer Society (BCS) Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA. Nominations for election to the OSSG Committee are invited as set out in the OSSG Constitution – https://ossg.bcs.org/organisation/OpenSourceConstitutionFinal.pdf

The AGM will start at 1800 hours, followed immediately afterwards by the main event – Open Source Question Time with expert panel (see details below). Doors open for networking from 1730 hours. Event registration and associated details below.

About The Panelists

Glyn Moody has a PhD in Mathematics from Cambridge University, and for the last 25 years has written about IT and related issues for publications such as The Economist, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired magazine and many others. Glyn has written several books including Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, and Digital Code of Life: How Bioinformatics Is Revolutionizing Science, Medicine and Business.

Alan Cox of Red Hat has been heavily involved in the development of the Linux kernel since its early days (1991). Whilst employed on the campus of University of Wales, Swansea, he installed a very early version of Linux on one of the machines belonging to the university computer society. This was one of the first Linux installations on a busy network, and revealed many bugs in the networking code. He fixed many of these bugs, and went on to rewrite much of the networking subsystem. He then became one of the main developers and maintainers of the whole kernel. On October 5th 2005, Alan received a lifetime achievement award at the LinuxWorld awards in London.

Mark Taylor is the founder and President of the Open Source Consortium (OSC), which has a membership of more than 80 of the leading Open Source businesses in the UK.

The OSC has a dual purpose: (1) To do business with the UK Government and Public Sector; and (2) To act as the two way communication vehicle between Government and the Open Source community and emerging Industry. More details about the OSC can be found at http://www.opensourceconsortium.org

Andrew Katz is a solicitor with specialist legal firm Moorcrofts. Prior to becoming a lawyer Andrew Katz was a software developer who has released code under the General Public Licence (GPL). He advises clients on software licensing issues, including the use of open source, and has debated points with luminaries such as Eben Moglen, Cory Doctorow, and Larry Lessig.

Andrew was involved in drafting the England and Wales Creative Commons licence, which is the basis of the licence adopted by the BBC for its Creative Archive project.

Event Registration and associated details

The event immediately after the AGM will be open to all and membership of the BCS is not required to attend.

Refreshments and a buffet will be available during the evening.

To register a place at the event please email Mark Elkins at mark_elkins@bcs.org or Malcolm Kendall at mikendall@blueyonder.co.uk (please note that if you have already received an email from Malcolm as a result of being an OSSG member you should respond to that email if you wish to attend the AGM and following event).

For further information please contact Mark Elkins by email at mark_elkins@bcs.org or phone 023 80 319560

Nearest Tube Stations are Covent Garden, Temple, Charing Cross, and Embankment. Nearest Main Line Railway Stations are Charing Cross and Waterloo.

Election details

As part of the AGM the election of the OSSG Committee shall take place. Nominations are open and candidates should email their details to Malcolm Kendall. The following are currently standing for election:

• Chair: Paul Adams
• Vice Chair: Peter Murray
• Secretary: Malcolm Kendall
• Treasurer: Mark Elkins
• Webmaster: No candidate
• Events: No candidate
• Without portfolio (x3): Andy Halsall, Graham Oakes, Conrad Taylor