Yearly archives: 2006

User Accounts Imported

 in OSSG by

User accounts have been imported from the Plone site. However, this necessitated resetting the password. When this new site goes live, a mass mailing of users will be performed to distribute the new passwords. If you wish to recover your password in the meantime, please visit the login page and click Forgotten Password

You will then be prompted for the username and email address you used on the old Plone site. Enter these, and your password will be reset and emailed to you.  You can then ignore the mass-mailing when it arrives.

Archived mailing lists

 in Accessibility / Agile Methods / Business / E-Government / Education / Knowledge / Legal / Licensing by (updated 6539 days ago)

As part of the migration from Plone to WordPress and related pieces of software, the old mailing lists have been extracted from Plone and archived. Hereafter, mailing lists will be organised as follows:

ossg-committee@ossg.bcs.org
This list is used for discussing committee business. The archives are open but only committee members may join the list.
ossg-announcements@ossg.bcs.org
This is a low-traffic list used for OSSG event announcements. Posting is restricted to committee members.
ossg-members@ossg.bcs.org
A members discussion list, though we would prefer members to discuss issues using the blog comment pages.

The old mailing list archives may be found here:

Committee Forum
Committee discussion
Business
Discussion of issues surround business and open source.
Member Forum
Member event announcements
Licensing
Licensing discussion
eGovernment and Open Source
Discussion of Open Source in eGovernment
Knowledge Management and Open Source
Using open source for knowledge management
Agile Methods and Open Source
Relationship between Agile Methods and Open Source
Legal Issues surrounding Open Source
Discussion of legal issues involvng Open Source
Accessibility and Open Source
Discussion of Accessiblity in Open Source
Education and Open Source
Use of Open Source in Education

Apologies for any duplicate messages etc. The archives were produced by screen-scraping the old Plone site. Not ideal.

The Zen of Free: Why Open Source is not a passing fad 2

 in OSSG Article / OSSG News  tagged article by (updated 1758 days ago)

The BCS Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) annouce a combined event with BCS Hants. A presentation by Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc: “The Zen of Free: Why Open Source is not a passing fad”. This event, as usual, is open to non-members (although non-BCS Hants members cannot vote at the BCS Hants AGM being held prior to the combined event), is CPD assessed, free and requires no booking. Date: 22nd June 2006 Time: 7pm (Finger Buffet 6.30pm) Venue: Chilworth Manor Hotel, Chilworth, Southampton, Hampshire SO16 7PT.

Talk abstract: “With companies like Sun, Novell and IBM switching to Open Source, it’s clearly about more than just “free stuff”. Hear about “social production”, how software gets written, where the money comes from and why this is just the first wave of a series of revolutions that will change society profoundly and permanently.” Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer, Sun Microsystems, has global responsibility for Sun’s Free/Open Source software strategy including OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and more. He has a deep interest in the nature and impact of networks and the social change they produce. Prior to his current role, he helped create blogs.sun.com and get Sun’s President blogging, worked at IBM Hursley where he helped introduce Java and XML, and has worked on video conferencing, X.25, run a Windows software business and programmed everything from PDAs to mainframes. Find out more at http://www.webmink.net/

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

For location details of the Chilworth Manor Hotel please visit: http://www.chilworth-manor.co.uk

OSSG AGM Aftermath: New Committee Elected and Successful Question Time Event

 in OSSG Article / OSSG News  tagged article by (updated 1758 days ago)

The BCS OSSG Annual General Meeting was held as planned on Tuesday 30th May 2006 in London. A new committee was elected and was followed by an interesting “Question Time” event featuring Alan Cox, Glyn Moody, Mark Taylor and Andrew Katz.

For full details of the panellists, please see the AGM announcement

Points raised in the panel discussion included the enforceability of the GPL; the impact of GPL version 3; the problems and successes of Open Source software in the media; the impact of the Office of Government Commerce gateway reports on the deployment of Open Source in the public sector; issues surrounding the use of the term “Intellectual Property Rights”; the relationship between Open Access (in science and academia) and Open Source plus much more. A recording (podcast?) of this event is available.

From left, Alan Cox, Mark Taylor, Glyn Moody and Andrew Katz

OSSG's own Gang Of Four

The new committee is composed as follows:

Chair
Paul Adams
Vice-Chair
Peter Murray
Secretary
Malcolm Kendall
Treasurer
Mark Elkins
Webmaster
David Nutter
Without Portfolio
Graham Oakes, Andy Halsall and Conrad Taylor

Unfortunately an Events Coordinator was not elected at this meeting.

Open Source is for real and is for you

 in OSSG Events by (updated 6512 days ago)

Speaker : Sebastian Rahtz, OSS Watch Open source is about licensing, about development methodology, and about attitude. This talk will explain how these interact, and what the practical effect is for those choosing software to solve a problem. We will look at practical open source solutions in different areas, and consider the common issues which arise. Sebastian Rahtz is director of OSS Watch, the open source advisory service funded by the JISC to advise higher and further education. He is also Information Manager for Oxford University Computing Services, where he pursues XML issues with vigour. He has been involved in open source and free software for 20 years, as a long-time evangelist for the TeX typesetting system, and now for the Text Encoding Initiative. There is no charge for this meeting, but please register, by email, so that we have some idea of the numbers expected. Registration/Information: Karin McVicar karin.mcvicar@bcs.org.uk

For more information, visit http://aberdeen.bcs.org/open_source.html

What
Meeting
When
2006-05-31 from 18:30 to 21:00
Where
Room C47, The Robert Gordon University, St Andrews St, Aberdeen
Name
Karin McVicar
Contact Email
karin.mcvicar@bcs.org.uk

OSSG AGM 2006

 in OSSG Events by (updated 6512 days ago)

The Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) announce a date of Tuesday, 30th May 2006 for the 2006 Annual General Meeting (AGM) plus event. For further details please see https://ossg.bcs.org/organisation/website/news/agm2006

What
Meeting
When
2006-05-30 from 17:30 to 20:30
Where
BCS Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA
Name
Mark Elkins
Contact Email
mark_elkins@bcs.org
Contact Phone
023 80 319560

OSSG AGM 2006 – London, Tuesday 30th May 2006 1

 in OSSG News by (updated 6544 days ago)

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