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

The Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) gives advance notice of a special visit being made from Brussels by Ciarán O’Riordan of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to give a talk about Free Software and threats such as Software Patents. In addition Gareth Bowker will give a short speech about Copyright Laws and Open Source Software. This event will be held on Friday 7th April 2006 from 6.30pm at the British Computer Society (BCS) Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA. To book a place at this event please email your details to mark_elkins@bcs.org

Ciarán O’Riordan currently works full-time for the FSFE to “…build awareness about free software” and “…within the political system of the European Union to ensure that free software is not harmed by new legislation”.

Ciarán believes “…everyone should should have the right to study, modify, and share the software that they use. These rights enable people to help themselves, and to cooperate with others”.

For more information about Ciarán please visit his homepage at: http://ciaran.compsoc.com/

Gareth Bowker works for Ambersail Limited, a Network Security consultancy based in Warrington, who provide protection of online web applications, supporting infrastructure and brand assets. Gareth is also FSFE’s representative in the UK.

This meeting 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.

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.

Those interested in related topics to this event might like to browse through our discussions forum at https://ossg.bcs.org/forum/issues

There are many interconnections between Open Source Software and Agile development methods. Open source applications are often developed using agile methods. Many of the tools used by agile developers are open source. Adewale Oshineye from Thoughtworks (www.thoughtworks.co.uk) will discuss some of these interconnections at the British Computer Society (BCS) Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA, on Tuesday 25 April, starting at 6pm.

PRESENTATION SUMMARY

Agile software development methodologies and the practices of open source software development are two sides of the same coin. This presentation will show that the distinction between the two is blurring into irrelevance as both movements become firmly entrenched in the corporate world. I will highlight the common values, tools and techniques that are redefining both the mainstream and the state of the art in software development. I also hope to spark a debate about the ways in which we can adapt to and profit from these changes.

How will the nature of open source development teams change once they start doing things that only corporations could do before?

What are the conseqences for project management and software development roles in corporate teams in this brave new world?

What role is there for vendors and certifying institutions in the face of these challenges from the grass-roots ?

SHORT BIO

Adewale Oshineye is a Consultant at ThoughtWorks UK. He has been trying to bridge open source software development and agile methodologies for the last 6 years. One day he hopes to get it right.

Ade spent 2 years providing J2EE consultancy and training across the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands as part of the Paris-based Alpha CSP (now Softeam) group. Since joining TW he has built point of sale software, reporting systems and credit derivatives trading platforms in agile teams using open source tools where possible.

When he’s not presenting at conferences Ade can be found at an un-named hedge fund.

Ade is also co-authoring a book on Apprenticeship Patterns ( http://redsquirrel.com/dave/work/a2j/ ) which will make the career lessons learned by experienced developers available to more people.

LOGISTICS

The event will be held at the British Computer Society (BCS) Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA, on Tuesday 25 April, starting at 6pm.

To register for this event, please email your details to ossg@grahamoakes.co.uk.

The Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) annouces its first event for Spring 2006 – An overview of Open Source Licensing: Obligations that licences, do or do not, place on users, distributors and modifiers of Open Source Software given by guest speaker Andrew Katz a solicitor with specialist legal firm Moorcrofts. This event will be held on Thursday 2nd March 2006 from 6.30pm at the British Computer Society (BCS) Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA.

Prior to becoming a lawyer Andrew Katz was a software developer who has released code under the General Public Licence (GPL). After a 15 year wait, version 3 of the GPL has finally been released as a discussion draft and Andrew will include some interesting points about this in his talk.

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.

To register for this event please send an email to Paul Adams at padams@ossg.bcs.org stating your interest. This meeting is open to all and membership of the BCS is not required to attend. Refreshments and a buffet will be available during the evening.

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.

Those interested in related topics to this event might like to browse through our discussions forum at https://ossg.bcs.org/forum/issues