External Events

Category for external events (i.e. those not organised by the OSSG but relevant to it). Tag external event posts with this as well as OSSG Events


UKUUG Debian Packaging Tutorial with Phil Hands – London 19/05/11

http://www.ukuug.org/events/debian2011/

Debian Packaging Tutorial – 19th May 2011

Tutor: Phil Hands

Bookings now open!!

NOTE: All delegates should have a Debian system installed on their own laptop,
if only in a chroot, or a virtual machine. It should be possible to do this
from a Debian Live CD, or USB boot. Any delegate with an unusual Laptop,
should confirm prior to the tutorial.

Description: This is a one-day course that will assume very little Debian
specific knowledge, although attendees should have some familiarity with the
GNU/Linux shell command line. At the end of the course, each attendee will
have installed a build environment on their laptop, and understand how to
prepare packages suitable for upload to Debian, as well as how one prepares a
local repository for use in addition to the Debian archive.

Syllabus:

* Preparing a package from unpackaged sources
* Patching pre-existing packages
* The various packaging helpers, and packaging standards
* Packaging in conjunction with Version Control Systems
* Building in a clean environment, with Pbuilder and chums
* Setting up and maintaining a local repository, with authentication
* How to find out about the other specialised packaging methods in use

Other subjects will be explored on the route taken as each attendee assembles
a package building infrastructure on their machine, depending upon the
particular interests of those attending (within reason).

Tutor: Philip Hands is the owner of Hands.com Ltd, a Free Software consultancy
company based in London that has been providing commercial support for
GNU/Linux since 1993. In 1996 he joined the Debian Project, initially by
packaging rsync, and subsequently being responsible for packages including
ssh/openssh, qmail-src, mgetty. He also owns and runs the machine that hosts
ftp.uk.debian.org, was a member of the Debian Project’s System Administration
team for about a decade, was an early member of the Debian Policy editing
group, and wrote the auto-install portion of Debian-Installer (for easier
unattended installs). He’s been a member UKUUG since 1995 and a member of the
UKUUG Council since 2006. He’s also been an organiser of and sponsor for
DebConf (the annual Debian Conference) every year since DebConf7 in 2007,
which was held in Edinburgh, and was when he designed the Debian Tartan.

The tutorials take place at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, London WC1B
5BB, starting at 09:30 and ending at approx. 17:00

Early-Bird booking rates (until 21st April)

Individual/Academic Members rate: £199 inc VAT
Corporate Members rate: £250 inc VAT
Non-members rate: £300 inc VAT

Delegate fees above include am, pm breaks, lunch and a full set of tutorial
notes.


UKUUG & O’Reilly: Understanding Regular Expressions (properly) Tutorial – London 11/08/10

This one day tutorial will introduce beginner and intermediate Perl programmers to the full functionality of Perl’s regular expressions.
The day focuses on the pattern-matching features in Perl 5.6 and 5.8. The morning session explores the principles and mechanisms underlying all Perl regular expressions. You will see how the highly compact syntax of Perl patterns controls a built-in pattern-matching “engine” and learn how to design and construct Perl regexes to drive that engine efficiently. We will also look at the four principal uses of regexes in Perl, discussing a number of uniquely Perlish regex idioms. By lunch time, Perl’s regexes will no longer seem like a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in line-noise.

See http://www.ukuug.org/events/Regexes for more information and booking form


External event: Leveraging Open Source Software for Commercial Advantage

Andrew Katz has asked us to pass on details of the above event. Apologies for the short notice!

Andrew Katz, partner at Moorcrofts, and a former programmer himself, will be giving a brief presentation on the practical steps that companies can take to avoid the “viral” issues that many people perceive to be an issue with open source software, and will demonstrate that by taking some simple steps, companies can take advantage of the vast pool of high quality software code and use it to their own commercial advantage, after which he and the rest of the Moorcrofts team will be available to discuss the issues, and there will also be an opportunity to network over a pint and some nibbles.

When
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 6:00 PM (GMT+0100)
Where
George and Dragon The Causeway (Lower High Street)
SL7 2AA Marlow
United Kingdom

Further details at http://moorcrofts.eventbrite.com/


2nd Call for Papers: OpenCert 2010

4th International Workshop on Foundations and Techniques for OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE CERTIFICATION

Location and date
Pisa, Italy – 17-18 September 2010
Satellite Event to SEFM 2010
Website
http://opencert.iist.unu.edu/
Submission deadline
28 June, 2010

News


A special issue of Science of Computer Programming with selected papers is planned.
A final decision on this issue depends on the number and quality of the submissions.

CONTEXT & OBJECTIVES

Over the past decade, the Open Source Software (OSS) phenomenon has had a global impact on
the way software systems and and software-based services are developed, distributed and deployed.
Widely acknowledged benefits of OSS include reliability, low development and maintenance costs,
as well as rapid code turnover. Linux distributions, Apache and MySQL serve, among many other examples,
as a testimony to its success and resilience.

However, state-of-the-art OSS, by the very nature of its open, unconventional, distributed
development model, make software quality assessment, let alone full certification, particularly
hard to achieve and raises important challenges both from the technical/methodological and
the managerial points of view.

This makes the use of OSS, and, in particular, its integration within complex industrial-strength
applications, with stringent security requirements, a risk. And, simultaneously an opportunity and
a challenge for rigourous, mathematically based, methods in software analysis and engineering.

In such a context, the aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers from academia and industry
who are broadly interested in the quality assessment of open source software projects, ultimately leading
to the establishment of coherent certification processes, at different levels.

Following the success of the three previous editions (colocated to ETAPS’07, in Braga, and OSS’08,
at IFIP WCC, in Milan, and ETAPS’09, in York), the workshop will focus on formal methods and
model-based techniques that appear promising to facilitate OSS certification.
Both foundational, methodological and pragmatic issues will be addressed, through both standard
technical communications and reports on concrete case-studies and experimental data.

CONTRIBUTIONS

Contributions are expected to foster a broad debate on OSS assessment and certification, integrating
techniques and elements from areas as different as

  • product and process certification
  • certification standards
  • formal modelling and verification (model checking and theorem proving)
  • software quality and reverse engineering
  • static analysis, testing and inspection
  • safety, security and usability certification
  • language design and evolving systems
  • automated source code analyses
  • empirical studies

SUBMISSION

The two-day workshop will feature invited talks, a pannel discussion and contributed
paper presentations. All contributions, in the form of either full technical papers,
between 10 and 16 pages, or short position papers, will undergo a peer-review process.
All papers should be written in English and in ECEASST format.

Detailed information on the submission procedure are available at http://opencert.iist.unu.edu

PUBLICATION

Accepted papers will be published in Electronic Communications of the EASST (ECEASST)
A special issue of Science of Computer Programming with selected papers is planned.
A final decision on this issue depends on the number and quality of the submissions.

IMPORTANT DATES

  • Abstract submission: 21 June, 2010
  • Paper submission deadline: 28 June, 2010
  • Acceptance notification: 27 July, 2010
  • Final version due: 14 August, 2010

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

  • B. Aichernig, Graz, Austria
  • A. Abdurahmanovic, PrimeKey, Sweden
  • L. Barbosa, Minho, Portugal (co-chair)
  • A. Capiluppi, East London, UK
  • A. Cerone, UNU-IIST, Macau, SAR China (co-chair)
  • G. Ciobanu, A.I. Cuza, Romania
  • E. Damiani, Milano, Italy
  • J. Davies, Oxford, UK
  • R. di Cosmo, Paris Diderot, France
  • F. Fabbrini, ISTI-CNR, Italy
  • M. J. Frade, Minho, Portugal
  • J. Fisteus, Madrid Carlos III, Spain
  • D. Ghica, Birmingham, UK
  • T. Janowski, UNU-IIST, Macau, SAR China
  • P. Krishnan, Bond, Australia
  • P. Milazzo, Pisa, Italy
  • J. Miranda, Multicert, Portugal
  • J. Noll, LERO, Ireland
  • A. Petrenko, ISP-RAS, Russia
  • S. Pickin, Madrid Carlos III, Spain
  • S. Shaikh, Coventry, UK (co-chair)
  • S. K. Sowe, UNU-MERIT, The Netherlands
  • R. Treinen, Paris Diderot, France
  • J. Visser, SIG, The Netherlands
  • D. von Oheimb, Siemens, Germany
  • T. Vos, UP Valencia, Spain
  • A. Wasserman, CMU, USA

CONTACTS

opencert-2010@iist.unu.edu


OSS-Watch TransferSummit – Oxford, 24-25/06/10

TransferSummit, Oxford, 24-25 June 2010 This summer, OSS Watch is sponsoring a major open source conference, aiming to connect academia with open source businesses.  The main conference will be held over two days, 24-25 June 2010, at Keble College Oxford. Covering topics within both academia and business, the event will try to identify areas of activity of mutual interest, looking at how the two sectors can engage with each other. Registration is now open.

OSS-Watch BarCamp – Oxford 26/06/10

BarCamp Oxford, 26 June 2010 [Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:32:49 +0100] OSS Watch has teamed up with Torchbox to run a BarCamp at the Oxford University Club in Oxford in 26 June 2010. In keeping with the concept of a BarCamp this is an informal, geeky event where delegates can set their own agenda for discussions. This BarCamp follows on from the TransferSummit taking place in Oxford over the previous few days so we hope to see some of the conference delegates staying on for the BarCamp but you don’t need to have been to the conference to join in the fun. Why not sign up today!

UKUUG Open Tech 2010 – London 11/09/10

Open Tech 2010
11th September, from UKUUG

Sponsored by data.gov.uk

Open Tech 2010 is an informal, low cost, one-day conference on slightly different approaches to technology, politics and justice.

What do you work on that more people should know about in any 2 (or more) of our areas?

What have you heard about recently, that you think more people should know about?

OpenTech is as much about conversations in the bar, as it is sitting in sessions; what topics would you like to be discussed with a range of people? The best way of getting the OpenTech audience to think about the challenges you have is by sharing what they are and solutions you’ve already found: by offering a talk.

Are there community projects that you work on that would benefit from more support and different views? Are you working on problems that you think others might help solve?

Offer a talk online at www.ukuug.org/opentech or email opentech@ukuug.org and we’ll have a chat. If you can get us
submissions (even just outline submissions) by the 1st of May, that’d be grand.

*What is OpenTech 2010?*
– Open Tech 2010 is an informal, low cost, one-day conference on slightly different approaches to technology, politics and justice

What’s the day going to have?
– Technology
– Politics
– Justice
– what do you want to talk about?

*What do we need?*
– Proposals from people who want to give a presentation, run a panel, organise a tutorial, or run a demo of something new and interesting on something that they think matters or getting people to help.

– Publicity – please blog this announcement, write a newspaper article, forward to mailing lists, and tell your friends!

What topics do we hope to cover?
– Justice: Civil, Social, Environmental, Criminal, Legal, other.
– Community engagement
– Democracy 2.0
– Mashups, open data and uses
– Future of media and distribution
– Disaster politics and technology
– Highlights, lowlights and lessons learnt
– Long term thinking on big problems and massive opportunities
– Tutorials & Workshops – share what you know

– If you’ve got an interesting proposal that doesn’t fit into any of the categories above, please send it in anyway!

What have we already got talks or sessions about?
– Rewired State
– Where now for Open Video? from visionon.tv
– mySociety
– What’s next after the General Election?

We’re still looking for more talks on all our topics, so if you want to offer something, we’re waiting to hear your ideas.

*How do I submit a proposal?*
– Online form via http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2010/offer
– Deadline for submissions is midnight on Tuesday 1st June 2010

*Can I buy or reserve a ticket to the event?*

– Register at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2010/list and we’ll email you nearer the time with more information

*Any other questions?*

Read the Submission page or email opentech@ukuug.org

More information at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2010/

— the OpenTech 2010 organisers
(David, Emily, Sam)
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2010/


Alfresco Meetup: London

We’ve recently received word that the creators of the Alfresco Open Source content management system are holding a “Meetup” event at the Park Plaza, Victoria, London. The organisers provided the following description:

The Meetups cover a range of open source topics, and are designed to inform and educate the community on all the latest company news. Some Alfresco Customer speakers from last year included the CIO’s from Islington and the North London Waste Authority, and Alfresco is planning more customer speakers for the events this year.

For further details please see http://www.alfresco.com/about/events/2010/04/ukmeetup/