Saturday 27th October 2012

Venue: BCS, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA (http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/london-office-guide.pdf)

What is an unconference?

An unconference is a conference where what happens is organized by the delegates on the day. The event organizers have to arrange something, the main one being a venue, but the rest is down to the delegates. So all the hassle of talk submissions, review and scheduling is taken away.

Typically at the start of the day everyone gets up in turn and says who they are, what their interests are and what they’d like to do. Based on this people write proposals on Post-It notes and stick these on a board. A moderator may read out the proposals in turn to gauge interest, and if sufficient the proposal will be put on a scheduling board (delegates may adjust the schedule to avoid clashes, etc.).

The unconference starts… Experience shows that the unconference format results in high quality sessions focussed on what delegates want.

Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

Why attend?

There are lots of reasons to attend the OSSG/FLOSS UK Unconference 2012, including:
* Keep abreast with new/emerging technologies
* Network with some of the people who are responsible for developing critical applications
* Become part of the UK Open Source community – build up informal relationships that can be invaluable in problem solving

Benefit from the experience of delegates with similar interests

For more information see: http://www.flossuk.org/unconf2012

The BCS Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) will be holding a detailed event around the future of HM Government Desktop/Client side computing at the BCS Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA (http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/london-office-guide.pdf) on Wednesday 4th April 2012, from 1000 to 1700 hours.

Rationale for this event

With HM Government looking with renewed vigour at its computer systems and in particular what benefits open source may bring, this event intends to take a detailed look at what HMG Desktop/Client side computing may consist of in the near future. For example should it be based primarily around web services where accessible would not be platform dependent so that for instance Civil Servants can load whatever operating system they like on to an HMG funded laptop. Alternatively could the future follow more closely the success (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/limux-munich-linux-migration-project-reports-success) of the City of Munich using the Limux operating system based around Ubuntu Linux 10.10 or perhaps should some form of rigidly controlled thin client system running off of blade servers be used.

Another possible way forward is through the use of what has been termed the ‘Jigsaw approach’ where business applications are all fully vendor independent of each other and can be swapped from one product to another with relative ease. For instance one Office Suite or Browser product might be used for say 6 months and therefore form part of the HMG desktop for that period of time, but can easily be changed for another product after that period of time.

This bookable event is free and open to all with buffet and refreshments (Breakfast served from 0930, Lunch from around 1300, Afternoon Tea and Cakes from 1530, Wine and Nibbles from around 1700). To book a place to attend please email Mark Elkins at mark_elkins@bcs.org

The Speakers

Gerry Gavigan, Chair, Open Source Consortium (OSC), http://www.opensourceconsortium.org

Chris Kenyon, VP Sales & Business Development, Canonical http://www.canonical.com/about-canonical/overview/management-team Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu. Chris has had the privilege of being responsible for Canonical’s  commercial engagements with industry partners Dell, HP, Intel and ARM and has helped lead commercial growth of the company over the last five years.  Chris spends much of time on the road with customers in North America, Europe and China.  His present role spans commercial engagements with both end customers and industry partners.

Event Abstract:
– What do desktops of the future look like?
– How do we give civil servants, health-care professionals, teachers and the armed services access to the tools, they need?
– How would an alternative HMG desktop look like?
– Learning from large Linux deployments globally:
– What are some of the best practices for using Linux desktops and proprietary software together?
– What are some of the obstacles that large non-Microsoft desktop deployments face?
– Is a bring your own device culture an opportunity or a threat to the HMG desktop?

Steve Lamb, Open Source Strategy Lead, Microsoft UK. Steve works with Open Source developers, communities and business leaders to enable & encourage a growing ecosystem of Open Source projects on Microsoft technologies including Windows Azure. Steve is a technologist with solid business and communications experience who’s worked at Microsoft for the last ten years with the previous ten being specialised in UNIX. He thrives on breaking down unnecessary barriers, working with amazing people to understand complicated problems and helping communities be more successful. He has paid great attention to cloud technologies (and social media) for many years. Steve has spoken at major conferences around Europe including TechEd – he’s not “a speaker” by trade.

Event Abstract: Hands up who’d like to use a computer that takes forever to boot, is inflexible, obsolete and expensive? Anyone? No I thought not! Sadly this is the reality for users of the current HMG standard desktop. It really doesn’t have to be this way. My peers will present a range of alternative Open Source platforms. Open Source runs REALLY WELL on Windows Client, Server and in the (Azure) cloud. A MODERN version of Windows can give a MUCH BETTER experience though changing the desktop Operating System is only part of the solution. Having a sensible configuration is critical. Keeping it up to date is key. Keeping costs down is important. Freeing people to work HOW THEY WORK BEST is critical.

Richard Melville, Systems Architect, runs Cellularity (cellularity.co.uk), a company committed to developing and producing the “Stellar System”, a small, silent, user-friendly, distributed desktop system running only free software. Interested in electronics at an early age, and designing transistor radios for fun, Richard first worked in the telecoms industry. Moving on to machine control and thyristor-driven dockside equipment he then decided to take time out and took a Sociology degree at Essex University. On leaving University he ran a PCB design company before joining Racal Electronics, a founder member of Vodafone, when the company was working on installing the UK’s first mobile phone network.

Event Abstract: The landscape of the computer desktop is changing fast, driven in part by the rapid developments taking place in the mobile arena.  Howling towers stuffed under office desks, running proprietary software, and creating an unpleasant noisy working environment are giving way to smaller, more energy-efficient systems.  Over the years we have seen vacillations between server-client to peer-to-peer and back again.  With the proliferation of cheap multi-core processors the time is now right for small distributed desktop systems.  With the low power consumption of such systems and the advancement of battery technology there is the potential of freeing the desktop from the constraints of the mains electricity supply.

Tariq Rashid, Lead Architect HOIT Technology Solutions & Assurance, Home Office, HM Government, explaining the “jigsaw” model and its suggested benefits.

Sam Tuke is UK Coordinator for the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). He has been using, developing, and promoting Free Software since 2003, organised and spoken at conferences in Sweden, Britain, and Germany, and is currently working on the Document Freedom Day 2012 campaign for Open Standards.

Event Abstract: Public bodies in Europe and beyond are making use of Free Software in a major way. From Munich City Council, to the schools and universities of Brazil, to the local authorities of Belgium, Free Software is providing new solutions in highly competitive public sector markets. Sam will introduce the most interesting of these deployments, and discuss why Free Software was chosen in each case and what benefits it brought. The talk will conclude with an exploration of the advantages that Free Software can offer to the British public sector.

Jan Wildeboer,Open Source Evangelist, Red Hat

Event Abstract: Building the New Now with Open Standards and Open Source – After a short definition of terms we will go through the history, present and possible future of solutions based on open principles. We will revisit some of the early projects that have worked and more importantly those that didn’t work to learn from their failure.

This is the 3rd of several planned events being hosted by the Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) that considers Open Source knowledge/skills gaps across HM Government with a Panel of Open Source Software suppliers. Part 3: Discuss the skills required to do open source enterprise resource planning (ERP) will be held at the BCS Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA (http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/london-office-guide.pdf) on Monday 31st October 2011, from 1800 to 2100 hours.

This bookable event is free and open to all with buffet and refreshments. To book a place to attend please contact Mark Elkins via mark_elkins@bcs.org

The format will be a question time, where the panel will be asked a question after which the audience will be invited to participate.

Rationale for this event

With many private and public startup companies emerging from public sector reorganisations, for instance in primary healthcare, there is a need to quickly automate administrative functions to keep costs to a minimum. Enterprise Resource Planning systems don’t just produce accounts, the provide agile front and back office processes required by most organisations. The panel will comprise platforms and partner companies from the open source ERP market invited companies support OpenERP, OpenBravo, OpenTAPS, Mamut, SQLLedger.

Panel

Chair Mark Elkins, OSSG

Michael Judd, Akuna Ltd

Alberto Lobrano, CEO of Integrating web srl. Partners of Opentaps for europe and middle east.

Eckhard Schwarzat, ValueDecision Ltd

Malcolm Newbury of Guildfoss will give an overview of the Questions (set out below) to be considered by a Panel of Open Source Software suppliers and the assembled audience.

Questions

1. Introduction : Who are you, company, platform, features?

2. Typical jobs: What does a typical sales, delivery, maintenance process look like?

3. Skills: What are the typical profiles of users/developers?

4. Sourcing/Training: What’s on offer, what is the market like?