Support


The prime directive of the BCS Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) is to support activities related to open data, software, and hardware. 

In that regard, the OSSG provides various levels of support to institutions and community activities. Our goal is to support the respective institutions and community as much as possible while preserving their identity and independence. On this page, we list our current affiliations and support efforts.

Affiliated Institutions

Here is a list of institutions who we are affiliated with. Each partner has its own level of support that suits its needs best.

OpenUK

Not-for-profit company representing the interests of open source business in the UK.

Level of support: Sister organisation

OSHUG

The community for open source hardware in the UK. Their meetings are all held jointly with BCS OSSG.

Level of support: Co-organised activities (ChipHack, OSHCamp)

Affiliated Community Activities

We are supporting or hosting regular events for open source communities. Here is a list of our current community activities and events.

London RISC-V Meetup

A quarterly gathering focusing on RISC-V.

Next meeting: 19th July 2021

The Rust London Community

A monthly meet-up focusing on the Rust language.

Next meeting: 19th August 2021

For more information about our affiliation with Rust, see our affiliation with Rust page.

Open Invitation

We welcome community activities and institutions to affiliate with us. Are you interested in affiliating with the OSSG? Please contact us here.

The general levels of support we offer are listed below. Note that the list is not exhaustive and we are generally flexible.

How We Support Our Partners

There are several ways we support our partners. Here is a list of what we offer.

  • Co-organizing of events
    • Joint organisation for an event.
    • Examples: RUST London meetup, RISC-V London meetup
  • Hosting joint events
    • We can offer physical and virtual meeting spaces, including access to the London office of the BCS with great audiovisual capabilities and live-streaming.
  • Promoting events
  • Letters of endorsement
    • We can provide a letter of support from the OSSG committee members as IT professionals.
  • Support of events
    • Examples: OSHCamp, ChipHack

Examples for co-organized/supported occasional events

From time to time, we support or host one-off events for Open Source communities. Here are some we have done in recent years.

ChipHack 2018

A weekend workshop introducing FPGA design. It was held jointly with OSHUG to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the BCS.

OpenChain UK Working Group

BCS OSSG hosted the inaugural meeting in London in 2020.

OSHCAMP 2015-

An annual UK festival of all things open-source hardware. Held as part of the Wuthering Bytes festival.

PkgSrcCon 2019

The NetBSD conference hosted by BSC OSSG London.