Speaker and Session Details

by Amir Nettler on 17 September 2008

Introduction

Ross Gardler

10:10 - 10:50 What is Open Development?

Abstract

Open development is a way for distributed team members to collaboratively develop a shared resource in a managed and sustainable way. This talk will introduce the idea of open development, looking at community, the sustainability of a project, and mechanisms that are necessary to foster a successful open development project. It will be argued that, for a community to grow around a project, steps must be taken from a project’s inception to ensure this can occur.

Biography

Ross Gardler is the manager of OSS Watch, the JISC funded open source advisory service to UK HE and FE. Ross has a long history of engagement with open source, both as a consumer and a developer. He is a member of The Apache Software Foundation, a position of merit given in recognition of significant contributions to the success of the Foundation. Prior to taking up his post in OSS Watch Ross was an independent contractor assisting companies engaging with open source products.

Gianugo Rabellino

10:50 - 11:30 The Power of Community-Led Development

Abstract

Communities at work: what’s under the hood?

As Open Source continues to grow, the role of communities is not to be underestimated. Communities are essential to thriving Open Source projects, as they provide much more than peer-review and bug-spotting eyeballs: fostering and nurturing communities is key to building sustainable open ecosystems. Knowing how to engage with communities is an essential step in producing or using Open Source software: in a word, communities are a key business asset for Open Source-savvy players. This talk will provide an inside look at the inner workings of the Apache Software Foundation, one of the largest Open Source and Open Development communities in the world. The Apache model will be thoroughly explained and compared to other relevant Open Source congregations such as Eclipse, Debian and Mozilla, as well as to significant industry driven gatherings such as OpenSolaris, MySQL and others.

Biography

Gianugo Rabellino is Chief Executive Officer of Sourcesense, Europe’s leading Open Source systems integrator. He has been at the forefront of the Open Source movement in Europe, founding the first official Italian Linux organization in 1994, and launching Orixo, the consortium of European Open Source companies. A Member of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), Rabellino serves as Vice President of the Apache XML Project Management Committee, is a committer on several ASF projects including Cocoon, Xindice, and Jackrabbit, as well as mentor of the River and CouchDB projects currently in development at the ASF Incubator. His highly charismatic presentations on topics such as Enterprise Open Source adoption, next-generation opportunities in Open Source, and building Open Development communities draws enthusiastic audiences at all levels at industry-leading events including JavaOne, Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise, and ApacheCon.

Simon Mather

11:45 - 12:30 Barriers to Community

Abstract

The Open Source community represents a commendable business model for software development based on transparency, quality and a commitment to standards adoption. So if Open Source communities are so effective, why is it that we continue to speak of “growth” and “adoption” in relation to them? Is this a niche approach to business or is the tide turning in favour of Open Source business development? This session will discuss the implications of Open Source communities across a spectrum of businesses and will attempt to identify the barriers and available avenues which organisations may encounter when considering their future relationship with them.

Biography

Simon is responsible for architecture and development of the companies financial systems and its flagship online learning system “learndirect”. This is a long standing and highly successful service funded by the UK Government to compliment more traditional educational methods. With more than 2 million registered learners it is quoted as being the largest online learning system in the world.