Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts

04 July 2011

The Open Knowledge Foundation Comes of Age

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) was launched just over seven years ago:

May 24th 2004: The Open Knowledge Foundation was launched today with explicit objectives to promote the openness of all forms of knowledge where knowledge is taken to include information, data and all other synonymous terms. In particular

To promote freedom of access, creation and dissemination of knowledge.

To develop, support and promote projects, communities and tools that foster and facilitate the creation, access to and dissemination of knowledge.

To campaign against restrictions both legal and non-legal on the creation, access to and dissemination of knowledge.

On Open Enterprise blog.

08 November 2010

A Tale of Two Conferences

I was invited to give a talk at two recent conferences, the Berlin Commons Conference, and FSCONS 2010. It's generally a pleasure to accept these invitations, although I must confess that I found two major conferences with only two days between them a trifle demanding in terms of mental and physical stamina.

Indeed, both conferences were extremely stimulating, and I met many interesting people at both. However, more than anything, I was struck by huge and fundamental differences between them.

The Berlin Commons Conference was essentially the first of its kind, and a bold attempt to put the concept of the commons on the map. Of course, readers of this blog will already know exactly where to locate it, but even for many specialists whose disciplines include commons, the idea is still strange. The conference wisely sought to propel the commons into the foreground by finding, er, common ground between the various kinds of commons, and using that joint strength to muscle into the debate.

That sounded eminently sensible to me, and is something I have been advocating in my own small way (not least on this blog) for some time. But on the ground, achieving this common purpose proved much harder than expected.

In my view, at least, this was down largely to the gulf of incomprehension that we discovered between those working with traditional commons - forests, water, fish etc. - and the digital commons - free software, open content, etc. Basically it seemed to come down to this: some of the former viewed the latter as part of the problem. That is, they were pretty hostile to technology, and saw their traditional commons as antithetical to that.

By contrast, I and others working in the area of the digital commons offered this as a way to preserve the traditional, analogue commons. In particular, as I mentioned after my talk at the conference (embedded below), the Internet offers one of the most powerful tools for fighting against those - typically big, rich global corporations - that seek to enclose physical commons.


I must say I came away from the Berlin conference a little despondent, because it was evident that forming a commons coalition would be much harder than I had expected. This contrasted completely with the energising effect of attending FSCONS 2010 in Gothenburg.

It's not hard to see why. At the Swedish conference, which has been running successfully for some years, and now attracts hundreds of participants, I was surrounded by extremely positive, energetic and like-minded people. When I gave my talk (posted below), I was conscious that intentionally provocative as I was, my argument was essentially pushing against an open door: the audience, though highly critical in the best sense, were in broad agreement with my general logic.


Of course, that can make things too easy, which is dangerous if it becomes routine; but the major benefit of being confirmed in your prejudices in this way is that it encourages you to continue, and perhaps even to explore yet further. It has even inspired me to start posting a little more prolifically. You have been warned....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

30 October 2010

An Uncommon Conference on the Commons

Regular readers of this blog will know that the commons has been a major theme here for some years, since it offers an extremely fruitful way of looking at free software, open content and the other "opens". Recognition of the importance of the commons has been slow coming, but an important moment was when the doyenne of commons studies, Elinor Ostrom, won the Nobel Prize for Economics last year:

Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.

And now, building on that momentum, we have the Berlin Commons Conference:

The conference seeks to bring together a diverse group of about 150 international and Germany- and European-based commoners, intellectuals, activists and policy makers. It also aims to enhance participation and self-organization; stewardship, cooperation and networking; and open, non-linear ways to search for solutions.

Over the course of two days, the conference will assess the range of existing and potential commons-based policy approaches; develop the fundamentals of a policy framework that supports the commons; and identify and explore specific strategic opportunities to advance commons-based approaches.

The conference announcement elaborates: “The simple yet powerful and complex question to be explored throughout the conference is: What does a commons-based policy framework look like? What already exists and what do we still need to develop to nurture and protect diverse sorts of commons?”

As you can see from the list of participants, yours truly will also be attending. Apparently, there will be a live video stream of some of the sessions: not sure whether mine will be one of them. If it is, you can see me spouting my common commons nonsense around 11am CEST, 10am GMT.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

09 September 2010

Perfidious Albania

I've been very lucky in my travels. I've visited many of the obvious places, and quite a few of the less obvious ones, including exotica like Fiji, Samarkand and the Kashmir Valley. But one place I've never made it to is Albania.

Partly as a result of this failure - and partly for reasons to do with hearing about the country's wonderfully-named King Zog back in my schooldays - Albania has always fascinated me. So when the chance came up to combine two of the things I love doing - travelling and talking about free software - I was naturally delighted. Of course, there was no money involved, but travelling and accommodation expenses were covered, so I just needed to put together a presentation to "pay" for the trip.

This I duly did, leading with what I thought was a rather clever segue. For despite my impressions of Albania as a mysterious and exotic land, it turns out that not only does its population speak an Indo-European language - which is thus related to English (I knew that) - but that the very name "Albania" may have the same roots as my local "Albion" (which was news to me). This sharing of a common heritage let me lead very naturally into my main topic of sharing in the context of free software and beyond.

And thus it was, yesterday, just a few days before the conference this weekend, with my presentation - complete with witty segue - all ready to go, that I heard from the organisers that despite several emails assuring me to the contrary, they didn't have any money for my travel, and so wouldn't be paying for my flight tomorrow evening.

Which was a real pity, since I'd already bought the non-refundable ticket, after being assured - in writing - that I would be re-imbursed when I got there. The person who I had been dealing with kindly offered to pay for this out of his own pocket, but that obviously wouldn't have been fair on him: it was for the conference to find the money, not individuals.

Moreover, since the conference still seemed to have plenty of money to pay for other speakers at the conference (some of whom were coming from very far-flung - and hence expensive - parts), I could only assume that my talk wasn't really that crucial to the proceedings, and wouldn't really be missed if I didn't turn up.

I'd still love to visit Albania, which sounds a fascinating and fast-evolving place, but I don't think I'll be giving any talks while I'm there...

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

25 March 2010

The Indispensable Background Twitter?

Nice observation:

The other remarkable thing that happened at the conference took place during the three-strikes session. This was a parallel session held in a very small, hot and crowded room with no more than 20 attendees. The panel included several twitterers, and the audience was clearly following what promised to be an interesting discussion. The end result pretty much exemplified to me why Twitter has become a must-have at conferences. As this was an emotionally-charged topic, the tweets emanating from the room were soon picked up by various other users, so much so that at some point we had journalists and even a Member of Parliament making comments about what was being said. What transpired in the little room spawned claims and counter-claims elsewhere, and even led to the MP asking questions via Twitter.

I might be guilty of overstating the importance of the technology, but I truly think that there is something important happening with social media. Opening discussion to the wider public is not a bad thing.

As it happens, I was there too. Since I wasn't twittering, I missed much of this, but a look at the Twitter stream afterwards showed just how much was going on. Which suggests, perhaps, that even people who were taking part needed to be on Twitter in order to take part fully. Exciting stuff.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

26 March 2009

Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009

If open knowledge is your thing, London is the place, Saturday the time:

The Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) is back for its fourth installment bringing together individuals and groups from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of discussions workshops.

This year the event will feature dedicated sessions on open knowledge and development and on the semantic web and open data. Plus there's the usual substantial allocation of 'Open Space' -- sessions, workshops and discussions proposed either via the CFP or on the day
.
Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

03 November 2008

From Open... to Open Everything

You've read the blog, now visit the conference:

On 6 November 2008, London will host an Open Everything event, a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of 'open'. The conversation will cover, well, everything. Qualifier: the 'thing' in question is built using openness, participation and self-organisation. There are people coming to talk about open technology, media, education, workplace design, philanthropy, public policy and even politics. These people want to tell you what they’re doing and find out what you're up to.

Look at it this way: for fifteen quid you get a unique opportunity to heckle me....

10 September 2008

How Healthy are the Views of the BCS?

This morning I was giving a talk at the EFMI (European Federation for Medical Informatics) Special Topic Conference, held at the headquarters of the British Computer Society (BCS). It was interesting – well, for me, at least: I'm not sure what my victims in the audience thought of my usual ramblings on open source and openness...

On Open Enterprise blog.

14 March 2008

Usenix Conference Proceedings Free

Usenix is opening up:


All online conference proceedings are now freely available to everyone. This significant decision will allow universal access to some of the most important technical research in advanced computing. In making this move USENIX is setting the standard for open access to information, an essential part of its mission.

As far as I can tell, though, this is not free as in freedom, just free as in beer:

The Proceedings are published as a collective work, © 2008 by the USENIX Association. All Rights Reserved. Rights to individual papers remain with the author or the author's employer. Permission is granted for the noncommercial reproduction of the complete work for educational or research purposes.

(Via TechDirt.)

10 October 2007

Re-booting FOSS.IN

FOSS.IN is "India's premier FOSS event" (well, that's what they say.) So this is a brave move:


As we had explained, over and over: this is a FOSS developer and contributor conference. We are no longer a FOSS user conference.

As was mentioned last year - in the end FOSS is about Free and Open Source Software, and somebody needs to write that software.

FOSS.IN is about demolishing the contention that India is a land of FOSS consumers, with almost no contributors - that we only take, not give back.

Our objective is to enable and jumpstart more FOSS contributors from India.

But most people just don't seem to have understood that, and have submitted user oriented talks (even if they involve development).

...

To fix this, we are restarting the Call for Participation process.

As Open Source India rightly says:

I think it is about time that we stopped being a nation of downloaders and started "uploading." TCS releasing WANem as open source is among the great contributions coming out of India, but we need more contributions going upstream given that we produce almost 20 percent of the software developers in the world. Unless and until we start contributing, we cannot have a say in the development of technology.

I've always believed that India can become a real free software powerhouse: let's hope this bold move marks the first step towards that.

11 November 2006

Science Commons - the Conference

To late to go to this, of course, but it's interesting to see the science commons meme spreading. And there's always some yummy papers to console.

19 October 2006

Plone Goes Pltwo...

...as in Second Life:

The Plone Foundation announced today the broadcasting of the Plone Conference 2006 into the virtual world Second Life. It is the first big open source conference being colocated inside a virtual world. The event will be held from Oct 25-27

"We'll broadcast selected talks and tutorials each day into a virtual conference building inside Second Life. Residents who could not make it to the by-now sold-out conference can participate in virtual form. A back channel for their questions to the actual speaker will be provided, too"

And so the boundaries between RL (real life) and SL (Second Life) became just that tiny bit more friable....