[Bradford] Joint OSHUG/BCS OSSG meeting in Sheffield.

[Andrew Back]

Hello,

Just wanted to let folks know about an event that will be taking place
in Sheffield a week on Thursday that may be of interest. It's a joint
Open Source Hardware User Group and BCS Open Source Specialist Group
meeting hosted at SHU, with a series of talks on the theme of open
source in business.

Appreciate it's a bit of a trek, but should be interesting!

Cheers,

Andrew

//

Event #37 — Open Source in Business

22nd January 2015, 17:30 - 20:30 at Owen Lecture Theatre, 1028 Owen
Building, Sheffield Hallam University, Howard Street, Sheffield, S1
1WB.

  Registration: http://oshug.org/event/37

An evening of talks exploring different commercial aspects of open
source — hardware and software — including crowdfunding an open
hardware microenterprise, navigating licensing issues, trade
associations, and building a business on free software.

Hosted in conjunction with the BCS Open Source Specialist Group.

— Open Source Consortium - an introduction

OSC is a trade association which represents companies and individuals
delivering solutions and advice based on Open Standards and Free &
Open Source Software.

As a trade association, OSC gives its members greater influence than
they could achieve alone by providing a collective voice, and by
supporting initiatives such as the implementation of open standards in
public sector IT, the inclusion of open standards in school curricula
and levelling the gender balance in the industry. At the core of its
vision, OSC campaigns for the use of Open Standards in all aspects of
public and commercial life, promoting the unique advantages of Free &
Open Source Software and the independent expertise offered by members.

Irenie White has been Chair of the Open Source Consortium since 2013
after working with the organisation for 3 years. This year she was
appointed as MD of credativ, a free software consulting and services
company, after running operations there for 6 years. As a STEMNET
Ambassador and through her work with Advancing Women in IT, Irenie is
committed to supporting bottom-up growth in the wider technology
industry. Outside of work her family comes first, music a close
second.

— Notes from the first three months of an Open Source Microenterprise

 * How I learned to stop worrying and love the Kickstarter

Starting an Open Source Hardware business is lot of work, even if
you've spent 11 years running a different one. There are all sorts of
things you've forgotten about and there are a whole host of new
challenges as you try to do things the right way from the start. None
of it is easy, but all of it beats having a 9-5.

Benjamin Gray is a proponent of Open Hardware, founder of MeArm, an
open source robot arm manufacturer and phenoptix a recently retired
maker business. Ben graduated from the University of Exeter with a
chemistry degree and a fledgling phenoptix before moving to Nottingham
to complete a PhD in theoretical physical chemistry. With 11 years of
Maker business experience under his belt he's set out on a new
adventure manufacturing the MeArm, a pocket sized robot arm.

— But I didn't mean *that*

Accidents and incidents exploring relationships between corporations
and the licenses they use to share, from Creative Commons to GPL.

Paul Beech used his graphic and web design skills to co-found
Pimoroni, a maker company that does Raspberry Pi and Arduino stuff.
Code: open source. Hardware: less so.

— Giving it away: Free Software as a business strategy

Bytemark Hosting has been involved in building, fixing and publishing
Free Software since its foundation in 2002. Back then, free Software
was seen as an unquestionable part of a winning business strategy for
big firms, but within years firms that bet too much on it were brought
down to earth. Matthew Bloch, Bytemark's MD, narrates his own
company's successes, profitability and changes in strategy around this
important social movement.

Matthew Bloch is MD and co-founder of Bytemark Hosting, one of the
UK's oldest and best-respected hosting and cloud providers, with its
own data centre in York and staff of 23. Previous to Bytemark Matthew
worked as a programmer on several Java virtual machines, and the PC
emulator for Acorn computers.

Compered by:

Gareth Halfacree is a freelance technology journalist and the
co-author of the Raspberry Pi User Guide, alongside project co-founder
Eben Upton. He also writes the maker-centric Hobby Tech column for
Custom PC Magazine, as well as numerous features in magazines
including PC Pro, Linux User & Developer, Micro Mart, Computeractive
and others.

Formerly a system administrator working in the education sector,
Gareth's passion for open source projects has followed him from one
career to another and he can often be seen reviewing, documenting or
even contributing to projects including GNU/Linux, LibreOffice,
Fritzing and Arduino. He is also the creator of the Sleepduino and
Burnduino open hardware projects and numerous small software tools,
all released under permissive licences.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 17:45 as the first talk will start at
18:00 prompt.

-- 
Andrew Back
http://carrierdetect.com