OpenUK Open Technology for Sustainability Day, Edinburgh, 16 November 2022

[Robbie Morrison]

Hello all

This posting is a bit off‑topic but equally there are some compelling linkages.

The UK‑based OpenUK organization is holding an Open Technology for Sustainability Day event in about two weeks time:

• Wednesday 16 November 2022
• Edinburgh, Scotland
• https://openuk.uk/sustainability
• no attendance fee
• electric vehicle (EV) charging software and standards to be covered

I have talked to Amanda Brock, who heads OpenUK (and who I know in passing), about open energy modeling in the context of open source and sustainability, but this particular theme is not one that fits under their current rubric unfortunately.

Those with half an hour to spare might wish to watch Amanda traverse some contemporary issues related to open source on YouTube:

• Brock, Amanda (21 October 2022). Keynote: State of Open — What we all need to know about the world and open source — Amanda Brock. YouTube video. 00:33:45.

Some points that I related too:

• open source is "not a business model" but rather a collection of methods, practices, attitudes, supportive tooling, and such
  
• near impossible these days to recruit young coders to work under previous proprietary software development methods
• the git utility is central to the story of open source success
  
• underpinning technical standards need to be genuinely open as "standards essential patents licensed under FRAND" simply do not work for open source
  
• "open source creates value but it is really difficult to measure" and was "traditionally [based on] total cost of ownership (TOC)"

And especially:

• "curation is the responsibility of the user and not the developer"
• open source is a "digital public good" and also widely used by some governments (the United Kingdom included) and OpenUK argues for state support

Some of the themes covered cross back quite easily to openmod activities. And although Amanda does not cover data, many of her points also translate more‑or‑less directly to open data as well.  Data is about a decade or so behind code in regards the shift to open.  It would be a pity not to learn from the open source journey in this context, but I see many of the hard lessons being faced from scratch.  Indeed it is worse than that in some jurisdictions, the European Union is clearly deficient and arguably hostile to genuinely open data of public interest.  Rather their flagship single digital market places data ownership and commercial transactions at the center of providing the best outcomes regarding individual and social value‑added and with no carve out for information of public interest.  The exact same arguments used to support the proprietary software model as I recall.

Amanda also offers some coverage of open source history.  Remember when Microsoft (normally abbreviated M$) was the most loathed corporate on the planet?  No longer and arguably the biggest contributor to open source projects these days!

with best wishes, Robbie

-- 
Robbie Morrison
Address: Schillerstrasse 85, 10627 Berlin, Germany
Phone: +49.30.612-87617