Open for Business 2016, Mon 5th Sept

Mike Little, WordPress co-founder

Following the success of the inaugural event in 2015, the BCS Open Source Specialist Group and Open Source Consortium will for the second year host the Open for Business conference in September, running again as part of the Wuthering Bytes technology festival in Hebden Bridge.

This year the conference will aim to pick up where it left off in 2015, exploring some of the key themes associated with effective open source adoption. There will be a keynote from Mike Little, co-founder of WordPress, arguably one of the world’s most successful open source projects and one which 13 years on powers more than 26% of the Web. We will also hear from Maarten Ectors, Vice President of IoT at Canonical, on monetising open source from enterprise to government.

Mark Kent of BT will provide unique insights into guiding complex open source solutions through corporate procurement, using a real world BT network platform as an example. Dj Walker-Morgan will explain how the virtues of open source collaboration can be translated into how a company operates. While open source industry veteran, Mark Taylor, will share with us first-hand experience of the front lines and the realities of the market right now, with simple, market-tested advice.

Stuart Mackintosh will take a look at marketing in open source, with effective approaches for both the private and public sectors. Legal considerations are always a topic of much interest and we will hear from lawyer and FOSS legal expert, Matija Šuklje, about the relevant tools and initiatives to help you not just comply, but govern and cooperate with FOSS. Finally, Martin Callinan of Source Code Control will look at how you can create an environment for “Continuous Compliance”.

Following feedback from delegates at Open for Business 2015, the total number of talks has been reduced very slightly, in order to host interactive “clinic sessions” with the presenters over the course of an extended lunch break. In the evening immediately following the conference, Embecosm will also be hosting a networking event with an informal dinner at a local hostelry.

Those planning on attending Open for Business are encouraged to take a look at the full programme for Wuthering Bytes 2016, as there are likely to be other events of interest. Such as Open Source Hardware Camp, which runs over the weekend immediately before the conference, along with a day on open smart cities that will be hosted by ODI Leeds on Tuesday 6th September.

Finally, those with an interest in compiler and associated technologies may wish to consider attending the LLVM and GNU Tools Cauldron events later the same week.

For further information please see: