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Stefan Merten | 1 Jul 2011 18:55
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[ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011

Hi list!

I'm just going home from `OKCon 2011`_ in Berlin. I have to say it was
really a great conference and I'm really happy that I were there.
Knowing what organizing conferences like this means I'd like to say a
big thank you to the organizers.

I don't have exact numbers but would think that about 200 people
attended the conference.

The conference was rather big in terms of program. For two days there
were five parallel tracks from 10:00-20:00. A regular slot for a
presentation was only 30 minutes unfortunately so beyond some
superficial questions there was no room to discuss the things
presented. Also there were no time in the schedule between the
sessions so it was always a hurry to change rooms. As a result
everyone was in a constant hurry which made it difficult to talk to
each other.

Well, critique aside. As I said the conference was really great. The
program_ did not contain only OKFN core topics but for instance had
many presentations about Open Hardware. I attended some of them and
for me they were the most exciting ones.

Since this conference I'm convinced that the Open Hardware stuff will
be the next big thing in peer production. I'm watching peer production
since twelve years now and this branch of peer production is gaining
more and more momentum during the last years. There seem to be really
a lot of hackers out there who really want to hack that mechanical
stuff.
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Robin Green | 2 Jul 2011 10:10
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Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011

On Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:55:41 +0200, Stefan Merten <smerten@...> wrote:
> When I compare the current state of what I see in Open Hardware
> movement with the history of Free Software then I'd say we are
> somewhere around 1987. I.e. the Linux kernel has not yet been invented
> and it's still twelve years until the general breakthrough of this
> stuff. I'm really curious what will happen here.

A side note: there is another parallel here. Before Richard Stallman
evangelised the term "free software" with his specific meaning in mind,
source code was frequently passed around between universities - and even
by AT&T - without proprietary software licenses attached. This was
simply done as a matter of course, without perhaps much thought, as the
economic value of exploiting proprietary software either had not been
conceived of or was not of interest.

Similarly, I don't know much about the history of open hardware -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware doesn't even have a
section on it! - but I think that freely implementable schematics and
tutorials in magazines like Popular Electronics and others, would count
as early "open hardware", without the name attached. And without the
same awareness of being part of a social movement. (But perhaps I'm
wrong, and perhaps the awareness of the potential of open hardware that
we have now was realised by some hardware hackers very early on!)

I'd be very surprised if there were not other such examples.

Regards,
Robin
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
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Stefan Merten | 19 Jul 2011 08:24
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Open Hardware taking off (was: Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011)

Hi Robin and all!

2 weeks (17 days) ago Robin Green wrote:
> A side note: there is another parallel here. Before Richard Stallman
> evangelised the term "free software" with his specific meaning in mind,
> source code was frequently passed around between universities - and even
> by AT&T - without proprietary software licenses attached. This was
> simply done as a matter of course, without perhaps much thought, as the
> economic value of exploiting proprietary software either had not been
> conceived of or was not of interest.

Yes, but I understood this is rather an anti-parallel than a parallel.
As one participant told in the universities the young engineers are
urged to *not* share stuff. If so there is a cultural difference here
which may be a relevant topic.

However, I think that for creative activities it's *always* more
useful to share ideas and designs. In other words: you can produce
better stuff if you apply the principles of peer production. This is
why I'm confident that sharing will spread in engineering, too.
Following the Marxian point that the new possibilities of the new mode
of production will break through.

At the moment I see one big difference: for Free Software or other
peer production around information goods the means of production -
minds, computers, Internet - are ubiquitous meanwhile. This is not the
case for Open Hardware - but Open Hardware people are busily working
on this! I'm convinced that if the means of production for Open
Hardware are as ubiquitous as those for information goods we will see
a next step here. May be the analogon to the Linux kernel will be a
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Paul Cockshott | 2 Jul 2011 10:48
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Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011

I think your point about published schematics is very Right.

Paul

--- original message ---
From: "Robin Green" <greenrd@...>
Subject: Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011
Date: 2nd July 2011
Time: 9:10:29 am

On Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:55:41 +0200, Stefan Merten <smerten@...> wrote:
> When I compare the current state of what I see in Open Hardware
> movement with the history of Free Software then I'd say we are
> somewhere around 1987. I.e. the Linux kernel has not yet been invented
> and it's still twelve years until the general breakthrough of this
> stuff. I'm really curious what will happen here.

A side note: there is another parallel here. Before Richard Stallman
evangelised the term "free software" with his specific meaning in mind,
source code was frequently passed around between universities - and even
by AT&T - without proprietary software licenses attached. This was
simply done as a matter of course, without perhaps much thought, as the
economic value of exploiting proprietary software either had not been
conceived of or was not of interest.

Similarly, I don't know much about the history of open hardware -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware doesn't even have a
section on it! - but I think that freely implementable schematics and
tutorials in magazines like Popular Electronics and others, would count
as early "open hardware", without the name attached. And without the
(Continue reading)

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anargeek | 3 Jul 2011 02:12

Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011

Hi

On Fri 01-Jul-2011 at 06:55:41PM +0200, Stefan Merten wrote:
> 
> I'm just going home from `OKCon 2011`_ in Berlin. I have to say it was
> really a great conference and I'm really happy that I were there.

Sounds like it was great, I found PDF's of the presentations here:

- http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-739/

Do you know if there is any video or audio from it anywhere?

Also on the matter of open hardware I just came across this:

- HexBright, an Open Source Light
  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-open-source-light

This project has 1,944 backers and has raised $150,285!

The project wiki:

- http://www.hexbright.com/dokuwiki/doku.php

Uses the CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
and the "Information about the Flex/Prime Open Source Licensing" link
goes nowhere, so I wonder if he has properly thought that aspect of this
project.

Looks interesting though and if someone designs a holder to fix it to a
(Continue reading)

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Stefan Meretz | 3 Jul 2011 12:26
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Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011

On 2011-07-03 02:12, anargeek wrote:
> Do you know if there is any video or audio from it anywhere?

Since some talks have been streamed, I think, some video docs also also 
the (all?) slides will appear here, but takes some time.

> Also on the matter of open hardware I just came across this:
> 
> - HexBright, an Open Source Light
> (...)
> 
> Looks interesting though and if someone designs a holder to fix it to
> a bike then I'd consider getting one :-)

I can't find anything "open" or "source" with this project. It's merely 
seems to be a viral ad.

Ciao,
Stefan

--

-- 
Start here: www.meretz.de
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt@...
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Stefan Meretz | 3 Jul 2011 12:54
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Re: [ox-en] Report from OKCon 2011

On 2011-07-03 12:26, Stefan Meretz wrote:
> On 2011-07-03 02:12, anargeek wrote:
> > Do you know if there is any video or audio from it anywhere?
> 
> Since some talks have been streamed, I think, some video docs also
> also the (all?) slides will appear here, but takes some time.

Sorry, "here" means here: http://okcon.org/2011/after

Ciao,
Stefan

--

-- 
Start here: www.meretz.de
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt@...
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Daniel Dietrich | 7 Jul 2011 14:29
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[ox-en] Re: Report from OKCon 2011

Dear Stefan

Thanks for this feedback. We will definitely take your point in to account when drafting documentation
page for planning upcoming okcons.

Regards
Daniel

On 01.07.2011, at 18:55, Stefan Merten wrote:

> Hi list!
> 
> I'm just going home from `OKCon 2011`_ in Berlin. I have to say it was
> really a great conference and I'm really happy that I were there.
> Knowing what organizing conferences like this means I'd like to say a
> big thank you to the organizers.
> 
> I don't have exact numbers but would think that about 200 people
> attended the conference.
> 
> The conference was rather big in terms of program. For two days there
> were five parallel tracks from 10:00-20:00. A regular slot for a
> presentation was only 30 minutes unfortunately so beyond some
> superficial questions there was no room to discuss the things
> presented. Also there were no time in the schedule between the
> sessions so it was always a hurry to change rooms. As a result
> everyone was in a constant hurry which made it difficult to talk to
> each other.
> 
> Well, critique aside. As I said the conference was really great. The
(Continue reading)

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michael gurstein | 10 Jul 2011 21:40
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RE: [ox-en] Re: Report from OKCon 2011

Daniel and all,

Thanks for this opportunity to comment directly.

As you know I'm a novice to OKF/OKCon so take my comments in that context.

I think the overall conference content, design and execution was very good
as far as it went. But I would like to see it go further and take up the
broader areas of responsibility that the emerging strength of the "OD
movement" implies.

Two specifics.  Just after getting back to Canada I had occasion to talk to
a very old friend who has a fairly senior (and overview) position within the
Canadian Federal Government.  I asked him specifically about "Open Data" (he
himself is not a techie). What he said was very interesting.  He said that
at his overview-interdepartmental level-Open Data was being taken very
seriously--initially by the techies (CTO's) who saw it as a way of saving
money through creating inter-operability standards etc. But he went on to
say that it was also being taken very seriously by some of the more advanced
thinkers in the policy sphere who were concerned with issues like structures
of governance, access to information policy, public participation and so on.

So my first suggestion is to have a track or at least solicit several
sessions/speakers who can address Open Government Data issues from the
perspective of its impact on broader policy issues of democratic
governance--perhaps both from mainline and critical perspectives--and here I
don't mean techies but rather those in the various governments who are
thinking about the longer term and broader governance impact of OGD. 

Also, just after getting back to Canada, Tracey Lauriault whom many of you
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