Meetings/2008-10-08

= Meeting 2008-10-08 =

Details

 * When: Wednesday 10th October 2008 from 1830 BST (1730 GMT)
 * Where: #okfn irc channel on oftc.net (connect via Mibbit)

Agenda
Please feel free to add anything you'd like to discuss to the agenda...


 * OKCon and other events in March/April 2009

Participants

 * Josef Davies-Coates
 * Beth Tilston
 * Jonathan Gray
 * Rob Myers
 * Mike Chelen

IRC Log
(Time in CEST)

#!irc

19:24:42 *	qopi waves 19:24:47 *	qopi is Josef 19:26:09 *	bethtilston (5b6dc3ed@webchat.mibbit.com) has joined #okfn 19:26:46 	hi beth :) 19:26:51 	bethtilston: you made it :) 19:26:58 	yep 19:27:06 	pretty damn easy using the web interface, right? :) 19:27:19 *	qopi is Josef btw 19:27:31 	yeah. Not too difficult!  19:27:44 	I was going to ask if you were here. 19:28:13 	indeed I am :) 19:28:22 *	qopi is assuming jwyg is Jonathan Gray? 19:30:08 	Do you know if anyone else from the meeting is going to be here Josef? No Chris as he's on the train poor soul 19:31:59 *	bethtilston has quit (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client) 19:32:02 	hi all! 19:32:18 *	bethtilston (5b6dc3ed@webchat.mibbit.com) has joined #okfn 19:32:32 	ok... 19:32:54 	oops, accidentally logged out there 19:33:07 	qopi, bethtilston: are we expecting anyone else for discussion re: events next march? 19:33:36 	robmyers: how's it going? 19:34:09 	No Chris, Tav or Sophia. What about Clodagh and the other guy (Italian)? 19:34:23 	slowly, I've been going through the standards I found for representing infromation about artowrks and wondering how and whether to use them and what the licencing issues are. 19:34:34 *	mchelen (~mike@tor-irc.dnsbl.oftc.net) has joined #okfn 19:34:44 	I've also been looking for texts. I wish Project Gutenberg used more descriptive filenames ;-) 19:34:56 	robmyers: excellent! 19:35:43 	robmyers: I assume you know of http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/research/lliang/open_content_guide but pasting here just in case :) 19:35:45 	information goes on the wiki. I may just define a simple standard based on what (e.g.) the Tate use with space for tags. tags are good ;-) 19:35:49 	robmyers: i'm on a mailing list where there are probably people who know about this kind of thing... 19:35:53 	jwyg: not sure if anyone else going to turn up 19:36:23 	jwyg - oh that would be handy 19:36:41 	doesn't look like tav is online (he's not in freenode #esp and normally is when online) 19:36:49 	qopi Yes I saw Lawrence speak a couple of years ago and grabbed a print copy afterwards, it's really good. 19:37:02 	cool 19:37:28 	jwyg - The problem seems to be that most standards are either licence encumbered in silly ways or make SGML look simple. ;-) 19:37:33 	jwyg: rufus said you might be tied to March, know why? 19:38:17 	qopi: not sure, we'll have to check with him. 19:38:17 	robmyers: we're having a meeting about organising an Open Everything Open Space next year now :P 19:38:21 	up for getting involved? 19:38:23 	:) 19:38:32 	qopi: COMMUNIA event is in march... 19:38:52 	jwyg: right, I guess its something to do with that then, WHEN in March? 19:38:56 	got a date yet? 19:39:50 	I am at my commitment limit at the moment :-( but if it's within travelling distance of Peterborough add me to the mailing list ;-) 19:40:38 	robmyers, for project gutenberg files, maybe the catalogs could be used to index or describe local copies, check out gutindex here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Offline_Catalogs#The_GUTINDEX_Listings_of_EBooks 19:41:06 	bethtilston: Open Knowledge want to have OKCON (which we toying with the idea of having at the same time/space as our Open Everything Open Space) near http://www.communia-project.eu/ event happening in March 19:41:18 	its a text file but the format is a little strange 19:41:45 	jwyg: you applied for some funding related to COMMUNIA, right? hear back from that bid? 19:42:09 	qopi: for COMMUNIA we were looking at Mon-Tue 16-17th March 19:42:33 	qopi: we are becoming part of COMMUNIA network, and bid for organising the March workshop... 19:42:34 	qopi: I think with us too, that would be too many all the the same time. We'd lose individual identities 19:43:03 	qopi: What do you think? 19:43:14 *	qopi will be on http://www.patrickwhitefield.co.uk/slu.htm then until March 19th 19:43:17 	qopi: other COMMUNIA members have voted, and we are waiting to hear back... 19:43:29 	Ok so to take the example of Ruskin's lectures on art, which would be great for the text (rather than image) part of OpenArtHistory, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19164, it really should be called lectures_on_art.txt in a local /texts/ruskin/ ? 19:43:58 	I'm just worried about a) people thinking it's a different file and b) appropriating other people's work in a confusing way. 19:44:35 	bethtilston / jwyg : yeah, at first it seemed to make sense to have events all together, but feeling less like it does now, so perhaps just help each other with cross publicising? 19:44:59 	qopi: or we could brand as 'month of open events'? 19:45:12 	qopi, e.g. if we tried to space throughout month? 19:45:15 	like node.l was? 19:45:22 	robmyers: exactly.. 19:45:32 	my only concern with that is that we may overlap.. 19:45:40 	jwyg: that's not a bad idea at all 19:45:51 	it would be great if you could tell us what the main focus of your events will be! 19:45:52 	jwyg: yeah something like that could work, I guess that is basically what I meant by "cross publicising" :) 19:46:13 	e.g. our main focus, as usual, is knowledge projects... 19:46:34 	qopi: ok.. that sounds like an interesting option.. 19:46:44 	jwyg: for me the main focus is having a long open space technology event on, Open EVERYTHING :) 19:46:54 	qopi: of course.. 19:47:24 	but Chris and Beth have proposed something like "Helping activists change the world through technologies" 19:47:30 	as the main theme 19:47:32 	qopi: ok.. 19:48:13 	I like the feel of that, but not the wording, think we can come up with something more inclusive than "activists" maybe :) 19:48:22 	qopi: one option might be to have a series of domain specific events throughout march, and all help out with all of them? 19:48:29 	people... 19:48:30 	That's the main focus for me - 19:48:58 	robmyers: :-) 19:48:59 	bethtilston: what is? ‘Helping activists change the world through technologies'? or "activists" specifically? 19:49:21 *	qopi prefers "people" as robmyers just suggested :) 19:49:32 	robmyers, yep after matching the id number, the title or description can be found, it depends on the storage system buy maybe the file name itself could be kept the same? that one could be located at /texts/ruskin/lectures_on_art/19164-h.htm for example 19:49:32 	*system but 19:49:34 	qopi: The first part - 'activists' might not be the right word but keen to make it a 'for good' type thing 19:49:39 	because lots of people who ARE activists don't self-define as that 19:50:02 	qopi: Sure, people would be better 19:50:50 *	qopi is thinking something like "how can open technologies and practices help improve quality of life and reduce ecological footprint" but somehow said in less words :) 19:51:10 	qopi, bethtilston: can you perhaps expand on the theme a little and how it relates to openness, with some e.g.s? 19:51:32 	qopi: That sounds good - but, you know, shorter! 19:51:40 	mchelen I like that naming scheme. thank you! 19:51:58 	jwyg: personally I want to spread the word about what http://openfarmtech.org and similar are doing 19:52:12 	i.e. open appropriate technology for village building 19:53:24 	jwyg: I also want to get more people involved in http://opencoin.org (as Joerg presented at last OKCON, I believe) 19:54:07 	robmyers, sure thing, also interface & directories shown to the user could be different than what exists on the server, what is the system being used to store the files? 19:54:08 	yes, i remember... 19:54:15 	jwyg: but really, what happens depends on who comes, we've just got to come up with a nice question like "how can open everything help create new systems that make the current ones obsolete?" 19:54:23 	so thematically a bit like http://www.opensustainabilitynetwork.org/ 19:54:48 	jwyg: oersonally I'd like to see lots of that stuff represented, yes 19:54:53 	but that is just me 19:54:58 	personally 19:55:05 	thats interesting.. 19:55:38 	how so? :) 19:56:18 	bethtilston: I propose we fix the date for Fri 3rd - Sun 5th April :P 19:56:58 	That sounds good. Need to get it okayed by everyone - esp Chris, but sounds good to me. 19:57:03 	qopi, have you seen p2pfoundation.net before? opencoin looks interesting, they should fix their https certificate though :) 19:57:04 	mchelen Well it will just be a dumb filesystem in subversion on knowledgeforge. 19:57:05 	it sounds like you could focus specifically on how open projects/systems can help with global problems... 19:57:32 	p2pfoundation are amazing, I have them in my rss feed 19:57:38 	in the context of social/economic/environmental issues... 19:57:57 	jwyg: I quite like the idea of lots of thematic stuff leading up to the Everything open space where everyone comes together to try and work out how it all fits together and how we can all work together to make the world a better place sooner rather than later 19:58:12 	mchelen: yes, know Michel and p2p foundation well :) 19:58:51 	qopi: well, what about a series of events throughout march, culminating in the open space? 19:58:55 	I think we need more discussion on the specific focus - I really like all your ideas Josef but worry that I'm not quite sure what fits into 'open' and think if I don't know, lots of people I'd like to come won't either 19:59:37 	jwyg: yes "focus specifically on how open projects/systems can help with global problems" is where we coming from I think (hence bethtilston saying we want to focus on people doing stuff "for good") but also locally 20:00:37 	robmyers, ahh ok, will users be meant to check out the svn repo directly, or access via www? do you have a project name yet? 20:00:45 	bethtilston: what is unclear about what fits in "open"? lets discuss more now :) 20:01:00 	well, tentatively, what about communia + okcon + world betterment, then an open space at the end? 20:01:00 	bethtilston: e.g. to me twitter, whilst a useful technology, isn't open 20:01:02 	open originated as a way of not saying "free", but for knowledge it has usefully evolved to mean something like "open access". For activists, the peer-to-peer, peer production, participatory, open organization side of things might appeal, as would the organizational potential of wikis and sites like riseup.net 20:01:32 	mchelen Directly to start with. OpenArtHistory, inspired by OKFN's OpenLiterature. 20:02:04 	qopi, great to hear, they are one of the best sources of news and discussion on the topic =) 20:02:16 	for knowledge, we have http://opendefinition.org/ 20:02:35 	which covers text/image/multimedia/data... 20:02:42 	mchelen: yes, although Michel who does all the work is now having to look for a normal job and will most likely have to stop by the end of the year :( 20:02:57 	stop doing the great work he is doing that is 20:03:19 	qopi: sorry, i'm borrowing Jonny's computer - sticky keyboard makes typing difficult 20:03:25 	but, as mark surman and others at openeverything are keen on, there are a proliferation of different meanings/connotations, from popper's open society to open salad bars, that it is interesting to compare/contrast/explore... 20:04:08 	to me open is all about open minded people working opening :) 20:04:33 	and by working openly I mean in a transparent way that is easy to get involved with 20:04:34 	qopi: from what you just said, everything i'd like to do fits under the banner - but I'm just worried that it isn't understood well enough. I.e. I wasn't sure what it encompassed 20:05:17 	robmyers, ok cool that should work nicely then, another idea might be to embed the directory structure with file information in an .html so that people could checkout the project and access the catalog through their browser 20:05:45 	qopi: bethtilston, from the OKF's point of view the focus is on material that anyone is free to access, re-use and re-distribute, whether this be government data, scientific research, educational materials, or whatever else.. 20:05:58 	hence "from sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata".. 20:06:14 	I'm thinking of some of the people I'd like to invite - they're much less au fait with 'open' than me. Don't just want geeks there - need to think of a way of 'marketing' it 20:06:32 	mchelen yes a separate view for the structure might be convenient 20:06:47 	jwyg you have a definition don't you? ;-) 20:07:56 	robmyers: exactly i mentioned it just now... http://www.opendefinition.org 20:08:08 	bethtilston: how about "how can openness help us create the world we want?" as a question? what do others think of that too? 20:08:18 	for software there are F/OSS definitions... 20:09:08 	that is the question we had for WTF although "openness" was "self-organisation and sharing" :P 20:09:09 	oops sorry, lag ;-) 20:09:21 	qopi, bethtilston: just to re-iterate, what about: okcon + communia + worldbetterment (i.e. how can openness help us create the world we want) + an 'open barcamp' at the end? 20:09:40 	qopi - "as peers" is good, or you end up as Jemima Puddleduck... 20:10:48 	jwyg: I like you're suggestion other than I'm keen for worldbetterment and barcamp to be the same thing 20:11:06 	as in what I and bethtilston and co are interested in doing is an open space on worldbetterment as you put it 20:11:16 	but tied into the whole Open Everything theme 20:11:33 	I like the question - I think maybe we'd better change the title of the event from OEOS to something more 'reclaim the webby' - does what it says on the tin 20:11:42 *	qopi has to go soon - lift back to farm due to arrive in 10-15mins 20:12:12 	Want to know more about okcon and communia. Poss to email details to list. 20:12:15 	qopi, that is sad to hear, maybe there is a way more members of the community can get involved to help out? 20:12:39 	qopi: I have to go soon too 20:13:01 	qopi: as a thought, we could have lots of open events with specific focuses... and open everything could be like a concluding event? 20:13:12 	robmyers: are you suggesting "how can openness help us create the world we want as peers?" or somesuch? 20:13:27 	bethtilston.. COMMUNIA is EU policy network. theme for event will be Towards an infrastructure for public information: finding, re-using and interlinking public sector content and data 20:13:32 	how can we as peers create the world we want through openness? 20:13:45 	mchelen: well, he's got a family to feed, and so needs at least 12k euro a year, ideally 24k 20:13:58 	for last OKCon, see http://www.okfn.org/okcon/2008/after/ 20:14:12 	jwyg: Thanks 20:14:14 	mchelen: but yeah, I and others have proposed some kind of resource pooling action in support of p2p foundation or something 20:14:44 *	qopi likes the word "infrastructure" :) 20:15:14 *	qopi thinks peer-investing in land and infrastructure is the way forward :) 20:15:50 	qopi: How can we post this discussion on the list? 20:16:12 	bethtilston, all meetings are archived at http://okfn.org/wiki/meetings 20:16:30 	just as a final comment before qopi has to go.. 20:16:41 	Ok, link to that then. 20:16:50 *	qopi listens :) 20:17:14 	i think it would be really great if we could co-ordinate events with a strong theme that complemented each other as much as possible 20:17:35 	with the aim of having an unthemed barcamp at the end to tie everything together... 20:18:03 	hence earlier events generate food for thought for final OpenEverything event 20:18:37 	which is barcampish in the sense that agenda/themes are totally generated on the day... 20:19:03 	i think its harder to promote a totally open 'open everything' event, without some prior concrete projects, themes, etc... 20:20:28 	i think having an event specifically aimed at what openness can do for certain (specific) global/local problems is really interesting... 20:20:53 	and could be a strong event in itself... 20:21:03 	what do people think? 20:22:05 	jwyg, well, yes, I agree, which is why I think the barcampish (I prefer Open Space because its the same thing with a longer history) event shouldn't be totally open but should have a clear question that it is trying to address such as the creating the world we want one I suggested earlier 20:22:26 	I like the ideas very much 20:23:11 	Need to do more research before I say yes to anything though. Will need to discuss with others 20:23:52 	cool, well been good to chat 20:23:58 	shame no one else made it 20:24:03 	until soon... 20:24:07 	bye :) 20:24:11 	Have fun on your farm. 20:24:11 	qopi, but in a way the open everything events are not directed at specific questions, but see what people are interested in... e.g. some people want to tackle certain problems, some people want to share their research, some want to make money.. 20:24:17 	ah.. 20:24:31 	alright.. we can continue to discuss via email :-) 20:24:39 	Bye all, I've got to go too. 20:24:43 *	bethtilston has quit (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client) 20:24:44 	jwyg: yeah, because they are not running Open Space Technology events 20:24:55 	alright: bethtilston, qopi, be in touch soon! 20:25:00 *	qopi actually, really leaves :) 20:25:05 *	qopi has quit (Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.83 [Firefox 3.0.3/2008092510]) 20:26:26 	robmyers: can concentrate on openarthistory now! :-) 20:27:14 	oh well I don't really have anything extra to say. the file organization ideas are useful, as would any input on standards be. 20:30:15 	ahh yes.. i remember seing a mailing list that might be of relevance... 20:31:43 	*looks* 20:32:10 	robmyers: have you tried on any of the jiscmail metadata lists? 20:37:50 	I will take a look 20:38:01 	good suggestion 20:40:35 	robmyers: alright.. i better shoot off... 20:40:41 	sure 20:40:51 	lots of useful input. 20:40:52 	robmyers: good to chat, albeit very briefly! :-)