Open Source Open Forum

[jonathan]

Hey everyone.

XMOS should be applauded for its recent quiet launch of its "open source project". Increasingly, it looks like this is an organisation embracing not just the words and the gestures but also one which lives and breathes by the open mentality.

Like any organisation exploring new areas, it's likely that steps are tentative. Those who make decisions are answerable in commercial terms, not social, and at present those commercial judgements will hold some sway. Therefore it is up to us, as a community and society to take the first steps and show XMOS (and any other company opening the new door of open-ness) that the ground is not only relatively safe, but increasingly productive.

I'd like to propose that we organise - with XMOS' support - an Open Source Open Forum - a physical gathering of people, to help communicate our shared goals, resolve problems and reassure every stakeholder (companies, customers, investors, academics, inventors, etc) that an open mentality is good for everyone.

I suggest something like the following:

1. An open invitation to anyone to attend
2. An invited panel of people - for example:
   • Leading Open Source (+ Open Hardware) Advocates
   • XMOS' customers(!) - not just those on XCore but some of those volume customers who stand to gain from the improvements the community can make to both source and documentation
   • Leading XCore contributors/community members
   • An XMOS "Open-source Advocate" (someone within the company given a mandate by both XMOS and the community to work with the community and speak for the community within the company on open-source issues)
   • One or two key XMOS management/decision making e.g. CEO/CTO and possibly even an investor/board member
3. The "panel" be set up with a Q&A/discussion session, taking questions from anyone in attendance. It's unlikely to get heated, but just in case it might be a good idea to get a moderator/chair involved for the discussion...?
4. The event live-streamed on something like ustream.tv or some similar thing, and questions being taken via Twitter/email as well as from the room

I'd also suggest this event being run regularly - e.g. once per quarter.

Clearly to bring together an event like this will require the support (mostly operational, but possibly some financial) of XMOS itself. But the benefits of getting together so many interested parties in the same place and reaching out to the rest of the world for views/comments/questions is probably well worth the effort. I'd be thrilled if we could make something like this happen.

Any views/comments/criticism very very welcome.

(Also posted on my blog, but linking back here for comments/discussion please - http://blog.xfund.com/2011/03/11/open-s ... pen-forum/)

[Folknology]

Brilliant Idea Jonathan, anything I can do to help just ask.

Not sure about every quarter though, although perhaps smaller quarterly meetings in between say a bigger annual event.

I would love to present some of my ideas and stuff I'm working on opensource wise of course if your looking for participation.

regards
Al

[DanB]

Jonathan,

I think this is a wonderful idea.

Whilst I do not have a wealth of experience with XMOS as a development platform the apparent desire for the company to be as open and transparent as possible is very exciting. I would not be in a position to really contribute much in the way of discussion at this time, due to my lack of familiarity with the devices, though I hope to rectify this in the future; even more so now that everything is on GitHub. I'd love to be able to help maintain things in the future when my experience and knowledge is somewhat better.

None-the-less, I'd be very interested in attending any event if it were to be organised and would be happy to lend any help where possible; clearly I'd have to stick to relative non-technical aspects (with respect to discussion) but for example I'd be happy to help with collating twitter/email questions if necessary.

Thank you for your efforts in ensuring both XMOS at a platform, and XCore as a community, continue to survive well into the future.

Dan.

[Interactive_Matter]

Jonathan,
marvelous!

I would like to support you where I can since you are mentioning two important points:

Yes XMOS should be applauded! Even if I complain from time to time 'open here', 'open there' and 'why don't you open this' I really admire what XMOS has achieved so far. The step to open the github repositories was extremely helpful and brave. Not to forget the effort with XCORE.

Second: I really like the idea to actively integrate high volumen customers (and in best case their key developers) in this process. XMOS is not about beeing nice. XMOS is about making money with real cool processors. So I think we can learn very much from each other - we as a community how the XMOS customers see us and the XMOS customers how we can (and hopefully in fact) do help them to achieve their business value. And that free software is not as in free beer ;)
I think the community of hobbiests and the 'real' customers are working for the same target.

I would like to suggest to also think about BarCamp or Open Space structures for or around those meetings. I know it is a tad over-hyped at the moment. But giving everybody the chance to participate in free discussion can be very fruitfull - especially if the percieved gap is so big (between so called hobbiests and so called business customers).

Jonathan & Folknology: Thanks for you efforts and success!

[jonathan]

Thanks for the replies guys - really good ideas in there. I could come up with some more detailed proposals and post them here? Does anyone at XMOS want to get involved? Being honest, it would pretty much need your help and support to be successful.

[xmark]

Gents,

With respect to XMOS' customers, we already routinely reference customers to XCore and will continue to do so (you'll probably have noticed that the new website links more strongly to XCore) - I would be surprised if XMOS customers are not already active on the community. However, I would also be (pleasantly) surprised if they publicly announced their commercial affiliation.

A get-together sounds like a good idea. Where/when would it need to be (i.e. two weeks time, 3 months, 6 months)? What sort of sponsorship would XMOS be asked to provide? I can say for sure that it would be easier to gain assistance if the 'where' and the 'when' are around existing planned XMOS activities or XMOS facilities, but would people be prepared to travel?

Cheers,

-Mark

[jonathan]

I think the best dates are going to be one day in early-mid May, assuming we start planning now, and we should provisionally plan to do one every three months rotating around the World, if the first goes well.

I think we should start in Bristol.

In terms of XMOS support/sponsorship, I think this should be of the form of:

1) Venue rental/sourcing
2) Any equipment rental needed to stream/record etc
3) Any organisation/staffing costs
4) Buffet food/drinks etc + any freebies for participants
5) Invited panel guests (suggest a couple from UK/Europe) travel + expenses (no fees)
6) Promotional resources and channels (e.g. access to/help with press releases + press distribution channels)
7) Perhaps a few other bits + pieces, not sure

[xmark]

My (personal) 2c...

I am most concerned about being quorate in any physical location.

Having systems for remote viewing and interaction is great, but it doesn't level the playing field with respect to those that are attending in person. Given that the number of active members of the open source project is small at present, and this will be further eroded by the number of people who can make it to the venue, I wonder if we should wait until we have some critical mass which will give us confidence that all (or at least most) opinions on each topic are represented in person.

-Mark

[jason]

Maybe we should start with a virtual gathering eg a live ustream.tv or similar event to gauge interest and number of people wanting to participate, then you know its just a case of distance to travel when it comes to organizing an actual meet up if this is popular.

This also allows everyone to ask questions, even present (I believe it allows multiple presenters? There are systems that do). On that note did anyone also see Jeri Ellsworth live the other month on Twit.tv? They were constantly switching from several users feeds and the presenters which allowed for great discussions to take place so this type of open web conference is certainly possible and allows for several presenters to be bought in and out of the live stream itself etc along with area for live real-time chat/questions etc for those who dont want to present / be on a panel or what have you.

Thoughts?

[jonathan]

"Build it and they will come" is the biggest fallacy in social media/communities/etc. You need to promote it and tip it past the critical "attention point".

Waiting for the project to build more users before running it is doing things the wrong way around. Use the promotion of the event to generate more interest + attract more users.

The event should be predominately focused around community development - inviting a series of people to come and talk, present their stuff etc (for example in the morning) and network with others in person as well as meet XMOS people + generally expand their interest in and ability with event-driven tech. There should then be a discussion in some open format (many different ways of doing this) about all open-source issues - as I suggest above (e.g in the afternoon).

If XMOS thinks that merely quietly publishing a few bits of open source software is going to somehow stimulate a community, you're going to have a problem... it won't. It would be wonderful if it did, but it won't. You need to create and promote platforms, opportunities and networks too. That's what the event is really for.

As an example of why this kind of event can work, the original Xlinkers conference attracted a considerable attendance and was a resounding success.

With respect to web-based events - although this is technologically feasible, I think this is far more likely to suffer from the "lack of interest" problem. I think many would come as much for the personal interaction, unpredictability, and opportunity to discover more in a very free-form environment. Communication is far simpler, less tech dependent, more immediate and more personal.

I have nothing against running web-based events as well or alongside, but noting beats personal interaction.