Category: Uncategorized

Why and how-to contribute to libre software when you integrate them into an in-house application ?

In the paper titled “Why and how-to contribute to libre software when you integrate them into an in-house application ?” (which is now available online), to be published in the forecoming proceedings of the OSS2005 conference (Genova, Italy, 11-15 july 2005), we draw from our experience on the projects PicoLibre and ProGET, to explain how in-house applications can be built around existing high level libre software programs. We also describe the issue of long-term maintenance of such in-house platforms, and we propose a strategy for contributions to external libre projects, in order to help solve the maintenance issue.

Feel free to comment on this paper in this post.

Update : the full proceedings of the conference have been put on-line. Check the details from http://oss2005.case.unibz.it/

Reading “How Open is the Future”

I’ve started reading “How Open is the Future? – Economic, Social & Cultural Scenarios inspired by Free and Open Source Software.”, edited by Marleen WYNANTS & Jan CORNELIS, and published by the University Press of VUB (Brussels).

This book groups excellent reference texts from authors that participated the CROSSTALKS seminar last year, explaining the phenomenon of Libre software and similar evolutions in the IT field.

More details about the book here. Note that this book is published under a Creative Commons license and is downloadable… but much easier to read more than 500 pages if you buy it at your preferred bookshop 😉

I’ve not completed my reading (by far), but can only suggest that you read it since I find great pieces in what I’ve already read.

Soumission aux JRES 2005 retenue

Nous avons soumis un papier aux JRES 2005 (qui se dérouleront en décembre 2005 à Marseille), qui a été retenu. Titre : “Intégration d’applications logicielles libres pour la réalisation d’une plate-forme de travail collaboratif destinée aux enseignants/chercheurs du GET”

Update 14/12/2005 : le papier est paru (en ligne dans les actes sur le site des JRES) : l’article (PDF), et les transparents ( HTML et PDF).

Intervention au jeudi du Préau sur PicoLibre et ProGET

J’interviendrai lors du prochain jeudi du Préau, le 26 mai 2005 dont le thème est “Les logiciels libres : avantages et contraintes“, pour présenter PicoLibre et ProGET.

Extrait du communiqué de presse du Préau (CCIP) :

Des outils de CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) ou Groupware
Les outils de travail collaboratif trouvent un usage dans le s activités menées en réseau ou dans le travail en mode projet (groupe d’enseignants-chercheurs, travail en équipe sur un même sujet, etc..).
Olivier BERGER, ingénieur recherche à l’INT, viendra présenter PicoLibre et ProGET, deux plates-formes de travail collaboratif et outils de communication pour les projets de recherche du GET. ProGET a notamment été développé en s’appuyant sur plusieurs logiciels libres (PhpGroupware, wiki Twiki, etc.) pour proposer une solution innovante. Olivier Berger fera part de leurs utilisations par les étudiants et les équipes de recherche de l’INT.

Mise à jour : Les transparents de mon intervention sont disponibles sur le site web du projet PFTCR : suivre le lien “présentation” dans : http://proget.int-evry.fr/projects/PFTCR/presentations/jeudi-preau.html

Reactivating CoopX : Idea of a project towards interoperable software development hosting platforms

CoopX … that name doesn’t remind you of anything ? …

Well, it’s the name of an old project, started in 2001, whose goal was to try and gather people working on different software development hosting platforms in order to elaborate a standard for interoperability between these platforms.

AFAIK, some progress was made but the project did not deliver anything really useful that could be integrated into the existing platforms. Everybody involved was quite busy elsewhere and the project, only based on volunteer contribution stalled for a while… until its website (http://coopx.eu.org) eventually became unavailable (in the meantime a crash of the tuxfamily platform occurred, which didn’t help… but the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine hopfully have saved a copy… although it’s not responding at the time of writing – Update : finally working, so here is the link.).

This kind of idea is still something that might be worth investigating… and who knows, maybe this time, it would be possible to draw enough support to work in way so that existing platforms really benefit from that work.

Continue reading “Reactivating CoopX : Idea of a project towards interoperable software development hosting platforms”