openuk – Terence Eden’s Blog

Touring TNMOC with a living legend

@edent — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 12:34:22 +0000

This is a retropost. It was written in 2022, but published later.

Well, that was the most bizarre day. A few days ago, Amanda Brock - the CEO of OpenUK - asked if I'd be on a podcast. I agreed, and offered up my office's media studio for the recording. Then she asked if it was OK if Bruce Perens came to record an episode.

Errr... OMG, yes!

So I got to spend 10 minutes showing Bruce around the GDS office, gushing about how much open source stuff we did - then got to watch him record a podcast.

Amanda - who has has a canny eye for when people are slightly star-struck - asked if I'd like to interview Bruce at the weekend. At the National Museum of Computing. For a new exhibition.

Errr... OMG, yes!

So me and Lowena Hull got to spend some time chatting to Bruce on camera about his involvement in open source, the early days of Debian, and why OSS is still relevant today.

We had a good rambling chat - the majority of which never made it off the cutting room flaw. He was such an eloquent speaker - always taking a moment to marshal his thoughts and knowing exactly when to finish his soliloquy.

It was a fairly long and tiring afternoon. But we had just enough time to take a wander through TNMOC. Bruce - like lots of elder-statesgeeks - seemed to be in 7th heaven. I got a running commentary of "Wow! You know, I had an early one of these..." and "I think I've still got the original one in my attic..." and "When I worked at Pixar, I was chatting to Steve [Jobs] about this and we both thought it was pretty nifty..." along with the obligatory "Why is a slide-rule in a museum?"

I watched him go toe-to-toe with the geeks who maintain Colossus - discussing the intricacies of synchronising tape speeds, various Baudot codes, and where valves / tubes could still be acquired from.

I saw him in a spirited discussion about various flavours of ALGOL and the mechanics of repairing a filesystem on hard-drives the same height as a man.

We had an interesting chat about IBM and their complicity in the Nazi regime's use of Hollerith cards. And I got to give him a précis of the BBC Micro's impact on the UK.

He asked me to take a few photos of him standing by ancient monuments of technology

And, at the end of the day, he shook my hand and thanked me for showing him such a great time.

What a delightful person.

Open UK at COP26

@edent — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 12:34:41 +0000

I spent last Thursday at COP26 - as part of the Open UK delegation. It was an amazing day - which filled me with hope. As it was my first large in-person event since the Before-Times, I was extremely nervous about how it would go. Thanks to the Herculean efforts of Amanda Brock, May Cheung and their small army of volunteers it was a flawless event - all held in a magnificent set of tents.

Here are a few of my highlights from the day:

An excellent question posed in the session about future technology. "Do we need lower latency? Or do we need more latency tolerant infrastructure?" Delivering 5G infrastructure has an environmental cost. It might be more environmentally friendly to process data in an area with lots of solar power - which could mean higher latency for some applications. Is that a worthy trade-off? Probably not for autonomous vehicles, but there are plenty of services which could be more delay tolerant.

I was introduced to Humanium - a "new" form of metal made from illegal weapons.

Melt down a couple of AK-47s and you get this intriguing lump of art: The artist Frank To uses it to create artworks, the sale of which helps victims of violence.

Some of the young people there were showing off their open-source and open-hardware air-quality monitoring solutions:

Monitoring carbon dioxide levels in a room is a good way to tell if enough fresh air is getting in. Vital in these times of Covid. Sensors can also detect particulate matter, pollution, and other environmental concerns. Could every teenager carry a Raspberry Pi powered "dosimeter" to measure their personal risk levels?

Speaking of Youths™ - Open UK is sending out these Mini Mu Gloves:

They integrate with the Micro-Bit and allow kids to learn the basics of hardware and software. Such a tangible way to understand the way computers work - and an excellent way to ~~indoctrinate~~ promote the open principles. It's great seeing how the community is helping create resources for these projects.

Micro-Bits have Bluetooth - this means they can exchange data. Which turns into a fun game to demonstrate how viral transmission works, and the problems with contact tracing. Topical!

There were several other pieces of art dotted around - including this chunk of ice-cap, slowly melting.

A full house for Lord Maude's talk

It was a moving talk about the setting up of GDS - and about how the future has to be more open. Even seemingly "dull" things like supply-chain transparency can have a profound impact if they are subject to scrutiny.

I also went out to see some of the protests outside the Green Zone:

Naturally, lunch was all vegan and delicious. Held inside a gorgeous tent:

Brilliant panel about the energy challenges of the future. Electric Vehicle infrastructure requires massive amounts of open data and interoperable standards.

Not just chargers - although that's important for balancing the grid - but also the way in which we communicate the way vehicles use the road and how they are taxed.

Another panel looked at how we measure the efficiency of data centres.

Another interesting economic question - what's the economic impact of something like Wikipedia? How do you measure its environmental impact? Luckily, Dr Thomas has the answers!

Before the award dinner, we were treated to a full Highland pipe band! Warning - this is loud! (You can drag the video around. Should also have 5.1 surround sound.)

With everyone suited and booted, we started the ceremony.

I was beyond delighted that my friend Adam Fowler won an award for all his hard work on the Herald Bluetooth Protocol.

The rest of the evening, I must admit, is a bit of a blur. Do I really remember a rock-and-roll band supplemented with Bagpipes playing Money for Nothing?!

And, obviously, tending to the next day's mild⁰ hangover, with AOC's new favourite tipple!

And then...

Will #COP26 make a difference? I don't know. What I am sure of is that all the people attending our event were passionate and dedicated to the cause of openness. We may have different ideas of how best to accomplish the radical transparency needed to protect the planet - but we know that it needs doing. Open algorithms means more energy efficient computers. Open data makes it easy to spot pollution before it is too late. Open sensor platforms increase the amount of data we have about the natural world. Open hardware democratises access to education. Open curricula ensure students of the future understand the power of open source.

Thank you to everyone who gave their time and energy to this amazing event. I'm proud to be a board member of such a brilliant organisation.

Ouch! OWWWWW! ↩︎

Nominations are now open for the @openuk_uk awards

@edent — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 11:35:07 +0000

I'm a board member of Open UK - which promotes UK leadership in open technology - and we're looking for nominations for our Open Source Awards.

These are designed to honour the individuals and projects which have made a positive impact to open source, open data, and open hardware.

You can nominate at openuk.uk/awards/

There are five categories available:

👶 Young Person
👩 Individual
📊 Open Data – company, organisation or project
🖥 Open Hardware – company, organisation or project
💻 Open Source Software – company, organisation or project

We don't want to see the usual suspects again and again. Who do you love? Who isn't usually nominated for these sorts of awards? Who deserves a round of applause?

And, yes, you should absolutely nominate yourself. Self-promotion of amazing open tech people & projects is highly encouraged.

Nominations are open until midnight UTC 30 June 2020.

Joining the board of OpenUK

@edent — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 08:20:21 +0000

As you know, I'm a supporter of open technology. I write open source, I work on open standards, I care about open data.

So I am delighted to have joined the board of OpenUK.

Our purpose? To develop and sustain UK leadership in Open technology.

I want to make the UK the best place to be for open source developers, users, and buyers. I believe that code written by the public sector should be freely available (libre and gratis). And I know that talented open source developers want to be able to share and to learn without restriction.

There are a bunch of upcoming events and you can get involved with our committees. We're particular keen to hear from people who are under-represented in organisations like this. We offer a warm and friendly welcome to anyone who wants to join us on our quest to promote openness.

The new Board is made up of a number of key industry figures: Andrew Katz, Neil McGovern, Phil Weir, Dawn Foster, Ian Burgess, Laura James, John Laban, Matt Jarvis, Rob Taylor, Mike Smith, Terence Eden (me!) and former Chairman, Stuart Mackintosh and Board Adviser, Jeni Tennison, CEO of the Open Data Institute. We will be ably directed by Amanda Brock.

You can read more about the OpenUK Board and see all our shiny photos.