The fourth OSSBarcamp is coming up on the 25 and 26th September and is being held at the University College Dublin. A bi-annual event to promote Open Source, OSSBarcamp is held in an UnConference style with a broad range of talks and events covering the open source technology landscape.

This year though it’s turned into a two-day event, showing the increase in popularity for this type of event in Open Source. It’s great to see these events being promoted and sponsored by Enterprise Ireland, as it encouraging to see Open Source becoming more main stream.

Organised by Laura Czajkowski and a team of enthusiastic volunteers, this event has provided an excellent platform for the Open Source community to meet, share ideas and collaborate on projects. With attendance of 150 people at each of the previous OSSBarcamps, this is a boutique (un)conference that allows professionals and interested amateurs alike to learn more about, and contribute to the growing popularity of Open Source technology.

Being an unconference, the aim is to allow participants to set the agenda of the day. A timetable will be published on the OSSBarcamp website and attendees are encouraged to enter their own topics that they will talk about. Topics vary at the barcamp which is the great thing about them, they cater for all levels and cover a multitude of topics on distributions of choice, which programming language you find best, what has been developed in the open source world recently. This year, OSSBarcamp will be hosting sessions, lightning talks and Birds of a Feather Sessions as well as a programming competition showcasing the “many ways to skin a cat”! More info below…

Talks:

Ranging from in-depth technical tutorials to project updates right on to introductory aspects of Open Source, the broad elements of the Open Source Community will be on display. As well as the usual 45 minute talks, the afternoon will see a series of lightning talks which are brief 15 minute introductions/tutorials designed to give people a taste of a particular project. Often these talks generate questions which can be discussed in more detail at the all important afters drinks!

A new addition to OSSBarcamp is the live show recording from the Ubuntu UK Podcast team, who are coming over to take part in the weekend. There will be round table discussions amongst individuals who work together on specific projects. These hour long sessions allow people who normally communicate online to meet and to discuss a topic pertinent to the project they are involved with. Often these sessions will be “State of the Nation” discussions or will tackle a particular issue relating to the project in open source.

Events:

Programming Competition – To showcase the “many ways to skin a cat” that exist in technology, OSSBarcamp is holding a programming competition where participants will be set a challenge to build a particular application. The participants will all possess their own programming skillsets such as php, ruby, python, perl etc and will be asked to complete the challenge during the day. Marks will then be awarded for speed development, quality and usability.

Running from 10:00 to 17:00 on both days, OSSBarcamp has a tradition like most open source events of running an after party for participants to digest the days activities and discuss the topics raised, all lubricated by a few beverages and grub. This year the party will be held in the Lansdowne Hotel bar from 6:30pm onwards. Come in and join us, chat and catch up on the days events or making plans for the Sunday fun.

For more information about OSS Bar Camp see the website and also sign up on our registration site or email Laura Czajkowski.

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This is a guest blog post from Laura Czajkowski. Laura is a Software Tester working with Quest Computing, and is one of the most prominent and well-respected members of the Irish Open Source Software community.

Saturday 27th March marked the inaugural OpenJam event that took place at Enterprise Ireland head office. The idea behind the event was to have as many user groups come along on the day and work collaboratively on their projects. It was also beneficial to see what other groups were doing and a great chance to ask questions and learn about how you could get involved in the work.

With over 30 people attending the event, and members from user groups such as Ubuntu Ireland, Python, PHP, Open Street Maps, ALT.net, Ruby, UCD Open Source Lab and many more, it was great to see and meet all these people who are active here in Ireland.

The morning was filled with attendees working on their projects while others broke off into groups and participated in small talks which gave an overview and insight into their area. Others set aside time to work on their area and show how to get people involved, proving you didn’t need to be an elitist developer to take part.

The day was relaxing and great conversations and contacts were made, lunch arrived which was kindly sponsored by Microsoft Ireland. Food for thought and plans made for after lunch activities where we had lightning talks on different projects that were participating at the event. Many took interest in them and made follow up enquiries which is beneficial to all those who were involved.

I hope to organise many more of these events during the year as it was a great success.

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