Roundtable "Potential of OSS for ATM" - Jointly organized by CALIBRE and EUROCONTROL
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Presentation of CALIBRE

by John O'Flaherty, CALIBRE

Overview

The CALIBRE project (Co-ordination Action for Libre Software Engineering for Open Development Platforms in Software & Services) is a two-year coordination action within the 6th framework of the EU Information Society Technologies Program. The term "libre" in our name is intentional, to emphasize that free software is free as in freedom, not just free of cost. We'll use the term OSS with its libre meaning. CALIBRE has 12 academic and research partners within Europe, and one industrial partner from China -- China Soft.

In the research part of our project, we have identified three scientific pillars key to the future of software development: Open Source Software, Agile Methods, and Distributed Development.

OSS is an interesting paradigm, since it addresses the so-called "software crisis" of cost, delivery, and quality. Europe is quite active in OSS. We should take advantage of this momentum. Most focus today has been with the governments and public authorities, but here we're looking at the secondary software sector, i.e. the sector where software is not the primary output. Open source is a complex phenomenon, and requires a multidisciplinary perspective. The CALIBRE consortium's multi-disciplinary leaders provide critical mass.

We have three objectives. The first is to integrate and coordinate libre (OSS) research and practice. Secondly, we want to foster the effective transfer of the lessons of open source between industry and academia. Finally, we want to establish a European industry forum, called CALIBRATION, to give voice to what European industry wants in open source, particularly to the Commission, of what policy initiatives are required.

Our three workshop packages are on open source, distributed development, and agile methods. Our two key outputs are the CALIBRATE industry forum, and a definition of a new paradigm, a new roadmap for software development. Our main tools are workshops and conferences, like today's roundtable.

To describe the expected impacts of CALIBRE, we can quote Alan Kay, "It’s easier to create the future than predict it." For you in the ATM sector as well, while you can't predict the future, if you want it to happen, you can make it happen. We want to move from an ideological approach to open source towards a much more pragmatic and realistic research roadmap and agenda. We want to put open source on the agendas of sectors such as ATM. We hope to identify best practice business models. We will give back to the community more effective and coherent practice-informed research. Finally, we want to come up with a coherent vision or paradigm integrating what we see as the three pillars of software engineering: OSS, Agile Methods, and Distributed Development approaches.

Discussion

from 6'25'' to 10'30'' (4'05'')

G. Gawinowski: What are the main objectives of CALIBRE?

J. O'Flaherty: CALIBRE is a coordination action. Its main objectives are not to create new technology, but to coordinate open source efforts in research and industry, and put open source on the public policy agenda. Explicit goals are:

  1. to integrate and coordinate libre (OSS) research and practice - to ensure that the phenomenon flourishes and delivers to its true potential, especially for the European ‘secondary’ software sector (automotive, telecom etc) where Europe has particular strengths.
  2. to foster the effective transfer of the many useful lessons from Libre (OSS) - to facilitate the next generation of software engineering methods and tools.
  3. to establish a European industry OSS research policy forum - CALIBRATION.

J-L. Hardy: When EUROCONTROL started investigating the research and literature in the OSS domain, they needed to meet with specialists in the domain, and fortuitously encountered CALIBRE. CALIBRE's mission to facilitate the exchange of information between universities and different industrial sectors appeared to be a good partner in setting up a meeting to share experience.

J. Seifarth: Can you define the Secondary Software Sector in more detail?

J. O'Flaherty: The Secondary Software Sector (SSS) is EU-jargon for those industries where software is not the primary output, but where software is vitally important to the sector. Another useful way of looking at is that SSS serves vertical markets, versus the horizontal markets of primary software sectors, like office software or database management software.

The view at the EU is that the US dominates the primary software sector, while Europe is quite strong in the SSS. The USA has won the primary software war – but Europe could still prevail in the SSS. Is there some way to leverage these new software engineering paradigms, open source, agile methods, and distributed development to enhance our European position in the SSS?

Examples of SSS include ATM, automotive, telecommunications, and banking. Europe is strong in these sectors, but if we don't coordinate these efforts, we could fall behind to the Americans there as well.

J. Seifarth: But this raises the questions of keeping development secret because they are assets to the companies that developed them.

J. O'Flaherty: Yes, these are issues that have to be addressed. At one level, open source is very straightforward technology. But further investigation raises a number of issues, like intellectual property rights and software patents. It is actually a very complex area, and it has major strategic implications which hopefully, we will explore today.

Salient points

 

 
J. O'Flaherty
 

"We want to come up with a coherent vision or paradigm integrating what we see as the three pillars of software engineering: OSS, Agile Methods, and Distributed Development approaches."

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