Category Archives: Announcement

The Parser that Cracked the MediaWiki Code

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I am happy to announce that we finally open sourced the Sweble Wikitext parser. You can find the announcement on the OSR Group blog or directly on the Sweble project site. This is the work of Hannes Dohrn, my first Ph.D. student, who I hired in 2009 to implement a Wikitext parser.

So what about this “cracking the MediaWiki code”?

Wikipedia aims to bring the (encyclopedic) knowledge of the world to all of us, for free. While already ten years old, the Wikipedia community is just getting started, and we have barely seen the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more to come. All that wonderful content is being written by volunteers using a (seemingly) simple language called Wikitext (the stuff you type in once you click on edit). Until today, Wikitext had been poorly defined.

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Open Commons Region Linz is Starting

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The region of and around Linz, Austria, has declared itself the Open Commons Region Linz. The opening festivities, including talks, free-of-charge, will take place on April 11th, 2011, in Linz (naturally). Read more about it on the blog of the Open Commons Region Linz! I’m a member of the academic advisory council of the Open Commons Region Linz and applaud and support the effort. I’m also happy to say that it will me bring to Linz in person once in a while.

More Upcoming Talks: Open Source Research

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I’ll be presenting the Open Source Research talk repeatedly over the next few months. The next three instances are in China, specifically:

  • Tsinghua University on March 17th, 2011
  • Peking University on March 18th, 2011
  • University of Macau on April 1st, 2011

After that it’s back to Germany.

Call for Papers: OSS 2011, the 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems

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  • Paper submission deadline: April 8, 2011
  • Conference location: Salvador, BA, Brazil
  • Conference dates: 6-7 October 2011
  • Conference website: OSS 2011

Conference Theme

Over the past decade, the Open Source Software (OSS) phenomenon has had a global impact on the way organisations and individuals create, distribute, acquire and use software and software-based services. OSS has challenged the conventional wisdom of the software engineering and software business communities, has been instrumental for educators and researchers, and has become an important aspect of e-government and information society initiatives. OSS is a complex phenomenon and requires a interdisciplinary understanding of its engineering, technical, economic, legal and socio-cultural dynamics.

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New German Edition of Design Patterns (Entwurfsmuster) book (in German)

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Seit ein paar Monaten ist die neue Ausgabe des Entwurfsmusterbuchs verfügbar. Dies ist meine Übersetzung des Klassikers “Design Patterns” von Erich Gamma et al. aus dem Amerikanischen. Mit der neuen Ausgabe kommen einige Neuerungen und Änderungen. An erster Stelle zu nennen wäre der neue Umschlag:

Erster Vorschlag für den Umschlag der neuen Ausgabe

Der tatsächliche Inhalt der Sprechblase in der endgültigen veröffentlichten Fassung ist ein anderer und lautet: “We present you the book that changed software design.” Da die Viererbande (Gang-of-four) noch auf ein Nachfolgebuch mit weiteren Mustern hofft, habe ich Addison-Wesley’s ursprünglichen Vorschlag entsprechend geändert.

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Call for Papers: WikiSym 2011, the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

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The 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

October 3-5, 2011 | Mountain View, California

The International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym) is the premier conference on open collaboration and related technologies. In 2011, WikiSym celebrates its 7th year of scholarly, technical and community innovation in Mountain View, California at the Microsoft Research Campus in Silicon Valley.

Submissions are invited for the following categories:

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Upcoming Talk: Steering and Control Mechanisms in Open Source Software Projects (in German)

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Next week, on Nov 11, 2011, I’ll give the keynote talk (in German) at the annual Lisog gathering. Lisog is a non-profit organization working to create a sustainable co-existence of open and closed source software.

Title: Steering and Control Mechanisms in Open Source Software Projects

Abstract: Open source has become commercial. With commercial interests, it has become important to understand how for-profit entities steer or control projects in support of their business model. First, this talk describes the main points of control in open source software projects. Next, it describes patterns of combining and utilizing these points of control for the economic benefit of those who control them. This talk will distinguish the use of control points by single-vendor-owned vs. community open source as well as traditionally delivered vs. cloud computing business models.

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Revamping German Copyright Law #EIDG

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The German Enquete commission “Internet and Digital Society” is a multilateral commission instituted by the German parliament to discuss and make recommendations on, well, Internet and digital society. I’m a member of an expert advisory council for one of the parties involved in the commission. I received the following catalog of questions and thought I’d share the questions here and maybe we can have a good discussion. For international readers, it may be helpful to read Wikipedia on German copyright law. So, here are the questions.

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