New paper “Authoritative linked data descriptions of debian source packages using ADMS.SW” accepted at OSS 2013

I’ll be presenting “Authoritative linked data descriptions of debian source packages using ADMS.SW” at OSS 2013.

Here’s the abstract :

The Debian Package Tracking System is a Web dashboard for Debian contributors and advanced users. This central tool publishes the status of subsequent releases of source packages in the Debian distribution.

It has been improved to generate RDF meta-data documenting the source packages, their releases and links to other packaging artifacts, using the ADMS.SW 1.0 model. This constitutes an authoritative source of machine-readable Debian “facts” and proposes a reference URI naming scheme for Linked Data resources about Debian packages.

This should enable the interlinking of these Debian package descriptions with other ADMS.SW or DOAP descriptions of FLOSS projects available on the Semantic Web also using Linked Data principles. This will be particularly interesting for traceability with upstream projects whose releases are packaged in Debian, derivative distributions reusing Debian source packages, or with other FLOSS distributions.

Update: If you are interested, a preprint is available here in HTML form. See also previous installments on ADMS.SW in this blog.

Update: The slides of the presentation I made at Isola are here.

My presentations at fOSSa 2010

I’ve delivered 2 presentations at fOSSa 2010 in Grenoble, about :

  • Bug tracking at large scale, reporting on some of our efforts in project HELIOS (see details here)
  • Summer of code-like programs for involvment of students in FLOSS projects, replacing Albert Cohen who couldn’t make it (see the slides here)

The conference wasn’t a big event, but gathered very interesting talks, so it was an enjoyable event. Looking forward for the next edition. And thanks to the organizers for the good time.

New paper on observation of contributions in forges through standard feeds

Just a quick word to mention the paper published at SITIS 2009 by our collegue Vu.

Biblio entry : DANG Quang Vu, BAC Christian, BERGER Olivier, VLASCEANU Valentin, Supporting situation awareness in FLOSS projects by semantical aggregation of tools feeds. The 5th International Conference on Signal Image Technology and Internet Based Systems (SITIS’09), 29 november – 04 december 2009, Marrakech, Morocco, 2009

At all good libraries soon 😉

Here’s the abstract :

It is rather difficult to monitor or visualize what can be the contribution of a member in a collaboration project, especially when the project uses multiple tools to produce its results. This is the case for collaborative development of FLOSS software, that uses Wiki, bug tracker, mailing lists and source code management tools. This paper presents an approach to data collection by using aggregation of feeds published by the different tools of a software forge. To allow this aggregation, collected data is semantically reformatted into Semantic Web standards: RDF, DC, DOAP, FOAF and EvoOnt. Resulting data can then be processed, re-published or displayed to project members. We implemented this approach in a supervision module that has been integrated into the PicoForge platform. This module is able to draw a live graph of the social community out of the different sources of data, and in turn exports semantic feeds for other uses.

COCLICO started : many interesting development in forges ahead of us in the 2 coming years

We have started the COCLICO project this friday, with a meeting grouping many actors coming from various french regions, that operate in the area of open source forges (around FusionForge, NovaForge, Codendi, Trac, PicoForge, etc.). It’s a “Pôle de Compétitivité” (french R&D clusters) project which is funded by french public agencies, under the frame of both the FLOSS thematic group of System@tic (Paris) and Minalogic (Grenoble).

COCLICO will last 2 years and will let us all collaborate on producing FLOSS components that should allow much more interoperability between the open source forges, and probably deliver interesting standards that should allow to integrate forges with more tools in order to support new uses. We have no website yet, but it will be setup next week.

Of course a collaboration project with many companies (with various profiles, from the single consultant to the very large corporations) and academics is always requiring some effort so that everyone collaborates, but we have a strong focus on producing code as first steps, and I’m quite confident we all believe that FLOSS is necessary to share the innovation efforts.

I hope it will be a great occasion to bring interesting new things in the FLOSS ecosystem, and that we’ll manage to let others participate even if they are not funded by COCLICO, since one of the goals of the project is to bring momentum in the general forges ecosystem.

As far as we’re concerned at Institut TELECOM, we’re leading two workpackages on interoperability and community/ecosystem.

I’m very excited about this project, which together with our running Helios project should allow us to contribute in a significant way to FLOSS development tools and to the general quality of the FLOSS development process.

Expect more spamming from me about forges in the future on this blog 😉

Update : we now have a website both with more details in french (including a description of the project’s work-packages) and in english (still empty at the moment, working on it).

We’re hiring a FLOSS developper to work on bugtrackers synchronisation

We’re hiring a software engineer, for 15 months, to work on bugtrackers synchronisation

(see full version of the offered job description here — et une version en français également : ici)

We’re looking for a software engineer to join our PFTCR team, in order to complement our R&D manpower on the HELIOS project. We’re responsible for a work package whose goal is to study and implement a system which would fit in the HELIOS platform, to ensure synchonisation between bug-trackers.

The workplace would be here in Evry (France, Paris area) for a duration of 15 months, under a french CDD contract (starting first quarter of 2009). The development done during the work on this project will be contributed back to FLOSS projects.

Strong know-how in software development as well as interest for research issues are expected from the candidates. Also, a good knowledge of the open source development tools, and of the dynamics of the libre software development communities is expected (distributions, packaging, QA). A practical experience of contribution on an open source project would be a plus (typically as Debian developper, for instance).. Technical english skills will be required (as well as notions of french, considering the french nature of the environment).

If you’re interested and available early 2009, I definitely want to hear from you.
See more details in full version of the offered job description.