[okfn-announce] Open Knowledge 1.0: London, Saturday 17th March 2007

[Rufus Pollock]

                      Open Knowledge 1.0
               Saturday 17th March 2007, 1100-1830
                      Limehouse Town Hall
               http://www.okfn.org/okforums/okcon/


   * When: Saturday 17th March 2007, 11am until 6:30pm (Doors open at 1030)
   * Where: Limehouse Town Hall, 646 Commercial Road, London, E14 7HA.
   * Programme: http://www.okfn.org/okforums/okfcon/programme/
   * Registration: http://www.okfn.org/okforums/okcon/register/
   * Wiki: http://okfn.org/wiki/okcon/

On the 17th March 2007 the first all-day Open Knowledge event is taking 
place in London. This event will bring together individuals and groups 
from across the open knowledge spectrum and includes panels on open 
media, open geodata and open scientific and civic information.

The event is open to all but we encourage you to register because space 
is limited. A small entrance fee of £10 is planned to help pay for costs 
but concessions are available.

## Theme: Atomisation and Commercial Opportunity

Discussions of 'Open Knowledge' often end with licensing wars: legal 
arguments, technicalities, and ethics. While those debates rage on, Open 
Knowledge 1.0 will concentrate on two pragmatic and often-overlooked 
aspects of Open Knowledge: atomisation and commercial possibility.

Atomisation on a large scale (such as in the Debian 'apt' packaging 
system) has allowed large software projects to employ an amazing degree 
of decentralised, collaborative and incremental development. But what 
other kinds of knowledge can be atomised? What are the opportunities and 
problems of this approach for forms of knowledge other than Software?

Atomisation also holds a key to commercial opportunity: unrestricted 
access to an ever-changing, atomised landscape of knowledge creates 
commercial opportunities that are not available with proprietary 
approaches. What examples are there of commercial systems that function 
with Open Knowledge, and how can those systems be shared?

Bringing together open threads from Science, Geodata, Civic Information 
and Media, Open Knowledge 1.0 is an opportunity for people and projects 
to meet, talk and plan things.