MANAGEMENT OFFICE MISSION REPORT - China - October 2007 OW2 Management Office Participants: Cedric Thomas (OW2) Julie Marguerite (THALES) Cherry BIAN (CVIC SE) Delegation of OW2 Members from Europe (PKU Meetings and Meetings) François Exertier (BULL) Guilaume Sauthier (BULL)
Meeting OW2 CVIC SE Oct. 22 Jinan Participants: LIU Jiangning, General Manager, LIU Zongfu, Engineer (center of picture), plus 20-30 developers Description Highlights: Outcome of the meeting: CVIC-SE will invest and build expertise on JO²nAS and maintain a watch on other OW2 software. CVIC-SE will provide the webmaster and technology resources for the Chinese side of OW2 technology infrastructure. OW2 DOCSC Participants: SU Xiaodong, DOCSC General Secretary, Yuan Cheng, DOCSC Deputy Director, Gao Xing, DOCSC, Shan Wei, Datong Group, Li Hongbin, Goldmind, Vice General Manager, Yan Zhang, Digital Fortune, General Manager, Zaho Chen, HLJ Post YiTong Infonet, General Manager, Highlights: Questions about the business value of open source. DOCSC is in a discovery stage of open source. DOCSC is in reorganization. End 2007, will evaluate the opportunity to renew or not its membership in OW2. In the course of the discussion it was pointed out that DOCSC contribution to OW2 was non existent. Will make an effort to contribute more, but it is difficult to find a person who speaks English and understand IT in. They plan to contribute to localization of OW2 material: say web site localization is important. Highcom Participants: Wu Jia Xian General Manager (first from right), ZHANG Liming, Highcom, Product R&D Manager (first from left), SU Xiaodong, DOCSC General Secretary (second from left) Highlights: 150 people. ISO-9001, CMMI3. Open source usage: Jboss, Jrun, Hibernate, Webworks, JasperReport. Use open source because it is free. Does not contribute because does not see their interest. Do not participate in mailing lists (not in their culture), they sort out open source code difficulties by themselves. Interested in giving OW2 presentations to his engineers. Volunteered to help translate our presentations in Chinese, and contribute to diseemination. CNC Goldmind Com. Participants: LI Hongbin, Vice General Manager (center picture), Ms LU Wei, CTO (second from left), SU Xiaodong, DOCSC General Secretary (third from left)
Highlights: Subsidiary of state-owned China Netcom Company. Specialises in BSS and OSS for telecommunication and in information systems for public administrations. Wary about using open source software because of lack of professional support. Interested in case studies in the telecommunication sector. They did not know OW2, now they are interested in using OW2 code for workflow: currently use BEA in workflow, will look at Bonita and Orchestra. Local Chapter Meeting Participants: Meeting: Peter Cheng, Founder Huihoo, Dr. Jun HAN, BUAA, SU Xiaodong, DOCSC General Secretary (first from right), JIANG Jian, CVIC-SE (second from right), Zhu Yan, BUAA (fourth from right), Dinner: Prof. Wang Huaimin, NUDT, Liu Jiangning, CVIC SE, Dr. Jun HAN, BUAA, Dr. Wang Qin, ISCAS, GUO Changguo (NUDT) Highlights: Budget discussion will take place on the basis of an Activity plan. OW2 budget will be used to support actions which are considered beneficial for all members. Annual OW2 Conference will not take place in China in 2008 as initially decided by the Board for lack of budget. A presence at a W3C event hosted by BUAA is planned, perhaps with some conference sessions. Reviewed opportunity to participate in the Open Source University sessions organized by Huihoo. Discussed arrangements to have a localized OW2 web site in China. Annual Conference in China postponed to 2009. Dissemination and membership development efforts will be conducted on a geographical area basis: one responsible for each parts of China. Prof Wang submitted the idea for OW2 to support projects oriented toward software trustworthiness: a) submit TruSTIE as a new project to OW2 code base, b) apply quality model to OW2 projects, c) develop a software for the management of the code base. See dedicated report on LC Meeting. Huihoo Participants: Peter CHENG (picture), Huihoo, Highlights: A grass root open source community of 15000 individual members. Was founded six years ago; 200 programmers registered over the period; code base includes 20 projects. Projects must have a real-life implementation to be accepted. Currently working on Open Source University (OSU) a volunteer-based road show ailing at evangelizing 100 university throughout China. Interested in including OW2 presentations into their discussion sessions on open source. 863 Experts Program Meeting Participants: Ji Zhi Yuan, Director, High Technology R&D Center, MOST, Prof. HUAI Jinpeng, BUAA, Prof. WANG Huaimin, NUDT, Prof. WEI Jun, ISCAS, Prof. MEI Hong, PKU, Dr. WANG Qin, ISCAS, LIU Jiangning, CVIC SE, ZHU Mingyuan, Core Tek, Peter CHENG, Huihoo, (plus others non identified)
Local Chapter Incubators representatives: Zhai Weitang, Henan, Lou Wenxiao, Xi'an, Gui An, Synchrosoft, Xi'an, Tao Xiaolan, Changsha, (plus others non identified) Highlights: This day-long meeting of the 863 expert group in presence of government official ended by a presentation of OW2, its future platform in China, and declarations of support by several incubators representing over 300 companies. OW2-oriented presentations at this meeting aimed at securing government funding for OW2 in China. Brief discussion about the Embedded Software Initiative with Dominique Potier, THALES, and Core Tek, which is the only embedded software company in he 863 group. Participants: Peter CHENG (first from left), Huihoo, Dr. Jun HAN, BUAA, ZHU Yan, BUAA, GUO Changguo, NUDT, LIU Jiangning CVIC SE, plus BUAA and PKU students Highlights: Discussion about the business and technology reliability of open source. Disappointing meeting, which was probably useful for only 2 or 3 participants. Among participants some had already attended the tutorial either in Jinan or in, the others either seemed unconcerned or did not understand English. These participants were invited because they are core technology personnel in their organizations, most of them University teachers who can promote OW2 in their area of influence. LIAMA Meetings Intervision Participants: LI Shi, Manager Scilab Project China and HU Baogang (for programming contest), Vania Joloboff (for Embedded Initiative) Highlights: Programming contest: Not enough time to organize a programming contest in 2008. OW2 will learned with LIAMA 2008 edition in order to be ready in 2009. Joint participation in 2008 edition to announce next year's event. LC team to study funding opportunities from 863 for promotion(scilab received funding last year). Check also grant opportunities from embassies. Embedded Software Initiative: brief discussion with Vania Joloboff who commited to finalizing the Initiative Charter. Participants: Li Chunqin, CTO Highlights: Remains a proprietary software vendor (#3 in China behind IBMand BEA) Is aware however that open source is a key trend. OW2 membership is a way to maintain a strategic watch on open source and be ready if necessary. Agrees that some open source business model will eventually mix with proprietary models. Recommends to contact Mr. XIAO Lan of the Software Industry Promotion Center currently in Europe. EC Oct. 26 Participant: James WEI, General Manager
Highlights: Specialises in software and websites translation and localization. 150 people, operations essentially in, Chengdu and Shanghai. Customers include leading software vendors. Could help in web site and documentation localization for China LC. (http://www.e-cchina.com/eng/index.html). Peking University -26 Participants: ZHOU Minghui, PKU (third from right), CAO Donggang, PKU, LIU Zongfu (CVICSE), PKU students, François Exertier (Bull), Guillaume Sauthier (Bull) Highlights: In parallel with the Management Office meetings a technical work session was held to advance cooperation between PKU, Bull and CVIC-SE on OW2 common J2EE platform, JO²nAS. Please see dedicated report on this meeting, available at http://wiki.jonas.objectweb.org/xwiki/bin/download/main/cooperation/jo2nas_meeting_ Oct_2007.pdf Changfeng Alliance Follow-up meeting in Paris, Nov. 2 Participants: Andy LEE, CTO. Highlights: Andy Lee replied to us on behalf of Mr. Xiao Lan, Vice Director of the Software Industry Promotion Center (BSIPC) who was recommaned by LI Chungqin of Tongtech. Andy Lee is the CTO of the ChangFeng Alliance (precisely the Changfeng Open Standards Platform Software Alliance COSPSA which is administratively managed by the BSIPC, Mr XIAO Lan is Secretary-general of Changfeng). Andy Lee is with ISCAS and the main promoter of «End-to-End Ressource Planning» (EERP) a concept to implement business value chains based on web services. Changfeng EERP project has 37 researchers in Changdu University. Andy recommends to attend International Open Standard Conference to be held on November 28-29. There is a session on open source chaired by Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation. Prof HUAI Jinpeng chairs the session dedicated to the W3C. (http://www.bsw.gov.cn/v/shownews_sjj_1_en.jsp?newsid=107632). Andy also pointed to the China Open Source Software Promotion Union (COPU) whch sponsors the OSSummit Asia 2007, which is hosted by the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation, to be held from 26 to 30, November in 2007 in Hong Kong (http://www.oss.org.cn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=625&itemid=67) - last minute info: this conference has been postponed until an unspecified date in 2008. END