What is Osmosoft?
Osmosoft was formed in 2005 and acquired by BT in 2007. Osmosoft is helping BT learn how to harness rich innovation within open source communities.
Jeremy Ruston announced the acquisition of Osmosoft on 29 May 2007 in
this blog post.
What are you working on?
Our main body of work is the continued development of the open source project
TiddlyWiki, and showcasing BT services using open source and The Web. You can follow our work broken down by
product or
event.
What is TiddlyWiki?
TiddlyWiki is a single web page which contains not just content, but also the functionality needed to edit and save that content. Being a single web page makes it very portable, as it can easily be emailed or handed to somebody on a USB stick. It can also be accessed via the web in a conventional sense - for example, this website is a
TiddlyWiki. You can learn more about
TiddlyWiki here:
Main TiddlyWiki site:
http://www.tiddlywiki.comMain TiddlyWiki developers site:
http://www.tiddlywiki.orgTiddlyWiki Google Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiTiddlyWiki Developers Google Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDevDoes BT own TiddlyWiki?
No. Jeremy transferred the rights to
UnaMesa, the non-profit organisation of which
TiddlyWiki.org is a subsidiary. TiddlyWiki is still free (as in freedom AND beer!) and it's still open source and so shall it remain.
What is UnaMesa?
UnaMesa is a not-for-profit foundation that owns the copyright to TiddlyWiki. UnaMesa supports the research and development of practical tools that help educators, healthcare providers, and communities improve services and reduce costs. You can find out more about its activities on the
UnaMesa website.
What open source licence will you release code under?
This is covered in our
licence tiddler.
Why is BT interested in open source?
Open source software development has a long history of encouraging innovation in communities outside big companies, so we want to inspire these communities to work with BT and help realise the potential of BT's
£10bn investment in its network.
How will BT make money from open source?
BT is not setting out to make money with open source software, but
because of it. In the same way that you can take base materials of wood, metal and bricks and create a building, the power is not in what you did with those materials, but the civilizations that you can support because of what you did with those materials.
Who are the open source thought leaders in BT?
The best place to start would be JP Rangaswami's blog,
Confused of Calcutta. JP is the Managing Director of BT Design and is Jeremy's boss.
Why did BT acquire Osmosoft?
BT wanted to understand what tools would be needed by the open source community to foster innovation at the edges of our network. Acquiring Osmosoft meant hiring Jeremy Ruston, who has a track record running a successful open source project supported by an active community of thousands of members.
Glyn Moody explained why
Why Open Source isn't Tiddly for BT in his Computer World blog.
When was Osmosoft founded?
Osmosoft was founded by Jeremy in 2005. It was more or less a one man concern until it was acquired by BT in 2007 (allowing Jeremy to
pay his bills).
How do we find you?
You can find a map and directions in the
Contact us section.
How do we get you to work with us?
We can be bribed with coffee from Fabio, our favourite barista who has a
Cafe Alto van in
Strutton Ground Market. Our coffee and pastry requirements can be found on our
profile pages.
I have questions that haven't been answered. What should I do?
The best way to get our attention is to blog about us. Alternatively, if you want to contact us directly, you can send us an
email, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.