BT announced on the 24th July 2008 that it had joined FOSSBazaar as a strategic partner. And it was really great to see this announced as the engagement is something I’d been working on for a while with colleagues at BT. Obviously before we commit resource to such an activity there has to be sponsorship from the business, due diligence carried out and general consensus that it is a good thing to do. Now that this has been done we can scope in more detail how we will contribute, and following which the real work can start!
As I mentioned in a post over on my personal blog, I've been spending a lot of time recently working on FOSS governance strategy, and something that we are very keen on at BT is to exercise governance in the clear. That is by working with initiatives such as FOSSBazaar and organisations such as the Free Software Foundation Europe, we will have the opportunity to not only collaborate in order to advance the state of the art, but to also visibility demonstrate our intent through transparency. Such as by collaborating on the development of tools, and the production of white papers, case studies and guidance that facilitate the adoption of FOSS in the Enterprise.
So I’m very much looking forward to working with the FOSSBazaar guys, and moving forward will post more on BT's work with the group along with general thoughts in connection with FOSS governance and adoption in the Enterprise.