A network of FLOSS competence centres

Abstract

The goal of a Network of Competence Centers is to provide to FLOSS users, developers, and consumers, high-quality resources and expertise on the various topics related to FLOSS. This may be achieved via education, training, consulting, hosting, and certification not only in terms of tools and platforms but also methodologies, studies, and best practices. Based on the experience of QualiPSo Competence Centres, we observe how such a Network is working as a mechanism for sharing success stories, failures, questions, recommendations, best practices, and any kind of information that could help the establishment of a solid international collaborative environment for supporting quality in FLOSS. New Competence Centres are invited to the QualiPSo Network after their proposals are evaluated by the QualiPSo Competence Centres Board to ensure that the prospective Competence Centre is compliant with the QualiPSo Network Agreement, sharing a common vision and ethics. Each Competence Centre acts in its geographical region to increase the awareness of FLOSS and to better prepare the IT workforce for developing and using FLOSS based solutions. As of 2009, the process for Competence Centre creation is sustainable and reusable; guidelines for establishing proposals and opening new Competence Centres have been created, and promotion of Qualipso Competence Centres is done world wide from India to USA thanks to key initiatives such as the Open World Forum and the FLOSS Competence Centre Summit. This lecture will expose how these Competence Centres relate to each other, which governance model is used and, based on existing experiences, will describe how they currently operate in Europe and Brazil and what is planned in Italy, Belgium, Japan, and China for 2010. © 2010 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.