adminThe borough of Rugby is set to become the Perl capital this week as it plays host to a global gathering of coders who will be developing the tools that shape the internet.
For the first time ever, the borough is hosting the global Perl Quality Assurance Hackathon. The event will see a selection of the top Open Source Perl professionals descend on the Rugby Hotel between April 21-24 to discuss, maintain, collaborate, design and deploy code for projects that have a direct benefit to the Perl language.
Open Source software is often developed in a collaborative, public manner and is typically easier to customise than proprietary software alternatives. It’s a software option that is fast growing in popularity in the business world, with 78% of UK businesses relying on Open Source for core operations, according to the Ninth Annual Future of Open Source Survey.
The Perl QA Hackathon is sponsored this year by Rugby Based OpusVL, a company which has been providing Open Source solutions to businesses for more than 20 years, working with organisations in both the public and private sector. The Hackathon coincides with the launch of OpusVL’s Flexibase platform which is built entirely in Perl, and is one of many Open Source projects contributing to Code 4 Health, a project aimed towards stimulating innovation in the NHS and encouraging clinicians and community groups to get involved in building applications to deliver a sustainable UK healthcare infrastructure.
Perl users include some of the largest household names including Intel, BBC, Apple, Oracle, Barclays, IBM and Booking.com. The Perldoc website has seen over 178 thousand unique visitors within the space of one month and is growing in popularity and usage
Managing Director of OpusVL, Stuart J Mackintosh, commented: “It’s great to have so much Open Source activity happening in Rugby this month, and it demonstrates that the Midlands is a centre of excellence when it comes to technology and Open Source principles. There’s no doubt that the transparent nature and scalability of Open Source is being realised in both the business and consumer sectors and the technology looks set to grow in popularity over the next few years. At OpusVL, we have been helping businesses adopt Open Source solutions for many years and are also helping the NHS embrace a culture of openness with Flexibase.”
Stuart J Mackintosh recently delivered a talk at the Medetel international healthcare conference in Luxembourg, reporting on progress with the Apperta and Code 4 Health programmes in the UK, and is also writing a feature article on the subject for the Open Source Observatory, part of Joinup.eu.
