Linux Format puts on its clean shirt and trousers to go on a VoIP call with Amanda Brock and discuss OpenUK, influencing government policy and how old we all are.

Amanda Brock

CREDIT: Amanda’s photo (with Kitten Dundee) was taken during lockdown as part of @onthedoorstepcrouchend photography project by Julie Kim Photography, May 2020.

Amanda Brock is CEO of OpenUK (https://openuk.uk), a new non-profit body focused on promoting Open Technology, but this is a recent appointment in a line of influential positions. She has a CV that includes open source advisory work at the United Nations Technology Innovations Labs, being a European rep for Open Invention Network (the largest defensive patent pool in the world) and being on an Open Projects Advisory for the OASIS Standards Body. She also spent five years as General Counsel for Canonical where she set up the legal function.

Part of the reason Amanda is involved in so many projects and initiatives is apparent the moment the VoIP connection kicks in. Even a global pandemic can’t stop Amanda being a connector. She’s someone who enjoys talking to people and pulling others into the world of open source, and given the serendipitous way she caught the open source bug, we’re fortunate Tux tipped the scales of fate in our favour.

MAKING THE OPEN SOURCE VOICE HEARD “I think we have amazing talent in the UK in Open, but that talent has rightly been focused on international projects and we don’t know each other geographically”

Linux Format: What made a commercial lawyer get involved with the open world?

Amanda Brock: The honest truth is a job. I had joined something called Lawyers on Demand as the sixth lawyer on its books. It’s now a massive organisation - a new model for placing lawyers. I was placed in Canonical for three months. I was meant to go to another contract with Amazon to work on its new electrical retail device, which I’m assuming was the Kindle, but six weeks in, Canonical asked me if I’d like to stay. So first, I got a job in open source and, second, I fitted. I’ve never felt more at home anywhere than I did at Canonical.

LXF: Have you always been interested in software and technology?

AB: When I was at school, I was told to stay away from computers! When I was in fifth form in Scotland in about 1985-86, they had us coding for a term and, for some reason, not one of my coding programs ran. Ever. They couldn’t work out what it was. We were learning to code in binary; it was madness. I was told that computers just didn’t like me, and I should stay away from them.