Chief scribe
According to its website, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where its member organisations, a full-time staff and the public work together to develop web standards, whose mission is to lead the Web to its full potential. These standards have so far been characterised by complete openness: all web standards are […]
Bristol University’s news pages have announced that email for staff and postgraduate research students at the University of Bristol moved to Gmail over the Easter weekend. Most staff started to use the new service from Wednesday, 3rd April 2013. They joined 1,000 staff early adopters and 3 pilot departments, who provided very positive feedback on […]
Microsoft will be discontinuing its Windows/MSN Messenger service on 8th April and all current users will be switched to Skype. The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is advising all Windows Messenger users to take this as an opportunity to embrace open standards such as XMMP (formerly known as Jabber) instead of switching to Skype. “Crucial […]
The email below has been posted today to the Hacktionlab mailing list. Hi All, I’m pleased to announce that the BarnCamp 2013 sign-up is now live and on-line: https://barncamp.org.uk/ More information about BarnCamp on that site and at: https://hacktionlab.org/barncamp/ You know what to do! 🙂
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) have awarded this year’s Document Freedom Germany Award to German newspaper taz.die tageszeitung (TAZ) in recognition of TAZ’s exemplary use of open standards. TAZ is receiving the Document Freedom award because it delivers its electronic paper to its subscribers in […]
Reuters reports that Hispalinux, which has some 8,000 members in Spain who either use or develop for the Linux operating system, has filed a formal complaint against Microsoft with the EU Commission’s office in Madrid. Hispalinux’s complaint states that Windows 8 contains an “obstruction mechanism” called UEFI Secure Boot (news passim) which makes it difficult […]
According to a report yesterday on German IT news website Heise, the Chinese Ministry for Industry & Information Technology has selected Ubuntu as the basis for its reference architecture for operating systems. The China Software and Integrated Chip Promotions Centre (CSIP), part of the Industry & IT Ministry, Ubuntu manufacturer Canonical and the Chinese National […]
A day’s training in editing and using Wikipedia in Oldham (reputed home of the country’s best black puddings. Ed.) has been announced by Wikimedia UK, the charity supporting the work of the US-based Wikimedia Foundation. The training day will be held on Saturday, 27th April from 10:00am to 4:00pm at Oldham Library, Greaves Street, Oldham, […]
According to the news section of its website, the Jordan Open Source Association (JOSA) has formally requested that the Jordanian government remove articles in its draft Telecommunications Law which would allow the government to impose censorship and otherwise control access to the internet. The request was included in a list of suggestions submitted to the […]
We’ve received details of yet another meet-up in London for users of CiviCRM, the open source CRM for the voluntary sector, in London next week. The meet-up will be held on Wednesday 27th March between 5.30 pm and 8.30 pm. The venue will be Manta Ray Media Ltd., Finsbury Business Centre, 40 Bowling Green Lane, […]
Debian, the base Linux distribution for lots of other distros (including the highly popular Ubuntu), announced today that the backports service for the next stable release of Debian (version 7, codenamed “Wheezy”) will be part of the main archive. Backports are packages mostly from the testing distribution (and in few cases from unstable too, e.g. […]
We learn today from the Wild Webmink blog that the controversy over the Communications Data Bill – aka the Snooper’s Charter – is still rumbling on (news passim). To quote: The UK’s Home Office continues to push for maximum surveillance powers with minimum accountability in the latest adjustments to the Communications Data Bill. Although the […]
The Python Software Foundation blog announced yesterday that an amicable settlement had been reached in the dispute over the Python trade mark in Europe (news passim) between the Foundation and PO Box Hosting Limited, which trades as Veber. The dispute centred around Veber’s use of the Python name for its cloud hosting services and its […]
Here’s something that’s bound to appeal to our friends at Bristol Hackspace and Dorkbot Bristol: 20th April has been announced as the date for Hardware Freedom Day 2013. Hardware Freedom Day (HFD) is an annual celebration of Open Hardware. Open Hardware Day was initiated in 2012 by the Digital Freedom Foundation, the organisation responsible for […]
The words free (as in freedom. Ed.) and open are quite commonly associated with academia and education: free thought, open access to knowledge and such like. Indeed, these concepts are actually embodied in the names of some academic institutions, such as the UK’s Open University and Germany’s Free University of Berlin. However, there are signs […]
A report on Joinup, the EU’s open source public sector news website, suggests that the government of Spain’s autonomous region of Galicia is considering a switch to open source office productivity tools. Galicia’s Agency for Technological Innovation and Agasol, the Galician Association for Free Software Enterprises, announced last week that they have started assessing the […]
Today is International Women’s Day and Neelie Kroes, the European Union Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, has drawn attention on her blog not only to the opportunities that ICT can provide for women, but also to the dearth of women employed in ICT. She writes: I think every woman should have the tools and skills […]
The BCS is collaborating with @Bristol and Bristol University to organise the Raspberry Pi Bootcamp at @Bristol, Anchor Road, Bristol BS1 5DB (map) on Saturday, 20th April 2013 from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm. This day will involve a range of activities to help the beginner get going, as well as enable the expert to […]
Some years ago, computer retailer Dell made an abortive, half-hearted effort to offer a limited range of machines – one entry level desktop system and a couple of laptops – running Ubuntu Linux (news passim). It’s now back with another Ubuntu offering in the UK and Germany, according to a report in the H Online. […]
If you’re in the Manchester area in mid-March, this event may be of interest to you. A panel discussion on the aspects of an the future of open data will be held at MadLab, 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester M4 1HN (map) on Tuesday, 19th March 2013 from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm. Over the past […]