Chief scribe
After three years of continuous running battles, India’s Department of Information Technology has finalised the country’s national policy on Open Standards. Over the last 3 years, it has worked with government, academic, civil society and the media to push the Indian government in favour of a policy that mandates a single, royalty-free standard. With this, […]
News reaches the lab that the Digital Challenge, set up nationwide some three years ago to promote digital inclusion, has come to an end. One spin-off of the Digital Challenge was the formation of the DC10plus network, which was formed 3 years ago by the 10 Digital Challenge finalists (of which the city of Bristol […]
As previously reported (news passim), France’s Gendarmerie Nationale decided to review its IT infrastructure. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, now reports the force has upgraded 85,000 PCs to Ubuntu Desktop Edition, removing its reliance on the Microsoft operating system almost completely. As well as simplifying maintenance and improving ease of use, Ubuntu Desktop Edition is […]
Bristol Wireless will be officially reopening the Computer Room at Windmill Hill City Farm, Philip Street, Bedminster on Thursday 21st October after a brief period of closure. To mark the reopening, we’ll be holding an open access drop-in session from 10am-4pm on that day to encourage new internet users to get online as part of […]
Early this morning Bristol Wireless received the sad news that Peter Ferne had passed away. 🙁 Pete had been the Chair of Bristol Wireless since its inception until ill health forced him to retire recently. Early this morning, Pete’s old friend and Bristol Wireless stalwart Rich received the following email from Pete’s wife Deb. Pete […]
Our friend Alan Lord reminds us that this coming Sunday the date will be 10/10/10. For those that know their binary, you’ll all realise without being prompted that 101010 is 42 in old money, so the day has been declared 42 Day in honour of the late Douglas Adams, author of some rather interesting sci-fi. […]
There’s been a dearth of news from us for the last week or so. The reason: we’ve been moving the lab across Bristol from Stokes Croft to Windmill Hill. We moved out of Hamilton House over the weekend with the muscle of BW volunteers Jim, Rich, Woodsy and Acesabe, plus assistance from our mates Llanos […]
Yesterday afternoon your correspondent was in the Bristol Wireless lab in Hamilton House on Bristol’s Stokes Croft, catching up on some pressing Bristol Wireless administration and updating the blog, when one of life’s little irritants occurred. Hamilton House’s occasional phantom drummer started banging away (why do people who should never be allowed near percussion always […]
Tomorrow, 18th September 2010, is Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day (SFD) was started by a group of FOSS believers, Matt Oquist, Henrik Omma and Phil Harper with the idea of distributing The OpenCD to everyone. Software Freedom Day is an international event with hundreds of teams from all around the world running local events […]
Today, 30th July 2010, the last Friday of July, is the 11th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. It’s a day to appreciate those people who look after your IT from unpacking new hardware from its box, installing operating systems, configuring said systems, fitting cabling and other infrastructure and basically dealing with anything afterwards that crops […]
It’s hard to make out what’s going on with Ubuntu in the increasingly schizophrenic world of Dell, one of the UK’s/world’s largest suppliers of computer equipment. In June the specialist IT press was buzzing with an announcement from Dell that ‘Ubuntu is more secure than Windows’, whilst praising its ‘fast boot-up speeds and elegant design’, […]
Who said the following? Many authorities have found themselves unintentionally locked into proprietary technology for decades. After a certain point that original choice becomes so ingrained that alternatives risk being systematically ignored, no matter what the potential benefits. This is a waste of public money that most public bodies can no longer afford. Strong words, […]
This morning my inbox was graced by an email from the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) headed: ‘Bolzano, please don’t waste your money’. It refers to a recent decision by the Province of Bolzano-Bozen in northern Italy to spend € 2.2 mn. over the next 3 years renewing existing Microsoft proprietary licences and buying new […]
Last week we write about the Ubuntu in Business event being organised in London on 13th July (news passim). News has just arrived via the blog of Canonical, the commercial sponsors of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, that more places have just been made available for the event. According to Canonical’s blog post: Canonical and […]
I wonder if any lawyers read these posts (probably, given your scurrilous style. Ed. 😉 ). If you fit the description of legal eagle, it’s time to take your hands out of somebody else’s pockets and grab some reading matter as Volume 2, No. 1 (2010) of the International Free and Open Source Software Law […]
News has arrived via Twitter (cheers ciderpunx), on the status of the next release of Debian, the distribution upon which other popular distros such as Simply Mepis and Ubuntu (and loads of others too. Ed.) are based and which is used extensively within Bristol Wireless. The Debian release team recently announced the latest status of […]
An intriguing post has appeared on the blog of Sirius Corporation, one of the UK’s foremost open source suppliers. Entitled ‘Open Source: The Capitalists’ Choice‘, Ben Bell, the author, first deals with the typical assumptions made about open source: I often hear people referring to Open Source and Free Software advocates jokingly, or not so […]
The Ubuntu UK community and Canonical, the commercial sponsors of Ubuntu, are currently inviting folk to a very different type of IT event being held on Tuesday, 13th July in London between 1 pm and 5 pm. The venue is The Brickhouse, 152c Brick Lane, London, E1 6RU (map). The nearest Tube station to the […]
One of the joys of this year’s BarnCamp (news passim) was the banter around the campfire in the evening (in some instances the campfire conversation was redolent of this recent xkcd cartoon. Ed.). And for the following we’re indebted to Asterisk enthusiast Naomi for reciting round the flames on Saturday evening: Our father, who art […]
Following on from the release of government data earlier this week (news passim), comes an announcement that Young Rewired State will be taking place again this year from 2nd to 6th August at various places around the country. Young Rewired State is a hack week for young developers across the UK to go and build […]