News from around the world
Last Friday the government of Basque Country, one of Spain’s autonomous regions, unveiled its repository of open source software, openapps.euskadi.net, according to a report on Joinup, the EU’s public sector open source news website. Making its software solutions publicly available should encourage other public sector organisations to re-use them and collaborate on development. The site […]
One of the common complaints of novice editors of Wikipedia is the awkwardness of learning wiki mark-up combined with the lack of a visual (WYSIWYG) editor. This has now been remedied with the launch of the VisualEditor on the English-language version of Wikipedia (and other sites using MediaWiki, the software upon which Wikipedia runs). However, […]
Today the Free Software Federation Europe (FSFE) reports that the European Parliament has adopted a proposal to create a patent with unitary effect for Europe (posts passim). This decision will leave Europe with a patent system that is both deeply flawed and prone to overreach. It also ends democratic control of Europe’s innovation policy. “We […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that the European Parliament is about to vote on a “unitary patent” for Europe in its plenary session on 11th December. The proposal currently on the table is widely acknowledged to have serious legal and practical problems. In the light of these problems, Free Software Foundation Europe is […]
One of the great benefits of using free and open source software is the manner in which it can be shared, modified and redeployed and the Belgian federal government certainly seems to have embraced this aspect. Joinup, the EU’s public sector open source news site, reports today that the Belgian government is prepared to share […]
The Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 3.6.4 for Linux and other popular operating systems. LibreOffice is the main office suite that comes bundled with most major Linux distributions. According to the Foundation, this new release of the free and open source office suite is another step forward in the process of improving […]
Technology news site The H Online reports that a prototype of the Pi Cam camera for the Raspberry Pi was presented at Germany’s Electronica 2012 show. The camera offers a 5 MP sensor and can record 1080p H.264 video at 30 fps. The camera connects to the Raspberry Pi’s free CSI pins and is controlled […]
The Portuguese government is prescribing Open Document Format (ODF) as the sole format for editable documents for public authorities in a list of open standards, according to Germany’s Heise IT news site, commenting on a report from ESOP, the Portuguese Open Source Business Association. The list is part of a body of rules to ensure […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that the German Ministry of the Interior published a white paper (English version here) about “Trusted Computing” and “Secure Boot” yesterday. The white paper says that “device owners must be in complete control of (that is to say able to manage and monitor) all the trusted computing security […]
The chief scribe recently took part in some smart city sessions organised in Bristol by Knowle West Media Centre, so he was interested to learn of recent smart cities developments in Italy. According to the EU’s Joinup open source news site, open source software is a key element in many of the Smart City projects […]
Today the Times of India reports that a study on the use of free and open source software in e-governance is to be jointly conducted by the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) of Trivandrum in Kerala and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, Karnataka. The study, which is planned […]
Bernama.com, the Malaysian national news agency, reports that the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit’s (MAMPU) Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC) is organising the Malaysian Government Open Source Software Conference (MyGOSSCON) 2012 on 26th and 27th November 2012. The OSCC has been leading the implementation of open source software in Malaysian public sector organisations […]
Debian is a great Linux distribution. Indeed, besides being a distribution in its own right, it acts as the foundation for the very popular Ubuntu distro and countless others. Here at Bristol Wireless, we’ve been using Debian for as long as the chief scribe can remember. The Debian Project is now in the final stages […]
Last Friday saw the launch of Windows 8, the latest “best Windows ever” (not again; isn’t that marketing slogan getting rather hackneyed after nearly 20 years? Ed.) release from the Beast of Redmond, backed by a marketing budget rumoured to be $1.5-1.8 bn. However, the launch was not without its problems for MS, as reported […]
In Switzerland open source use is extensive and could make even greater costs savings possible. This is one of the findings of the Swiss Open Source Study 2012 (Open Source Studie Schweiz 2012), which has now been published, Germany’s Linux-Magazin reports. The study states that, of the 200 companies and public sector bodies surveyed, 93% […]
In terms of world history, not a lot happens on remote Saint Helena. According to Wikipedia, St Helena “is one of the most isolated places in the world, located in the South Atlantic Ocean more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) from the nearest major landmass. The nearest port on the continent is Namibe in Southern […]
Whilst an ever increasing number of countries is deciding to give free software priority in public sector projects, an open source courts package is currently taking flak in Switzerland according to Germany’s Linux-Magazin. Some years ago the Swiss Federal Court developed a program called Open Justitia which assists in inquiries into court decisions. As a […]
It’s always encouraging to see some good open source advocacy and Namibia’s Elizabeth Asino-Joseph doesn’t disappoint with a recent piece on Namibia’s New Era news website. There’s a great justification in the opening paragraph, which reads: Namibia has limited resources to carry out government programs such as computerizing schools, providing universal access to information technology […]
Before we start, let’s be honest. All operating systems have their annoyances. Linux is no exception to this. However, given the foibles of the suppliers of all the Linux distributions, available, the annoyances are likely to vary from distro to distro. Last Thursday Canonical launched the latest version (numbered 12.10) of its popular Ubuntu distribution. […]
Today, 16th October is Ada Lovelace Day, which is a worldwide event about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians and has the aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics […]