News from around the world
Richard Stallman (pictured), also known as rms, the originator of the free software movement, has posted an article suggesting policies for a strong and firm effort to promote free software within the state, and to lead the rest of the country towards software freedom. Richard’s article makes some very pertinent points in respect of the […]
Simon Phipps, director of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), has joined the calls for public sector organisations using open source software to get involved in open source associations (news passim). Speaking at the recent World Open Source Conference, Phipps is reported to have said: “It is nice to have a policy, but if you don’t […]
We first became aware of this campaign via a Tweet from EU Vice-President Neelie Croes: We’re hiring! More volunteers needed to measure #EU #broadband speeds w @samknows http://ow.ly/8EuGV http://ow.ly/8EuMm The European Commission and SamKnows are together aimin to provide Europe with reliable and accurate statistics of broadband performance across Europe. They are currently recruiting volunteers […]
France has released the beta version of its open government data website, data.gouv.fr, Joinup reports. Data.gouv.fr aims to foster collaboration and innovation and to increase government transparency by facilitating access to and the re-use of public sector information. The portal brings together data from many public agencies, including the French institute for statistics INSEE, most […]
Spain’s Publico recently reported (Spanish) that the autonomous regional government of Extremadura is planning to move all 40,000 of its desktops to Debian Linux. In taking this step, Extremadura would be the leading Spanish public sector organisation for the use of free software, followed by Andalucia, País Valencià and Madrid. It is hoped the migration […]
Ubuntu Vibes reports that the Desura game client has been open sourced. Progress on work to release the client as open source was slow as lead developer ‘lodle’ was taking a break. However, all the necessary work has now been completed and Desura has been open sourced as Desurium, with the code available GPL v3. […]
Karel De Vriendt, a recently retired European Commission official previously involved in the Commission’s policies and activities involving open source software, has recommended that public sector organisations using open source software should join the associated open source communities, or require that their IT service providers join on their behalf, Joinup reports. Using open source does […]
Our friends at Trinity Community Arts today joined in with the protest being staged in the USA against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) (news passim). Trinity supported the protest by adding the pop-up in the screenshot below, thus blocking access to their site. The text on the pop-up reads: Imagine a world without free knowledge […]
In the USA thousands of websites are currently involved in a protest against 2 bills known as SOPA and PIPA by blacking out their websites for 24 hours starting at midnight (local time) on 18th January 2012. A screenshot of Wikipedia’s blacked out site is shown below. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) ( What does […]
Courtesy of OMG Ubuntu and OpenSure, news reaches the lab of the Ben NanoNote, the world’s smallest Linux laptop. From manufacturers Qi Hardware, we learn that the NanoNote “is an ultra small form factor computing device. The device sports a 336 MHz processor, 2GB of flash memory, microSD slot, head phone jack, USB device and […]
On 23 December government ministers agreed that, by default, the Hungarian public sector will use open document standards for their electronic documents, as of April 2012. In December 2011 Hungary’s government also decided to cancel the funding of proprietary office suite licences for all schools (if only the UK government would – or could – […]
We learn from the pages of El Reg that the Commodore 64 was launched 30 years ago this week. The Commodore 64 was an 8-bit home computer produced by the now defunct manufacturer Commodore International that made its debut at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January 1982. Volume production of the Commodore 64 started […]
It’s that time of year when good intentions abound in the form of New Year resolutions. One of the most intriguing (don’t you mean nerdy? Ed.) that has come to light comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in the USA, which calls upon readers to use full disk encryption on every computer they own. […]
Regular users of Wikipedia will be aware that the main page showcases a different article every day; this is known as the featured article. Yesterday’s featured article was the one on Bristol’s Knowle West area. Those familiar with the Wikipedia article grading process will know just how much effort has gone into getting an article […]
To promote the implementation of the National Infrastructure for Open Data (INDA), the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management last week launched the beta version of the Brazilian Open Data Portal. The full version is scheduled for launch in 2012. INDA is a set of standards, technologies, procedures and control instruments for meeting the […]
But who said it? According to Joinup, it was Christian Ude, the Mayor of Munich, whose local authority is a European leader in the deployment of open source by the public sector in general and local authorities in particular. It was said in a letter to Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the EU Commission, a great […]
In what could be interpreted move to increase the amount of open source software used in academia (or just public sector miserliness. Ed.), Portugal’s Ministry of Education has advised the country’s schools not to renew their licences for proprietary operating systems and office applications. The ministry, in its letter addressed to all schools in October, […]
According to an analysis by the 451 Group, the proportion of open source projects that uses the GPL family of licences – the granddaddy of all free and open source licences – has been declining for several years, The H Online reported yesterday. In summer of 2008, 70% of projects were licensed under the GPL […]
The business section of the BBC website carries an article on freeing up government data within EU Member States for re-use by anyone. This would give rise to a market worth some €40 bn per year, according to the author. As advocates of open source, along with open standards, we have long believed in open […]
One of the barriers frequently mentioned to getting involved in editing Wikipedia is the clunky editing interface; indeed it has come up at sessions attended by Bristol Wireless volunteers cunningly disguised as Wikipedians (news passim). Your scribe has some vague memory of the topic of the clunky editor even coming up in the course of […]