Show Sidebar Log in

Category Archives: International IT News

News from around the world

Evolve OS to change name to Solus

This blog reported yesterday that the developers of the Evolve OS Linux desktop operating system had received a letter from lawyers acting for the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation & Skills informing them that BIS’ OS trade mark was being infringed and that the developers would have to pick a new name. Ikey Doherty of […]

FSFE gives cautious welcome to Commission’s new free software strategy

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has given a cautious welcome to the EU Commission’s new version of its strategy for the internal use of free and open source software covering the period 2014-2017 (news passim). FSFE has provided extensive input to the Commission during the update process. While the new strategy is broadly similar […]

Evolve OS name change forced by trade mark dispute with UK government

The Evolve OS desktop Linux distribution is being forced into a change of name due to potential trade mark problems with the UK government, Softpedia reports. The bone of contention is not the Evolve element, but OS, which is apparently a trade mark registered to registered to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and […]

Another Microsoft open source release

Microsoft, purveyor of insecure proprietary operating systems and annoying, overpriced office suites, has not always had an easy relationship with the concept of open source. Indeed, its first forays into the field were taken reluctantly since it was ordered by the European Commission to disclose interoperability information to third parties under an unfair competition ruling […]

Commission updates open source strategy

The European Commission has announced the updating its strategy for internal use of open source software. The Commission, which is already using open source for many of its key IT services and software solutions, will further increase the internal role of this type of software. The renewed strategy puts a special emphasis on procurement, contribution […]

LibreOffice to take to the cloud

Google Docs and Microsoft’s Office 365 could soon face proper open source and open standards opposition to cloud-based office productivity services according to the post below from yesterday from the chief scribe’s own blog. LibreOffice, the best free and open source office suite produced, is set to become the cornerstone of the world’s first global […]

Document Freedom Day: why open standards matter

Today is Document Freedom Day, an annual international celebration of open formats and open standards and an opportunity to promote their use. The use of open standards is definitely gaining ground, particularly where it matters, such as in dealings with government bodies. This was amply illustrated last year by the UK Cabinet Office’s announcement of […]

Make an origami unicorn and win an Ubuntu Phone

An Origami Unicorn Challenge has been announced by the Ubuntu Insights website. Origami has long been associated with good fortune and represents the visual style for the Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu is inviting people to create their own Origami Unicorn for the chance to win an Ubuntu Phone. The stages to participate include: Create a […]

Bristol student co-author on paper at Warsaw cryptography conference

Bristol University reports that one of its students is co-author on a paper to be presented at The Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC-2015), one of the world’s top cryptography conferences being held in Warsaw this week between 23rd and 25th March. Sophie Stevens, a mathematics undergraduate, is co-author on the paper “Key-Homomorphic Constrained Pseudorandom Functions” […]

City of Light makes enlightened move

The City of Paris has become a member of April, the leading French free and open source advocacy organisation. Making the announcement, April reported that the council wants to intensify its commitment in favour of free and open source. Following a resolution in December 2014 from the council’s Green group and subsequent negotiations conducted by […]

GnuPG can now employ second developer

GnuPG, the most important free encryption program, will in future be developed by two paid employees, German IT news site heise reports. After a flood of donations he has been able to employ a second developer, programmer Werner Koch stated in a blog post. “The financial crisis of The GnuPG Project is over”, he wrote. […]

Wikimedia Foundation takes NSA to court

The Wikimedia blog reports that yesterday the Wikimedia Foundation filed suit against the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The lawsuit challenges the NSA’s mass surveillance programme and more specifically its large-scale search and seizure of internet communications — frequently referred to as “upstream” surveillance. The Foundation’s aim in filing […]

Free wifi on trains from 2017?

At Prime Minister’s questions today, David Cameron (he’s a prime minister impersonator, isn’t he? Ed. 😉 ) informed MPs that the ability to access wifi was vital for rail travellers and promised investment of £50mn. to provide more wifi on the railway from 2017, today’s Western Daily Press reports. The investment in wifi the PM […]

Bristol Is Open approved by city council

Bristol Is Open, the collaborative high-performance, high-speed networking project between Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol (news passim), received unanimous approval from the council’s cabinet earlier this week, the University reports. Bristol Is Open will manage the Open Programmable City project, a city-scale research infrastructure using fibre optic and wireless connectivity and high […]

France: internet connection available on trains by end of 2016

Libération reports that the entire French railway network will be connected to the internet between now and the end of 2016, according to French train operator SNCF, alluding to forthcoming works to be conducted with mobile operators and Arcep, the French telecommunications regulator. “We shall work in full cooperation with the operators and what we […]

Successful crowdfunding secures GnuPG’s future

When it comes to encryption, GnuPG is the de facto standard implementation of the PGP standard. Any private individual currently encrypting their emails is almost always using a software package that has GnuPG under its bonnet. Since the middle of December GnuPG’s main developer has been collecting donations to enable financing of his work on […]

OpenStack Debian image available

Debian developer Thomas Goirand has announced on his blog that a Debian disk image of the free and open source OpenStack cloud computing software platform is now available from cdimage.debian.org. Thomas writes: About a year and a half after I started writing the openstack-debian-images package, I’m very happy to announce to everyone that, thanks to […]