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 […]
There’s been lots of CiviCRM activity in the chief scribe’s inbox concerning CiviCRM, the open source customer relationship package used by Bristol Wireless, including the anonymous email below from someone called CiviCRM Info. I am emailing to let you know about the next London CiviCRM meet-up on Wednesday 28th November. We’ve run some really successful […]
News arrives via Sean Kenny of Circle Interactive that a CiviCRM user and administrator training session is to be held in Bristol on Tuesday, 11th December from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm at the Create Centre, Smeaton Road, BS1 6XN (map). This is being promoted as a comprehensive one day hands on training course covering […]
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 […]
CodeWeavers, Inc., the developers of CrossOver, which enables users to run Windows software on Linux and Mac, is having a giveaway today, 31st October 2012. For one day only, CodeWeavers is giving away CrossOver with 12 months’ free support and product upgrades. If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, point your browser at […]
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% […]
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. […]
Although the favourite tipple (outside working hours of course! Ed.) of our regular volunteers is cider, we do have a couple – notably Messrs Treasurer and Secretary – who are fond of beer and real ale in particular. Consequently we were intrigued when Phoronix reported that beer and open source are being combined in GBeers […]
The Portuguese local authority of Vieira do Minho in the far north of the country would appear to be an exemplar for the use of open source software for small local authorities everywhere, according to a report posted yesterday on the EU’s open source news website, Joinup. Vieira do Minho has been using open source […]
The Münchner IT-Blog, the IT blog of Munich city council in Germany, reports that its fellow council in Leipzig started a migration to the free open source office suite OpenOffice earlier this year. OpenOffice has since been installed on 3,900 of Leipzig’s 4,200 PC workstations and is now used as the standard office program within […]
Today, Monday 8th October, is the last day for registration for the LibreOffice Conference 2012, which, following a public poll, will be held in Berlin from 17th – 19th October 2012. The conference venue will be the Conference Centre of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The conference programme reflects the broad engagement and […]
While Linux is running your phone (if it’s an Android. Ed.), tweets, financial trades, cash machines and much, much more, most people don’t know how it’s actually built. This short video from the Linux Foundation takes you inside the process by which the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing is organised. It’s […]
After looking over the Channel at the forthcoming Belgian local authority and provincial elections (news passim), we’re coming a bit closer to home. It cannot have escaped the attention of any Bristolian who hasn’t been in a coma for many months that an election will take place in November to select an elected mayor for […]
On 14th October, Belgium goes to the polls for local council and provincial elections. Joinup, the EU’s open source news website, reports that 278 election candidates have so far pledged their support for free and open source software. The pledges were garnered in a grass roots campaign comprising just 2 people who have been contacting […]
EU open source news website Joinup reports that the Administration the Italian region of Umbria has started a project to migrate an initial group of 5,000 users to LibreOffice. Osvaldo Gervasi, president of Umbria’s Open Source Competence Centre – CCOS – states that getting rid of IT vendor lock-in is one of the main motives […]