Unlike their colleagues in the city of Helsinki’s IT department, who think open source office suites cost too much (news passim), the Finnish city of Tampere is to trail the free and open source OpenOffice productivity suite alongside its regular proprietary suite (probably the one with the annoying paperclip. Ed.), Joinup reports. The pilot follows […]
We’ve been long-term users of Linux LTSP thin client systems for running both our workstations in the lab and our mobile event ICT and public access suites. Moreover, following a tweet earlier today, we’ve been contacted just now by the LTSP developers to see if we can contribute to LTSPedia, the new LTSP wiki, as […]
It’s just been announced by Wikimedia UK, the UK charity that supports the work of Wikipedia, that the English language version of Wikipedia has today passed through the barrier of 4 million articles: The English @Wikipedia now has over 4 million articles! Congratulations to its 100,000+ editors that have made this possible! — Wikimedia UK […]
According to the IT department city of Helsinki in Finland, migrating to an open source office suite like OpenOffice or LibreOffice will cost the city council some €21 mn., according to a news piece carried by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). Back on 10th of April 2012, FSFE filed a Freedom of Information request, […]
LeggiOggi.it reports (in Italian) that the Puglia region has passed Italy’s first regional law that combines free software with open data. On Wednesday this week all 48 members of the regional council voted in favour of a new law promoting the use of free software and granting citizens access to all the information and services […]
The BBC is reporting that the leap second change and poor weather on both sides of the Atlantic last weekend caused chaos, knocking out the likes of Reddit, Foursquare and Amazon Web Services‘ cloud computing servers. Besides, internet and IT giants, the bug also affected many other businesses, such as Quantas, whose check-in system crashed. […]
We learn from Joinup that Yadifa, the DNS server developed to administer the .eu top level domain (TLD), has been released as open source by Eurid, the not-for-profit organisation which manages the .eu domain registry. Eurid uses Yadifa alongside Bind, one of two other commonly used open source DNS systems. Yafida was published officially on […]
Our friends at Bristol 24/7 recently reported that open source software supplier ForgeRock was moving its UK headquarters to Bristol’s historic Queen Square. Even more recently, Connecting Bristol alerted us that ForgeRock is recruiting staff for its Bristol office. Connecting Bristol’s post also indicates that successful candidates for ForgeRock’s jobs in Bristol will also have […]
Clearly not, if the following exchange in the House of Lords between Lord Rennard and Baroness Verma is accurately reported. First the question by LibDem Lord Rennard: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House the Government’s policies in relation to the development of the computer code or software they pay for and whether it […]
A couple of days ago, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) announced it had started an initiative to promote fair public procurement in Finland. The initiative concentrates on IT-related procurement notices that require specific brands instead of defining the functionalities required by the purchaser. To date FSFE has scrutinised over 300 procurement notices, and of […]
It’s rumoured that the UK public sector spends some £20 bn. per year on IT. Is this money well spent? Hardly, if the latest evidence is to be believed. Computing.co.uk reports on a FoI request by open source storage supplier Nexenta into the storage buying habits of 48 local and central government departments, of which […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has now entered the fray (news passim) over the draft Communications Data Bill (aka the Snooper’s Charter), publishing advice for ordinary users to avoid its worst effects by using free software. The original post helpfully points out that, “Free Software provides several ways with which you can protect your […]
CivivCon 2012, this year’s conference for CiviCRM users, takes place in London on September 19th. CiviCon brings together users and developers of CiviCRM to find out about the latest developments in CiviCRM and help steer the future of this open source CRM. It is a great opportunity to learn, share, network and get more involved […]
The Belgian Province of Luxembourg (yes, there is such a beast! Ed. ) was for a long time a user of VoIP telephony services based on proprietary technology supplied by Cisco (Call Manager + SCCP protocol), Joinup reports. A few months ago and following a public tender, the Province decided to rid itself of vendor-lock-in […]
The dust has now settled over the launch of Monmouthpedia on Saturday, when Monmouth was officially launched as the world’s first Wikipedia town (news passim). Monmouth, an historic town close to the border between England and Wales, is now sell covered in QR codes, enabling visitors with smart phones (e.g. Android, Jesusphone) to scan them […]
World launch for Wikipedia town paves way for global roll out across local communities. Innovative collaborative project puts Monmouth on the world map and provides access to almost half a billion people.
Are you within easy reach of Weybridge in Surrey? If so, you might be interested in attending one or more of the forthcoming open days being organised by Sirius, one of the UK’s major companies of free and open software and services for both business and the public sector. To quote from Sirius’ Open Days […]
In the opinion of Christian Nähle, an employee of Dortmund City administration in Germany, Dortmund should prioritise open source software over its proprietary equivalents. According to Joinup, Nähle has written an open source proposal for Dortmund, which is currently being reviewed by the city’s IT department. The strategy paper’s explanatory statement has also been posted […]
Disturbing news from Slovakia reaches the lab via the FSFE. The east European state recently introduced legislation to help cut red tape by mandating the use of electronic filing of monthly VAT returns by businesses. However, the Slovakian state’s web application failed to observe interoperability guidelines and only works in Internet Explorer on Windows. EURA […]
Joinup reports that the Greek municipality of Pilea-Hortiatis, just east of Thessaloniki, is migrating all of its PCs to LibreOffice with the assistance of Greeklug, the Greek Linux User Group. Greeklug explains in a statement (in Greek) published at the end of March that it has completed the migration of 91 PCs from a proprietary […]