On 16 March Bristol’s Circle Interactive is hosting a one-day Introduction to CiviCRM with tutor Sean Kenny. Earlier this month, Circle held a CiviCRM user group meeting (news passim). The course will give an overview of CiviCRM use in small to medium-sized organisations and the first session will offer hands-on training in everyday tasks, such […]
Kerala IT News reports that the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) was inaugurated on 24th February by Kerala’s Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan in Thiruvananthapuram. ICFOSS will focus on providing technical assistance for using FOSS to implement various government projects in Kerala in an endeavour to promote open source software. In […]
Following on from the recent visit to Bristol and talk by Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia’s 10th birthday, Sam Downie has now announced the release an edited 6 minute version of Jimmy’s public talk at the Victoria Rooms (news passim). The event hosted by, and with the co-operation of Wikimedia UK, the University of Bristol, Bristol […]
The Estonian Ministry of the Environment has saved millions of Euro over the past 10 years by using OpenOffice, the open source office suite, according to Meelis Merilo, the head of the Ministry’s IT department, in a news item posted on OSOR. Using the open source package has cost the Ministry no more than €64,000 […]
A couple of days ago, we received a generous donation of an Acer laptop from an anonymous caller at the Lab (thank you kindly, sir! We did ask him if he wanted any kind of thanks, but he resisted all our blandishments. Ed.). He only asked that we wipe the data off the hard drive, […]
As announced a few weeks ago, a meet-up for CiviCRM users and developers was held on Thursday 10th February last at Bristol’s CREATE Centre (news passim), ably led by Circle Interactive‘s Dave Morton, who was being assisted by our old friend Sean Kenny. The main aims of the get-together were to discuss how the CiviCRM […]
H-Online reports that the main exchange of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is now live trading with a Novell SUSE Linux based system, following final step set-up procedures on Saturday 5 February. The system has been trialled for several months and the LSE’s move to Linux continues what appears to be a trend for stock […]
Sexism in free and open source software (FOSS) culture has been increasingly discussed and documented over the past couple of years. However, little has been done about it. Moreover, the lack of women contributors to projects such as Wikipedia has been highlighted by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (news passim) and in Australia, Collective Action is […]
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is inviting individuals, community groups and institutions to celebrate Document Freedom Day (DFD) this coming 30th March. DFD is worldwide day of celebration of Open Standards, open document formats and their importance. Open Standards ensure the freedom to access your data and the freedom to build Free Software to write […]
Late notice I know (you might try apologising for your tardiness. 🙂 Ed.), but the Bristol & Bath LUG has this morning had details of the above event. To quote the event’s home page: The Linux & Open Source Expo 2011 is the UK’s only dedicated Linux & Open Source conference and exhibition. There is […]
One of the facts that came out of Jimmy Wales’ recent talk in Bristol (news passim) was that the majority of contributors to Wikipedia (aka ‘Wikipedians’) are male. Indeed, only 13% of current contributors are women. News now reaches the lab via Collective Action in Australia that a Women for Wikipedia campaign is running between […]
It’s come to the chief scribe’s attention that Herefordshire, another part of the country with a fine cider tradition, is having a bit of a do on Saturday 26th March and there’s a local Bristol angle, if you read down near the foot of the email reproduced below, which was posted to the Ubuntu UK […]
Debian News announces that next weekend, Debian developers and users from all over the world are organizing release parties for the release of Debian squeeze, which is due on the weekend of the 5th-6th February. For those interested in organising a local release party in their respective part of the globe, get cracking with the […]
News reaches the lab (hat tip: Lugbikaner) that Nigeria now has its own open source advocacy group called the Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON). According to OSFON’S website, its mission is The mission of Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON) is to promote and educate decision makers in government, educators, NGOs, businesses and citizens […]
OSOR reports that the Greek non-profit organisation ‘Free Software / Open Source Software’ (aka Ellak, in Greek) granted the northern Greek Municipality of Kozani four wireless access points and a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) line of 24Mb down/1Mb up in the town’s Lassanis square. Furthermore, Ellak undertook the installation, configuration, operation and technical support of […]
Today the BBC reports that Race Online 2012, the organisation that aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults in the UK who are currently offline, will be offering low-cost computers as part of a government scheme to encourage people in the UK to get online for the first time. Prices will start at […]
For a couple of hours earlier today, Bristol’s Victoria Rooms, a part of the University of Bristol, today became the Wikitoria Rooms, courtesy of the presence of Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, who was in Bristol as part of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary celebrations (Wikipedia was actually launched on 15th January 2001. How the world has […]
In 2011 meetings of the CiviCRM user group will be be held every 2 months and the first of these will be held in Bristol on Wednesday 11th February from 4.00 pm to 6.00 pm at The Create Centre, B Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1 6XN (map). The event’s theme will be “Growing The […]
News reaches the lab that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, the Linux operating system which we install on our refurbished machines, is organising a Developer Day on 27th January 2011 in Bangalore, India. The event will be held at Bangalore’s Leela Palace Kempinski Hotel. Ubuntu is different from other commercial Linux offerings that preceded it, […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is gathering information about the use of Free Software by the public sector in Europe. The information will help them to evaluate the current situation and will also be used to decide who will be the European Free Software Champion in 2012. The FSFE is asking public sector bodies […]