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 […]
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 […]
As with all other fields of human activity, IT is not immune from fads and fashion. One of the recent fads has been for so-called cloud computing. Wikipedia describes cloud computing (often truncated to just the cloud. Ed.) as follows: Cloud computing is a recently evolved computing terminology or metaphor based on utility and consumption […]
It’s been announced that the City of Munich has joined the Advisory Board of The Document Foundation (TDF) the non-profit foundation steering the development of LibreOffice, the leading free and open source office productivity suite. On the TDF’s Advisory Board, Munich’s city council will be represented by Florian Haftmann. Back in 2003, the city of […]
Liliputing reports that leading Hong Kong electronics manufacturer PC Partner has introduced a small form-factor computer with a fanless case that measures 5″ x 5″ x 1.8″. Its model number is the N2581N1-F and it is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 quad-core processor with 192-core Kepler graphics. It’s currently on sale in Japan and may […]
Most people interact with free software every day, but many of those people don’t know what free software is or why they should go out of their way to use it. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) wants to remedy that so it commissioned a short video that makes free software easy for everyone to understand. […]
Honda’s Asimo, the world’s most advanced humanoid robot, is apparently programmed using Ubuntu Linux, according a report on IT news website Softpedia. A sharp-eyed Softpedia reader pointed out that the Ubuntu OS has been spotted in a YouTube video on recent advances in robotics. The Linux terminal and the characteristic Ubuntu Gnome terminal maximise, minimise […]
The licensing practices of proprietary software companies such as Microsoft have been questioned this week in the lower house (Tweede Kamer) of the Dutch parliament. The questions were triggered by the case of the Municipality of Arnhem, which wanted to switch from the ubiquitous MS Office suite to a free and open source alternative such […]
Since the free and open source operating systems field tends to be dominated by GNU/Linux in its various forms and distributions, it’s easy to forget that others are available. One of these – FreeBSD – is having a newsworthy week at present. FreeBSD is one of the most popular Unix derivatives based upon the 4.4BSDLite2 […]
Yesterday we reported on the threat to the GNOME Foundation’s GNOME trademark from Gnome trademark applications made by Groupon (news passim). Groupon has now withdrawn its Gnome trademark applications and issued the following statement. Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number […]
A group of developers has developed a DIY laptop kit, heise reports. All components can be assembled in a way that’s friendly for beginners and without soldering. With the Pi-Top you’ll be learning DIY both for hardware and software. Jesse Lonzano and Ryan Dunwoody had the idea of developing the Raspberry Pi-based Pi-Top DIY laptop […]
The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organisation promoting the goals of the GNOME Project, helping it to create a free software computing platform for the general public that is designed to be elegant, efficient and easy to use. The Foundation is currently facing a threat to its GNOME trademark from global deal-of-the-day website merchants Groupon, […]
Whilst the present government’s record may be regarded by some as controversial, to say the least, there’s one area where some real progress has been made; and that’s the adoption of open standards by central government. In July this year, there was the adoption of Open Document Format (ODF), PDF and PDF/A and HTML (news […]
Our friends at Omnis Systems in Brighton are organising an event – Open Source, the Cloud and your Business – at Sussex County Cricket Club, Hove, BN3 3AN (map) on Tuesday 18th November. Many organisations in the private, public, voluntary and community sectors are now starting to look seriously or are in part using “the […]
Hamburg’s Green want to wean the city off its Microsoft dependency and are pointing to Munich’s use of Linux, German IT news website heise reports. On the occasion of the impending 2014 Open IT Summit Hamburg’s Greens demanded the liberation of the city council from dependency on Microsoft. For Green Party Hamburg Parliament member Farid […]
On Tuesday, Munich’s first mayor finally responded to an inquiry by the Green Party (PDF, German) about rumours regarding a possible reversion to a Windows-based desktop environment from its current Linux-based LiMux system (news passim). The response shows that there is no factual basis for the claims made by first mayor and second mayor. An […]
Opensource.com reports that Linux purveyor Red Hat is now accepting nominations for the Women in Open Source Award. Created to highlight the achievements women making major contributions to an open source project, to the open source community or through the use of open source methodology, this award is the first of its kind. The award […]
Crowdfunding site Kickstarter has announced that August Germar is currently raising funds for anonabox, a Tor hardware router that will re-route data through the Tor network for security and anonymity. The anonabox is an open source internet networking device designed to run alongside a current home router or modem. Small enough to fit in a […]
The Open Knowledge Foundation is doing marvellous work in the fields of open data and open content. The Foundation has just published version 2 of its Open Definition. This definition is released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence and is reproduced verbatim below (complete with US spellings and punctuation throughout. Ed.). Open Definition Version 2.0 […]
A strategic deal has been announced between Chinese technology manufacturer Inspur and the open sourcerers of Red Hat to combine the latter’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 operating system with Inspur’s x86 platform products, according to the China Tech News website. Inspur and Red Hat will become OEM partners under the agreement. As the first […]