Mint 15: Today's best Linux desktop (Review)
- Mint 15: Today's best Linux desktop (Review) May 23, 2013
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ZDNet - As the years roll-by, every new update of Linux Mint impresses me more. Other desktop operating systems, such as Microsoft's Windows 8 may abandon the tried-and-true windows, icons, menus, and pointer (WIMP) desktop metaphor. Others, such as Ubuntu with Unity try to keep some of the WIMP interface while expanding it for tablets and smartphones, but the Ubuntu-based Mint, with Cinnamon and MATE, has stayed true to the WIMP interface. As far as I'm concerned the latest version, Linux Mint 15, Olivia, is now not merely the best Linux desktop, it's the best desktop operating system of all.
- Tech giants' talent poaching leaves Tech City's startups stranded May 23, 2013
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ZDNet - London's Tech City is being held back by a shortage of coders and developers and a lack of access to funding, new research has revealed.
The Tech City Futures report — produced by independent research firm GfK on behalf of the online publication TechCityInsider and released on Monday — found that 44 percent of the 141 businesses surveyed in and around Shoreditch, Hackney and Stratford saw a lack of skilled workers as the biggest challenge to growing their business.
- Opera rewrite comes to Android May 22, 2013
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The Register - Norway's gift to the world of technology, the Opera browser, is now available for Android in an entirely new version.
This cut of Opera for Android has been in beta for a while and has apparently done sufficiently well to be pushed out of the door and into the cold, hard world that is Google Play.
There it will find itself in competition with Google's Chrome and Firefox as an alternative to the rather ornery browser baked into Android.
- Twitter uses open source to automate security May 22, 2013
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Computer Weekly - Twitter is increasingly using open source automation tools to ensure security processes are taken care of in all the code it produces.
“Automation is where we see application security teams going in future,” Alex Smolen, Twitter product security team software engineer, told the Security Development Conference 2013 in San Francisco.
Apart from a desire by the team to write code that is as secure as possible, Twitter has a strong incentive for getting security right since the US Federal Trade Commission ordered the micro-blogging service to put in place an effective information security policy for 20 years.
- Why We Need Open Source: Three Cautionary Tales May 22, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Open Enterprise mostly writes about "obvious" applications of open source - situations where money can be saved, or control regained, by shifting from proprietary to open code. That battle is more or less won: free software is widely recognised as inherently superior in practically all situations, as its rapid uptake across many markets demonstrates. But there are also some circumstances where it may not be so obvious that open source is the solution, because it's not always clear what the problem is.
For example, in the field of economics, there is a well-known paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff entitled, "Growth in a Time of Debt." The main result is that "median growth rates for countries with public debt over 90 percent of GDP are roughly one percent lower than otherwise; average (mean) growth rates are several percent lower." Needless to say, this has been seized upon and widely cited by those in favour of austerity.
However, as a blog post on the Roosevelt Institute from a few weeks back explained:
- Red Hat CEO Whitehurst on innovation, OpenStack, Hadoop May 20, 2013
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ZDNet - As computing systems become commoditized, the "profit pools are going to evaporate" for enterprise software vendors, said Whitehurst.
Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst argued that enterprise software vendors are at an inflection point where they'll adapt or falter, noted OpenStack is keeper but needs enterprise support and Hadoop has become a strong open source project that's becoming commercially fragmented.
I caught up with Whitehurst, who has led Red Hat since December 2007 after being chief operating officer at Delta Airlines, a few weeks ago in San Francisco. Here's a look at the highlights:
- Opening public data boosts economy as well as transparency May 17, 2013
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EurActiv - Updating the 2003 public information directive to increase the amount of public data that Europeans can access may be perceived as a transparency measure, but it is likely to bring real financial benefits and boost skills in a growing IT sector, writes Dinand Tinholt.
It is no surprise that issues of growth and economic stagnation are top of the agenda for governments, especially in the eurozone. Lost in the cacophony is the recent announcement that member states have endorsed the European Commission’s efforts to open-up public sector data for re-use. The directive expands the reach of the original 2003 public information directive and creates new guidelines around pricing and availability of open data. But, what are the benefits of the new directive for the larger European Union?
- Francis Maude at PASC – select committee digs into UK government procurement May 17, 2013
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Spend Matters - The UK parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee held the final hearing of their investigation into public sector procurement this week, and appropriately their witness was Francis Maude, the Minister with responsibility for the subject.
As we’ve said many times, he is more interested in and knowledgeable about procurement than any other Minister we’ve had, and his hour or so on the topic was low key in style but quite illuminating.
He got some good questioning from Bernard Jenkin, the Chair, but some of the other Committee members were poor in terms of their lack of any real insight or challenge. Here are some of the key moments anyway.
Maude started by claiming that the Cabinet Office has saved £5.5B last year and £8B this year. Not “helped the departments to save”, we note. This is one of the things that rightly annoys officials and Ministers about Cabinet Office – the way they are taking the credit for what is really a combined effort with the budget holding departments. A lesson there for procurement people everywhere actually as well in terms of stakeholder management.
- Shakespeare Review calls for 'National Data Strategy' May 16, 2013
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Public Technology - The Shakespeare Review was launched at the Policy Exchange this morning by YouGov CEO and Data Strategy Board chairman Stephan Shakespeare.
The report called for the government to devise and implement a 'National Data Strategy' in what he termed "phase II of the digital revolution."
"The first phase was about communication, this phase is about using increased tech capacity to do new and exciting things with data."
Shakespeare went on to describe the competitive advantage Britain has with data thanks to centralised public services that collect vast amounts of data - particularly in the NHS, but much of the value currently remains untapped.
"It's not enough to have a vision, or a policy," he continued. "We have to have a clearly defined, highly visible national strategy – an implementation plan that can be transparently audited.
"Only then can we create a predictable environment allowing businesses, organisations, and citizens to cash in on big data."
So how can the data be harnessed?
- UK biz baffled by Reding's planned data protection law rewrite: ICO May 16, 2013
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The Register - A large number of British businesses are clueless about many of the main provisions detailed in the European Union's proposed data protection reforms, a new report from the Information Commissioner's Office has claimed.
Consultancy firm London Economics - which was commissioned to carry out the research (PDF) on behalf of the ICO - surveyed 506 companies in the UK and found that 87 per cent of them failed to estimate how much money the planned legislative overhaul might cost their biz.
Justice commissioner Viviane Reding tabled her draft data protection bill in January 2012. It is currently being scrutinised by the European Parliament. The British government has been scathing about many of the proposals laid out in the legislative rewrite, which could lead to a single law on information-handling with which every member state will need to comply.
National governments presently have a patchwork approach to EU data protection legislation based on the 18-year-old Data Protection Directive of 1995 and coordinated by many different watchdogs.
Reding wants to change that, but UK government ministers and Information Commissioner Christopher Graham have long argued that many of the provisions in the draft are overly prescriptive and unworkable on a national level.
- Oracle to open cloud data centre dedicated to G-Cloud May 15, 2013
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Computing - Computer giant Oracle is setting up a data centre "in the Thames Valley" in order to retain and capture government cloud computing business.
The data centre is Oracle's second in the UK after Linlithgow in Scotland, which it picked up when it acquired Sun Microsystems.
The move is partly to defend existing business in the UK public sector, but also to win new business as the government moves towards a "cloud first" policy in a bid to squeeze IT costs.
The new data centre will be opening in June or July, will be filled with Oracle Sparc-based hardware running both Solaris and Linux, and will offer both applications "in the cloud", as well as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Users will be able to use both Oracle's enterprise database, in addition to Oracle's MySQL open source database.
The new facility will be dedicated to support of G-Cloud services to the UK public sector and compliant with IL3 (Business Impact Level 3) standards, as required to offer services under G-Cloud.
- Android is a mess and needs sprucing up, admits chief May 15, 2013
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The Register - Android looks unstoppable, and it's a mess. The first fact tends to eclipse the second observation, but Android's new supremo diplomatically acknowledges as much in an interview.
"Here’s the challenge: without changing the open nature of Android, how do we help improve the whole world’s end-user experience?" Chrome chief Sundar Pichai told Official Google Hagiographer™ Steve Levy.
You may wonder what the head of Chrome OS is doing lording it over the Android nation. Since the departure of Andy Rubin, who founded the Android startup and led development at Google, Android is part of Pichai's Chrome empire.
- World Web Consortium warms HTML bed for forced DRM snuggle May 14, 2013
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The Register - Web fragmentation argument beaten by web fragmentation defence.
The World Web Consortium (W3C) is pressing ahead with plans to standardise Digital Rights Management (DRM) in HTML, despite opposition to the proposal.
The W3C's chief executive Jeff Jaffe announced imminent publication of a first draft of the specification for Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) on Thursday.
The draft is now here and open to public discussion.
Jaffe blogged: "While we welcome and value input from all parties, we intend to continue to work on content protection, and publish this draft."
Critics of EME have rallied against the proposed standard as "disastrous" and argued that it is being added to web specs purely to suit the interests of media companies that own content.
EME is being co-edited by representatives from Google, Microsoft and Netflix.
- International Space Station switches from Windows to Linux, for improved reliability May 10, 2013
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ExtremeTech - The United Space Alliance, which manages the computers aboard the International Space Station in association with NASA, has announced that the Windows XP computers aboard the ISS have been switched to Linux. “We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable.”
- Why the Idea of the Software Patent Does Not Fly May 10, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the growing threat of software patents in Europe (again). I was delighted to come across this reply from Martin Goetz, who wrote:
On April 22nd I read Glyn Moody's Computerworlds.UK blog Software Patents Storming Up the Agenda Again and several thoughts immediately struck me. For one, he was factually wrong on several fronts. Secondly, it reminded me of an article I just published in the US that discussed machine translation. That’s the main argument made by Mr. Moody that the European Inventor award should not be given to a group that invented a phrase-based machine translation using a statistical approach. I also was struck by his comment “The inclusion of a pure software patent (the machine translation patent) in the European Inventor Award shortlist is a real slap in the face of European companies and citizens, and looks like a calculated provocation from the EPO.”
So, where did I go wrong?
- New Zealand to bar software patents, again May 10, 2013
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The Register - New legislation closes loophole, makes it plain Kiwis won't patent code.
The software patentability row in New Zealand, which broke out last August over the wording of new patent legislation, seems to have been settled with the release of new legislation by the government.
In a move that's been welcomed locally by the IT industry, the government has clarified the original intention of the legislation, that software alone should not be patentable.
- 'Open Data' Brings Potential And Perils for Government May 09, 2013
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WSJ - Open Data: the very name is a virtuous pairing of transparency and science. No one is going to argue against openness, and data has the appeal of nonjudgmental objectivity.
Governments and public officials are rushing to embrace the concept, throwing open the vast panoply of publicly collected information for the digitally savvy to mine and exploit. The poster child of the movement is Mike Flowers, chief analytics officer for the City of New York. By mashing together all of the city's numerous data sources, his team has more than doubled the hit rate for discovering stores selling bootlegged cigarettes and had a fivefold increase in the success rate of building inspectors looking for illegal conversions.
With that sort of track record, it is clear why Open Data is very appealing for politicians. At the last count almost 30 countries—mainly in Europe and other developed nations but also including Costa Rica, Kenya and India—plus a number of municipal areas have launched sites.
However, the use of government data throws up many issues surrounding privacy, policy-making and the uses to which the data has been put. These need to be tackled before simply opening up these digital to all comers.
- Cloud must now be your first choice for big IT projects, says UK government May 08, 2013
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ZDNet - All central government departments in the UK will now have to prioritise cloud services when buying IT.
The Cloud First policy is designed to help UK government fulfil its pledge that half of new IT spending will be on public cloud services by 2015. The government wants to halve the cost of IT provision by replacing bespoke IT systems with off-the-shelf cloud services, particularly for generic services like email.
Under the policy, first mentioned in 2011, Whitehall departments embarking on IT projects will need to demonstrate they have considered first a public cloud service, and then a private cloud service, before settling on any other form of IT service delivery.
The IT Reform Group, a Cabinet Office body, will check whether cloud services have been given proper consideration before approving budgets for IT projects. The checks will be applied to IT projects with a total cost of ownership greater than £5m.
- Cloud must now be your first choice for big IT projects, says UK government May 08, 2013
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ZDNet - All central government departments in the UK will now have to prioritise cloud services when buying IT.
The Cloud First policy is designed to help UK government fulfil its pledge that half of new IT spending will be on public cloud services by 2015. The government wants to halve the cost of IT provision by replacing bespoke IT systems with off-the-shelf cloud services, particularly for generic services like email.
Under the policy, first mentioned in 2011, Whitehall departments embarking on IT projects will need to demonstrate they have considered first a public cloud service, and then a private cloud service, before settling on any other form of IT service delivery.
The IT Reform Group, a Cabinet Office body, will check whether cloud services have been given proper consideration before approving budgets for IT projects. The checks will be applied to IT projects with a total cost of ownership greater than £5m.
- Open Gov Summit: Bristol aspires to match New York's smart use of data May 07, 2013
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The Guardian - We caught up with Gavin Beckett, chief enterprise architect at Bristol city council, to discuss open data and designing smart cities.
This year at the Open Gov Summit 2013, Gavin Beckett, chief enterprise architect at Bristol city council, shared Bristol's story: the council is actively adopting open standards and using open source software – applications where the source code is developed through an open community process, and made freely available to other organisations and users. Open source encourages collaboration and software sharing. We asked Beckett what he thought about the issues and risks around data use, problem solving and open standards.
- Deutsche Telekom offers payment scheme to OTT providers May 03, 2013
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RapidTV News - Germany's national telco Deutsche Telekom wants to offer operators of over-the-top (OTT) services the chance to be excluded from the integrated high speed data volumes of its ADSL customers if they pay for this.
The move would mark the end of net neutrality – the equal treatment of all offerings from the open Internet – on Deutsche Telekom's broadband networks.
- The Free, Open Web: 20 Years of RF Licensing May 02, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - As regular readers of this column know, there's still a battle going on over whether standards should be FRAND or restriction/royalty-free (RF). The folly of allowing standards to contain FRAND-licensed elements is shown most clearly by the current bickering between Microsoft and Google. What makes that argument such a waste of time and money is the fact that for 20 years we have had the most stunning demonstration of the power of RF:
Twenty years ago CERN published a statement that made the World Wide Web ("W3", or simply "the web") technology available on a royalty-free basis. By making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web was allowed to flourish.
In fact, as his book "Weaving the Web" makes clear, Sir Tim Berners-Lee was hugely influenced by Richard Stallman and free software. Today, free software runs just about every aspect of the Internet, from DNS, through email to Web servers. But it's important to remember that as well as promoting free software, the Web represents a two-decade long demonstration of the unmatched power of RF to stimulate innovation and create wealth in a way that FRAND has never never achieved - and never will.
- Spain's Extremadura region switches 40,000 PCs to Linux and open source software May 02, 2013
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The Inquirer - The Spanish region of Extremadura has announced that it will switch 40,000 government PCs to open source software.
The government of Extremadura has worked out what many already know, that open source software can deliver significant cost savings over using proprietory software. The region's government has decided to switch 40,000 PCs to open source software, including a customised Linux distribution called Sysgobex.
According to the Extremadura government's calculations, the switch to Linux and open source software will save it €30m a year, an amount that should come in particularly handy given Spain's economic challenges. The government has already migrated 150 PCs to open source software in various ministries, including the department for Development, Culture and Employment.
- Private sector IT experts brought in to improve government procurement value Apr 30, 2013
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Public Technology - Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has announced that six new Crown Representatives have been chosen to work with departments to support early supplier engagement in procurement contracts.
The news brings in a significant IT presence to support procurement - IT systems being a huge expense to government which has previously suffered from long term contract lock-in in a fast moving industry.
They will also be working to improve relationships and negotiate the best contracts on behalf of government.
The Representatives include James Hall, who spent 30 years at technology company Accenture, Graham Jackson, who has three decades of experience, including specifically in procurement in the IT and telecoms industries, and David Jephson who has also spend 30 years in IT working for major brands.
Ian Tyler, former director of Balfour Beatty, Michael Wade, who has worked for various companies in the insurance sector, and Rob Wilmot, a founding CTO at Freeserve were also appointed.
- Neelie Kroes calls for “data revolution” Apr 30, 2013
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VPH Institute - Vice President of the European Commission, Commissioner Neelie Kroes, during a speech in Brussels on 26 March 2013, declared “we have entered the era of big data”.
Describing data as the “new oil”, the Commissioner stressed that data has the power to fuel innovation and power and energise the economy.
- Court annuls public tender for Microsoft software in the Municipality of Almada Apr 29, 2013
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ESOP - Following a legal action brought by ESOP to the Administrative and Fiscal Court of Almada, public tender no. 31A2012 regarding licensing and maintenance of Microsoft software costing up to 550.000,00 EUR was annulled. The tender, now deemed illegal, was launched by the City of Almada and prevented all the competing solutions from being supplied.
It is the first court decision of this type in Portugal. The court confirms that, according to the Portuguese Law, public tenders must include functional requirements and must NOT include specific brands.
The specifications of the tender released by the City of Almada prevented any company other than Microsoft (or intermediary companies engaged in the resale of licenses from this manufacturer) from submitting proposals.
- Open source should be used to commoditise government IT, says Cabinet Office's Tariq Rashid Apr 26, 2013
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Public Technology - Open source technology should be used to help commoditise government IT to move from cost-heavy bespoke systems to the more competitive end of the market, Tariq Rashid, IT Reform, Cabinet Office has said.
He also warned that by using customised IT solutions, or trying to aggregate demand to drive discounts, government departments were losing their power as a customer and missing out on the fierce dynamics of the commodity market.
Rashid made his comments while speaking at the Open Gov Summit 2013 in London today, where he also reiterated the Cabinet Office's current approach to IT - specifically, the drive towards user need, agile development and sustained value.
He did however, elaborate further on the sustained value and how the government needs to change its approach to achieve it.
"If you can sustain competitive tension beyond the point of purchase, that's the only thing that's going to give you long term value," he said.
"We've been putting too much effort into trying to extract effort from the market, by standardising services, approaching suppliers and asking for discount in the promise of users."
The result has been technical dependencies and the wrong approach to the market.
- The fight for HTML5: 'Keep DRM out' lobby steps up standards battle Apr 26, 2013
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ZDNet - The web standards body W3C is being petitioned by a consortium of 27 organisations to reject proposals that would make it easier to support DRM-protected media in HTML5-based sites.
The draft Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) specification would apply to video, audio or interactive content marked with HTML5 media element tags. The specification defines an API that would interact with a DRM or simple encryption system when the media was played.
In a letter (PDF) addressed to inventor of the HMTL specification Sir Tim Berners Lee the consortium, which includes notable free software advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Free Software Foundation, calls the proposed specification "disastrous" and claims it "would change HTML, the underlying language of the web, to make it accommodate and encourage" DRM.
The consortium opposes the adoption of the proposed specification on the basis that it would "harm interoperability, enshrine non-free software in W3C standards and perpetuate oppressive business models". W3C has made a public commitment to openness when developing web standards. The organisation's mission statement includes the pledge "the social value of the web is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people".
- Smug Red Hat buoyed by UK gov's open-source three-line-whip Apr 26, 2013
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The Register - The UK government's love affair with open-source technology has given software house Red Hat a shot in the arm, we're told.
The company boasted that its government and system integrator business has grown in the "high double-digit rates" over the last three years. Red Hat, which offers various flavours of the open-source operating system Linux, said subscriptions for its software make up the majority of its revenue from Whitehall.
"The Cabinet Office is helping our business," Phil Andrews, the Hat's vice-president for northern and eastern Europe, said on Wednesday.
Andrews, who spoke during a roundtable chat in London, would not reveal any sales figures. But he reckoned Linux is infiltrating Blighty's bureaucracy because it is "value for money" against closed-source rivals.
It's understood government IT projects that explore only closed and proprietary software are denied formal approval and funding; systems that don't at least consider open-source software are therefore kicked back to the drawing board.
- German government warns Telekom on net neutrality Apr 25, 2013
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DW - Deutsche Telekom’s planned data volume limits on flat rate Internet plans has encountered criticism from the German government. Critics fear the new plan threatens net neutrality.
The German telecommunications giant announced this week that starting in May it will reduce the speed of Internet services for its "flat rate" customers when a certain amount of data has been consumed. Such bandwidth caps, comparatively common in the US but not in Europe, are more commonly found on mobile Internet deals.
- Global Industry Leaders Join the FIDO Alliance Apr 24, 2013
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WSJ - The FIDO Alliance, an industry consortium revolutionizing online authentication with the first standards-based open specifications for overcoming password dependency with universal strong authentication, is progressing rapidly from its initial launch. In the two months since launching, the FIDO Alliance has more than doubled its membership and expanded globally with new representation from Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and Sweden.
- Open data leaders slam government over postcode privatisation Apr 22, 2013
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Computer Weekly - The organisation that was given £10m government funding to increase the use of open data across the public sector has hit out at Whitehall plans to allow details of UK postcodes to continue to be sold for profit.
Newspaper reports claim that the government will allow Royal Mail to maintain ownership of the Postcode Address File (PAF), the database containing details of the 24 million property postcodes in the UK.
The data is valuable for online retailers, banks and other organisations that need to use the location of properties to provide services, especially web or mobile services. Campaigners have long called for the PAF to be made publicly available at no cost.
Gavin Starks, chief executive of the Open Data Institute (ODI), said the decision to keep PAF in the private sector “flies in the face of the UK's commitments”.
The ODI, headed by web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee (pictured) and web science professor Nigel Shadbolt, was set up last year with £10m of public money. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said at the time that open data was the "next industrial revolution”.
- EC laments schoolchildren's lack of access to basic IT Apr 22, 2013
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V3 - The European Commission has published a bleak report into the state of IT education across Europe, with a fifth of secondary students not using computers in class.
According to the EC study, just one in four nine-year olds study at schools with fast broadband and virtual learning environments.
The situation is little better at secondary level, where only half of students attend so-called 'highly digitally-equipped' schools. The EC also reported 20 percent of secondary pupils never or almost never use computers in lessons.
“ICT skills and training must be available to all students and teachers, not just a lucky few,” Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda.
“We want our young people exposed to ICTs in school from the very beginning, and we want teachers who are confident to share their knowledge.”
The study also highlighted most teachers have not received formal IT training and were largely self-taught.
- Open Source and the UK Government Apr 22, 2013
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Wunderkraut - Tariq Rashid is the Open Source Policy Lead for the UK Government. At the 'Open Source, Open Standards' public sector conference, he spoke about the quest to better meet user needs, while providing better value.
Tariq begins by saying that government has been spending too much on IT, and government IT has a reputation for being bad — not serving users well. Today he's not going to speak much about open source itself, instead he's going to give context to how open source fits into real world in the public sector.
- European digital rights groups demand net neutrality protection Apr 19, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - More than 80 European digital rights organisations on Wednesday called on the European Commission to do more to protect net neutrality.
The groups, represented by The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and European Digital Rights (EDRi), are demanding an end to "dangerous experimentation with the functioning of the Internet in Europe."
The group said in an open letter to the Commission that operators across Europe are violating Internet neutrality particularly in the mobile sector, where they say there is evidence that companies including ISPs are "using technical measures for their own commercial interests and tampering with citizens' ability to access the Internet."
- Gov.uk: Open by (Award-Winning) Design Apr 18, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - A few weeks ago, I wrote of the continuing progress on the central Gov.uk site, which is a showcase of open technologies, as well as being the place to start when interacting with central government in the UK. Looks like I'm not the only one who is impressed by their work, since the site has just been chosen as Design of the Year in the Design Museum's annual exploration of the most innovative, interesting and forward-looking design of all kinds, from around the world.
- Government reveals board members expected to drive open standards Apr 17, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - At the end of last year all government departments were ordered to comply with open standards.
The Cabinet Office has revealed a board of ten members that will be expected to identify and drive the open standards that are intended to promote a cheaper and easier way of buying and using IT in government.
It was revealed at the end of last year that all government departments will be expected to comply with these open standards, which aim to underpin a common infrastructure that will deliver user-centric services to citizens and businesses.
The Open Standards Board has been set up to ensure that the government’s open standards meet users’ needs and create a level playing field for open source and proprietary software.
Board members include government CTO, Liam Maxwell, and Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information at the NHS Commissioning Board.
The other appointments are:
- Oz regulator “welcomes” debate on limiting net neutrality Apr 16, 2013
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The Register - The head of Australia's telecommunications regulator, the Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC), has signalled he's open to new debate about network access regimes that back away from complete net neutrality.
Speaking at a Brisbane event hosted by Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, ACCC Chairman Rod Sims noted that “Content delivery methods are increasingly creating opportunities for new market participants and prompting content providers, both traditional broadcasters and the established online players, to develop and diversify their existing services.”
“This additional content, however, requires capacity, which can cause network congestion.”
So far, so bland. Next came the following observation:
- The Open Source Initiative reaches out to Washington DC Apr 16, 2013
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The H Open - The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has been reforming itself into a more outward-facing organisation and has now taken another step in that process by announcing that it will be hosting a "small open source license clinic" at the Library of Congress, Washington DC, in May. The event is designed to bring together individuals, organisations and government agencies to help all better understand the nature of open source licences. Discussions will also look at identifying problems unique to government. Although a small event, it is the first of what will, hopefully, be many, as the OSI pursues its "non-profit educational mission".
- Commission welcomes Member States' endorsement of EU Open Data rules Apr 16, 2013
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Europa - The European Commission welcomes endorsement by the EU Council's 'Coreper' committee (EU Committee of Member States' Permanent Representatives) of the Commission's effort to open-up public sector data for re-use across Europe (see IP/11/1524).
Once fully implemented into national law, the revision of the 2003 Public Sector Information Directive would make all generally accessible (that is, non-personal) public sector information available for re-use. Developers, programmers, businesses and citizens will be able to get and re-use public sector data at zero or very low cost in most cases. They will also have access to more exciting and inspirational content, for example including materials in national museums, libraries and archives.
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes said: "Opening up public data means opening up business opportunities, creating jobs and building communities. I welcome the Council's agreement to this culture change."
The proposed new rules now need to be formally approved by the European Parliament.
- Croatian government creates working group on open source and open standards Apr 12, 2013
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Joinup - The government of Croatia is starting the Working group for the implementation of open source and open standards. The decision to create the working group was taken during the third meeting of the Government's Commission for Coordination of Informatisation of the Public Sector held on 28th of March. The commission includes several government ministers and is headed by Croatia's Deputy Prime Minister, Milanka Opačić.
The group will be hosted by the Ministry of Public Administration. Darko Parić, assistant Minister in the Office for e-Croatia will provide necessary help and guidance.
It is expected that the group will provide consulting to ministries and other public administrations that wish to adopt open source software and open file formats. The group will provide guidance for public procurement of software related services and can help with pilot projects.
- EU Proposal for (Nearly) Open Data [Update] Apr 12, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Update: Maël Brunet has pointed out that the press release I linked to below is from 2011; what was actually announced yesterday was that the EU Council's 'Coreper' committee (EU Committee of Member States' Permanent Representatives) has now endorsed the measures announced there. So, nothing has changed from what I wrote below, but another hurdle has been cleared in making the open data initiative happen. All that remains is for the European Parliament to agree, and the rules will come into force. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that any amendments will be included at this stage, so it looks like we only get "almost" open data....
As expected, the European Commission has announced a major open data initiative:
The Commission has launched an Open Data Strategy for Europe, which is expected to deliver a €40 billion boost to the EU's economy each year. Europe’s public administrations are sitting on a goldmine of unrealised economic potential: the large volumes of information collected by numerous public authorities and services. Member States such as the United Kingdom and France are already demonstrating this value. The strategy to lift performance EU-wide is three-fold: firstly the Commission will lead by example, opening its vaults of information to the public for free through a new data portal. Secondly, a level playing field for open data across the EU will be established. Finally, these new measures are backed by the €100 million which will be granted in 2011-2013 to fund research into improved data-handling technologies.
All good stuff. Here are some details:
- Commission welcomes Member States' endorsement of EU Open Data rules Apr 11, 2013
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Invest in EU - The European Commission welcomes endorsement by the EU Council's 'Coreper' committee (EU Committee of Member States' Permanent Representatives) of the Commission's effort to open-up public sector data for re-use across Europe (see IP/11/1524).
Once fully implemented into national law, the revision of the 2003 Public Sector Information Directive would make all generally accessible (that is, non-personal) public sector information available for re-use. Developers, programmers, businesses and citizens will be able to get and re-use public sector data at zero or very low cost in most cases. They will also have access to more exciting and inspirational content, for example including materials in national museums, libraries and archives.
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes said: "Opening up public data means opening up business opportunities, creating jobs and building communities. I welcome the Council's agreement to this culture change."
The proposed new rules now need to be formally approved by the European Parliament.
- Data.gov.au to move to open source platform Apr 11, 2013
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CIO - The Australian government’s technology and procurement division has released a draft roadmap for moving the data.gov.au website to the open source CKAN platform. The shift will begin at the end of April.
“The CKAN platform… is used notably and very successfully by the UK government to publish data and enable better public engagement with government,” Pia Waugh, director of co-ordination and Gov 2.0, wrote in an blog post on the Australian Government Information Management Office Website.
“Finance has had discussions with the data.gov.uk team, as well as with open data experts around the world to ensure the data.gov.au refresh is based on global best practice, with a specific focus on the best quality data publishing possible. We will leverage the work of the UK team including the additional plugins they’ve developed.”
- Microsoft leads charge against Google's Android in EU antitrust complaint Apr 10, 2013
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The Register - Microsoft and Nokia have added Google's Android operating system to their list of antitrust grievances against the ad giant, and have filed a formal complaint with European regulators.
According to analysts, Android is currently the dominant smartphone operating system and Google also takes the biggest slice of mobile search advertising cash.
Lobby group FairSearch, a coalition of 17 search and tech firms including Oracle, MS and Nokia, said today that Google was using Android as a "Trojan horse" for Google apps, forcing users to choose the Chocolate Factory's map, email and video services.
"We are asking the Commission to move quickly and decisively to protect competition and innovation in this critical market," FairSearch beak Thomas Vinje said in a canned statement.
"Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google’s Android operating system."
- London Boroughs join forces in mighty £1bn IT procurement framework Apr 09, 2013
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The Channel - A collective of London borough councils are pulling together their purchasing power in a mega IT products and services framework worth up to £1.1bn over four years.
An invitation to tender was sent to prospective suppliers late last week covering three lots - distributed computing, service desk and data centre services.
Westminster City Council is the contracting authority setting up the framework on behalf of itself and 32 other local councils, with the plan to have services operational by November next year.
The tender document stated that WCC and other boroughs currently use a variety of service providers to cover different parts of IT services - some outsourced, some run in-house, others mixed.
As such the requirements may differ - some will issue call offs for each lot and some may not, and not all of the services included in each lot will be required by each council.
"This means that service providers will have to be flexible in that which they offer to the council and other participating authorities," the tender stated.
- ARM says its chips and Linux will sweep the industry Apr 09, 2013
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The Inquirer - Chip designer ARM has said that vendors are looking to standardise on both one chip architecture and a single operating system such as Linux across their product lines.
With many of ARM's licensees preparing to make a big splash in the server market, the firm claimed its architecture is the only one that scales from smartphones all the way up to servers. Lakshmi Mandyam, ARM director of Server Systems and Ecosystems told The INQUIRER that the ability to stick with one chip vendor and run the same operating system throughout its product stack is something "people find very interesting".
ARM expects most of its servers to end up powering open source software stacks, which strongly suggests Linux as the underlying operating system, especially since FreeBSD's ARM port is seemingly in a state of flux. According to Mandyam, companies are increasingly interested in concentrating on a single processor and software stack, saying that vertical integration - the term given to keeping everything in-house - is once again becoming fashionable.
- Microsoft threatened as smartphones and tablets rise, Gartner warns Apr 08, 2013
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The Guardian - PC market begins to slip and tablets will outsell desktops and laptops combined by 2015, as Android ascendancy means challenge to relevance of Microsoft, research group warns.
Microsoft faces a slide into irrelevance in the next four years unless it can make progress in the smartphone and tablet markets, because the PC market will continue shrinking, warns the research group Gartner.
It says a huge and disruptive shift is underway, in which more and more people will use a tablet as their main computing device, researchers say.
That will also see shipments of Android devices dwarf those of Windows PCs and phones by 2017. Microsoft-powered device shipments will almost be at parity with those of Apple iPhones and iPads - the latter a situation not seen since the 1980s.
In a new forecast published on Thursday morning, Gartner says that by 2015 shipments of tablets will outstrip those of conventional PCs such as desktops and notebooks, as Android and Apple's iOS become increasingly dominant in the overall operating system picture. Android in particular will be installed on more than a billion devices shipped in 2014, says Carolina Milanesi, the analyst who led the research.
- Nokia battles Google to kill open video Apr 08, 2013
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Nokia has made explicit its antipathy toward Google's open video format VP8, but the community can outflank Nokia's patent maneuvers.
Last month, I wrote about the battle between open source video tools and the entrenched industry around video. Google announced it had reached an accommodation with MPEG-LA to no longer imply that VP8 was threatened by MPEG-LA patents and it hoped to have VP8 standardized by MPEG.
At the IETF meeting where Google's staff explained the proposal, it was clear that the standards arbiters working for the companies with deep investments in MPEG H.264 were not going to make life easy. In contrast with the treatment received by other speakers, the Google speakers were constantly challenged by meeting attendees associated with H.264 -- almost to the point of harassment. It also became apparent that Nokia -- a company that, prior to its change of direction to become part of Microsoft's hegemony, had supported open source approaches -- was poised to mount a challenge to VP8.
- Mozilla and the Open Source Browser Bonanza Apr 06, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Even if you don't remember the birth of Mozilla 15 years ago, you are certainly benefitting from its consequences. For, back then, the company that invented the Web as a mass medium, Netscape, was in its death throes, and looked likely to take Web browser choice with it.
Netscape had begun life as an innovative startup that changed not only how people used the Web, but also how people sold software - essentially giving away its Netscape Navigator browser for free, and making money be selling associated products. Then it fell victim to Microsoft's belated recognition that the Internet was the future, and not just something for academics, as a senior Microsoft had assured me shortly before (he, of course, wanted people to use Microsoft's proprietary network, MSN.) That was partly because Microsoft played its usual games, building on its strength on the desktop, and its established relationships with third-party vendors of software and services.
In the famous 1998 antitrust action, this dominance on the desktop was found to be monopolistic, and Microsoft's actions to defend that monopoly, including bundling its Internet Explorer browser with Windows, were considered an abuse of that monopoly. A change of President in the US meant that Microsoft got off with little more than a slap on the wrist, but by then Netscape was no longer any kind of threat.
- Patents neglected by London’s "Tech City" - International Report Apr 03, 2013
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International Asset Management - Patent filings are often cited as an indicator of innovative activity. In the recent past there are many good examples where growth in patent filings has mirrored the emergence of new technologies or technology growth in a particular location. Notable examples are the growth in patent filings out of California’s Silicon Valley in the 1990s and early 2000s (from less than 5% of total US patent filings in 1990 to more than 12% in 2006), and the fivefold increase in computer software and business method-related patent applications filed between 1997 and 2003 (based on Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filings in selected International Patent Classification (IPC) classes).
Fast-forward to 2013 and London is being touted as a hub for technological innovation, particularly the area around Old Street on the east side of the city – the so-called “Silicon Roundabout”. In December 2012 UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced £50 million of government investment to regenerate the area with a civic space dedicated to start-ups and entrepreneurs. Google, Microsoft, IBM and others have all made commitments to the area. So what has happened to patent filings of the past few years since the inception of "Tech City"?
- Public sector procurement needs to be more ‘defined’ Apr 02, 2013
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SupplyManagement - CEO David Noble has argued that a higher profile for procurement in the public sector could greatly improve performance on major public projects.
Speaking at the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) hearing yesterday Noble said: “Procurement needs to be more defined about what it actually does as a profession. There have been significant steps forward but it doesn’t go far enough across government.”
He also said the profession needs to be licensed at all levels to attract the best and to give the activity the necessary authority.
He added problems arise in large projects, with money often lost in post-contract claims, because management is not sustained across the whole contracting process.
But he said: “There is an international perception that UK public procurement is ahead of the game. We are working with central government to get leaders to share skills.”
- LibreOffice on every desk: A 10-step plan Apr 02, 2013
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Document Foundation has good advice for companies migrating to open, interoperable document formats and open source tools.
As the experience of the City of Freiburg in Germany showed, it's not enough to decide to use open source software -- you need a workable migration plan too. Freiburg's effort seems to have failed because of a lack of investment in the migration and a lack of determination to complete it. As part of the celebration of Document Freedom Day this week, the nonprofit Document Foundation released a white paper with advice on how to perform a migration and standardize on Open Document Format (ODF).
The report, titled "Migrating to LibreOffice to promote software and document freedom," includes a strong focus on acting purposefully. It's important to "make users aware of the rationale and objectives of the migration project, so that it is not perceived as a mere solution to budget-related issues." Why? Because under those circumstances the inevitable challenges that arise from a migration will be seen as a cost of economizing rather than as mitigated by new strengths.
- Google pledges to only strike back (not first) in open source patent cases Apr 02, 2013
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ZDNet - Google is taking a firmer stance on open source technology and patent wars all at once with a new pledge.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based enterprise has published what it is calling the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge.
In the plainest terms, Duane Valz, senior patent counsel at Google, explained in a blog post on Thursday morning that this means Google promises "not to sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked."
Our pledge builds on past efforts by companies like IBM and Red Hat and the work of the Open Invention Network (of which Google is a member). It also complements our efforts on cooperative licensing, where we’re working with like-minded companies to develop patent agreements that would cut down on lawsuits.
And, in addition to these industry-driven initiatives, we continue to support patent reforms that would improve patent quality and reduce excessive litigation.
- Spies and Big Business Fight Cyberattacks Mar 28, 2013
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IHT - Britain’s intelligence services, working alongside security experts from private companies, are setting up a secret control center in London to combat what the head of the country’s domestic spy agency has described as “astonishing” levels of cyberattacks.
The existence of the so-called Fusion Cell was due to be confirmed on Wednesday in a statement on the government’s strategy to boost information sharing in an expanding cyberwar against online attackers.
..... The European Union, meanwhile, is studying proposals for greater information sharing among the 27-member alliance following a series of high-profile cyberattacks directed at eBay, PayPal and Diginotar, a Dutch Internet certificate company.
Despite increased international attention to a growing cyberwar, some skeptics believe the threat is being hyped by governments and by companies involved in an increasingly lucrative and pervasive security industry.
“Anything that uses ‘cyber’ in its title is a con and should be laughed out of the room,” according to Glynn Moody, blogging at ComputerWorld UK this week.
“Yes, attacks take place, but the fact that they take place across the Internet is no different from those using any other technology,” wrote Mr. Moody, an “open source” expert.
- Met Office serves 550,000 open data transactions per month Mar 28, 2013
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V3 - The Met Office has confirmed that its Data Point service has topped 550,000 transactions per month, making it one of the government's most successful open data initiatives.
The government has suggested that its open data strategy, launched in 2009, will create growth in the UK economy by allowing application developers, individuals and businesses to exploit public sector data in order to improve national services and create new products.
The open data strategy has also been central to the government's vision of opening up the public sector.
The Met Office has spearheaded this plan, and was one of the first government departments to embrace the release of data to the public.
- BBC opens up TV Application Layer to industry Mar 28, 2013
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Digital Europe - The BBC has made its open source TV Application Layer available to the industry at large in order to make the development of connected TV applications for HTML-based devices easier.
Peter Lasko, technical product manager for BBC future media TV and mobile platforms, said in a blog post that the public broadcaster is making the Application Layer available via open source repository GitHub. He said the open source code would allow other parties to contribute to the development of the TV Application Layer and that sharing it should “make building applications on TV easier for others, helping to drive the uptake of this nascent technology”.
- Google to give away £2m in hunt to find world-changing tech Mar 27, 2013
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ZDNet - Google is giving away £2m to non-profit organisations to develop technologies with the potential to "change the world".
As part of the its Global Impact Challenge competition, UK charities will be invited to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Richard Branson and Google's European boss Matt Brittin.
- Rising to the challenge on open standards Mar 26, 2013
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Government Digital Service - Liam Maxwell - You might think that we’ve gone a little quiet since we published the Open Standards Principles last November, but we’ve been working hard on getting together the processes and the people to lead on some of the open standards challenges that you, our users, inside and outside government have told us to focus on first.
We know that having interoperable software and open information and data formats will mean that we can provide better services and bring about a positive change to the way government buys its IT.
So today, we’ve opened up 8 challenges on the Standards Hub that we think open standards can help to solve. This is the first step in identifying open standards for use across government. The Standards Hub will help us to engage with our users and to be completely transparent in how we select and implement our open standards.
The challenges range from:
- transferring information across public safety systems, that could potentially speed up emergency response times and save lives; to
- making us more transparent and accountable through sharing of government data.
Now, we need your ideas, through the Standards Hub, to help us develop the proposals to tackle these challenges.
- Worried your cloud service will die? Get open source insurance Mar 25, 2013
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InfoWorld - By killing Reader, Google may have done us a favor, focusing attention on the power of open standards and open source in protecting us against the whims of service providers.
A collective moan arose from users following Google's inexplicable announcement that it plans to shutter its popular and widely used Google Reader service in July. No suprise that when Google launched another service, a note-taking add-on to Google Drive called Keep, many were skeptical about using it. As Om Malik said, "What if I spend months using the app, and then Google decides it doesn't meet some arbitrary objective?"
This is a specific example of the general problem of service providers deciding to change direction and leaving customers high and dry. It's a problem open source and open standards address well, and while we're watching Google's internal politics mess with the online happiness of millions, it's good to be reminded we have alternatives.
- China develops national open-source operating system Mar 25, 2013
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The Telegraph -The Chinese government is working with the software company Canonical, which is behind the open-source Ubuntu operating system (OS).
The collaboration is expected to produce a system similar to Ubuntu but tailored for the Chinese user.
The first version of Ubuntu Kylin, as it is being called, is due to be launched next month and is intended for desktop and laptop computers.
It will differ from the standard Ubuntu system in its use of Chinese characters and in the way it uses Chinese date conventions. It will also include weather indicators and integration of various Chinese sites such as Baidu maps, the Taobao shopping service.
The move is an attempt to stop China being reliant on Western software and to get more Chinese people the opportunity to modify computer coding themselves.
- Tradeshift CEO: UK government could save £852m moving to open e-invoicing Mar 23, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - The UK government could save at least €1 billion (£852 million) in just a year and half if it adopted an open standards based e-invoicing platform, according Tradeshift’s CEO Christian Lanng.
Tradeshift is an online platform that allows businesses to easily transact with each other, through invoicing, payments and apps. The platform is based on open standards and, unlike other traditional platforms, is free for businesses to use.
Lanng’s comments come after he headed up a project in Denmark, which saw the government move to an open standards based invoicing platform. The platform is now used by 95 percent of businesses in the country and the Danish government saved €1 billion in its first year and a half – a figure that Langg said that UK government could easily match, considering its scale.
- Neelie Kroes gathers Leaders Club to help foster more European start-ups Mar 23, 2013
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SiliconRepublic - Vice-president of the European Commission and commissioner in charge of the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes is leading a group of nine successful entrepreneurs that will meet regularly to discuss how best to encourage more European start-ups.
Kroes’ assembled A-team consists of Zaryn Denzel, founder of Spanish social network Tuenti; Spotify founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon; Rovio chair Kaj Hed; Lars Hinrichs, founder and CEO of pre-seed investment company HackFwd; Joanna Shields, CEO and chair of Tech City Investment Organisation; Reshma Sohoni, partner at European micro-seed investment fund and mentoring programme Seedcamp; The Next Web founder Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten; and Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype, Joost and Atomico, among others.
“I want young entrepreneurs to have role models, and for them to have a real digital single market to grow their ideas in,” said Kroes. “These people didn’t just talk about doing something, they went and did it. That’s why young people and leaders should listen to them.”
- Open source, Web-based office suite takes on Google Docs, LibreOffice Mar 21, 2013
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ArsTechnica - The productivity software market has several recent success stories, despite the continued dominance of Microsoft Office. Google Docs built up a huge user base by providing a Web-based alternative to Microsoft. And LibreOffice, a descendant of OpenOffice, is providing a strong challenge on the desktop side.
Now there is an office suite that combines these browser-based and open source approaches into one. It's called OX Documents, and it comes courtesy of Open-Xchange, a company that previously built an alternative to the Microsoft Exchange e-mail server. OX Documents is in the early stages of development, with only a demo version of its word processor, OX Text, available beginning today.
A usable version of OX Text is scheduled to be released next month, with spreadsheet and presentation software coming later this year. OX Text will also be released in early April under the GNU General Public License 2 and Creative Commons. Open-Xchange will make money by selling a supported version to businesses.
- Internet pioneers win engineering prize Mar 19, 2013
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BBC - Pioneers of the internet are the first recipients of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreessen will share the £1m award.
The citation panel said the five men had all contributed to the revolution in communications that has taken place in recent decades.
The UK government initiated the QE Prize as a companion to the Nobels to raise the profile of engineering.
It is endowed by industry and administered by an independent trust chaired by Lord Browne, a former chief executive of BP.
The award was announced at the Royal Academy of Engineering in central London.
Sir Tim may be the best known of the winners, certainly in the UK. Working with others in the late 1980s, he helped develop the world wide web, which radically simplified the way information could be shared on the net.
Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf provided the engineering insights that actually made the internet work. Their TCP/IP protocols define the way data travels around the internet.
Louis Pouzin helped work out how data should be labelled so that it reached the right destination.
Marc Andreessen is the man who developed Mosaic, the first popular browser for the web.
"The prize recognises what has been a roller-coaster ride of wonderful international collaboration," said Sir Tim.
- Video codecs: The ugly business behind pretty pictures Mar 18, 2013
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Google's settlement with MPEG-LA is a fresh development in a decades-old story of software patents. Will it finally open video codec technology to open source developers?
When Google announced last week it had finally made peace over its VP8 codec with the patent pool MPEG-LA, some declared the company had sold out and was joining the software patent circus. But it's not.
The truth is far more colorful and could presage a big shift in the struggle to control our online viewing and listening habits. As a consequence, powerful interests have quickly stepped in to try to spike VP8's guns before they can be fired.
- UK scraps government CIO in tech project shake-up Mar 18, 2013
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ZDNet - The UK has scrapped its cross-government CIO role, as part of a major shake-up aimed at shifting the focus of IT bosses from mega-procurements to providing digital services.
The vacant role of government CIO will not be filled "as the cross-government role is no longer central to delivery" according to the Cabinet Office.
- Government mandates 'preference' for open source Mar 16, 2013
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In digital public services, open source software is clearly the way forward
Liam Maxwell, government CTO
Computer Weekly - The government has, for the first time, mandated a preference for using open source software for future developments.
The new Government Service Design Manual, released as a beta version on 14 March and effective from April, lays out the standards that must be used for all new digital public services developed across Whitehall.
In a section titled “When to use open source”, the manual says: “Use open source software in preference to proprietary or closed source alternatives, in particular for operating systems, networking software, web servers, databases and programming languages.”
Government IT reformers in the Cabinet Office have worked to introduce a level playing field for open source against proprietary software products, which was embodied in the open standards principles published in November last year.
But this is the first time that government IT policy has gone as far as expressing a formal preference to use open source.
The design manual says that proprietary products must only be used in “rare” circumstances.
- Big data: a big opportunity or just big brother? Mar 16, 2013
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The Guardian - Data sharing offers opportunities for local authorities to understand communities and improve services.
Imagine a world where real time data could be used to provide personalised services that meet the needs of individual families. This information could show us more clearly what communities want, leading to smart commissioning and outcome-based services. This might sound like pie in the sky today, but in some south-east Asian and North American cities technology is already being used to ensure local authorities design good public services for the first time.
The word collaboration is used a lot in local government. To most, collaboration means meeting in a room, pooling a few budgets, sharing staff and providing services collectively. But this is just scraping the surface of what collaboration could mean for councils.
A digitally-connected world creates a virtual platform to collect, analyse and use data in new ways. This will lead to true integration between service providers. Technology can help stimulate innovation and allow councils to connect with citizens more easily, responding to their needs and also changing their behaviour and choices.
With funding cuts biting, the Cabinet Office estimates that improving digital performance could save the public sector up to £33bn a year – equivalent to £500 per head of the population. Some councils are waking up to the opportunities of data, but too often discussions around digital tools begins by looking at what doesn't work: the problems with IT systems; issues of confidentiality and data protection. These are genuine issues to overcome, but they should not be game stoppers. The starting point for big data should be examing the potential that it has to change lives.
- Tim Berners-Lee: The Web needs to stay open, and Gopher's still not cool. Mar 16, 2013
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BoingBoing - AUSTIN—The knight who invented the World Wide Web came to SXSW to point out a few ways in which we're still doing it wrong.
Tim Berners-Lee's "Open Web Platform: Hopes & Fears" keynote hopscotched from the past of the Web to its present and future, with some of the same hectic confusion that his invention shows in practice. (The thought that probably went through attendees' heads: "Sir Tim is nervous at public speaking. Just like us!")
But his conclusion was clear enough: The Web is our work, and we shouldn't put our tools down.
- Government is failing technology entrepreneurs, say MPs Mar 14, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Lack of funding and the inability to foster long-term SME growth is stifling the UK’s tech scene.
The UK government is failing technology entrepreneurs and does not have a coherent strategy to support the commercialisation of technology innovation in the UK, MPs have warned.
A report issued today by the Science and Technology Committee points to the UK’s apparent inability to foster small and medium businesses until they become ‘tech giants’, as well as a lack of capital funding due to the effects of regulating to de-risk pension funds.
This will come as a blow to the government, which has been making great attempts in recent months to boost investment in the technology start-up scene, particularly in London’s Tech City. According to the committee’s report, much more could be done to improve the UK’s technology prospects and create long-term, stable growth for the industry.
- France could join the small club of countries that require net neutrality Mar 14, 2013
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ArsTechnica - The French government has put forward a new plan that could enshrine net neutrality in national law. If it passes, France would become the third country in Europe (after the Netherlands and Slovenia joined the club this year—Norway, too, has a similar, but, voluntary system), to enact such a policy and the fourth in the world, after Chile.
On Tuesday, France’s Minister of the Digital Economy, Fleur Pellerin, formally accepted the 67-page report (PDF) published earlier in the month by the National Digital Council (Google Translate), a government advisory body known by its French acronym, CNN.
Net neutrality is a particularly salient issue in the country, given the recent dust-up between Free (the country’s second-largest ISP) and Google.
However, digital rights advocates worry that what’s been proposed in France is “toothless,” as it doesn't include possible sanctions for companies that would violate the proposed net neutrality provisions. Others point out that the report seems to have carved out a massive loophole for so-called “illegal” content or material online.
- How might we improve the way citizens and governments interact? Mar 14, 2013
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KnightFoundation - Crowdfunding to unlock open data - How do we make it sustainable for agencies to open up datasets? Particularly public data on paper, scans, PDFs, etc... Use crowdfunding to unlock the data and engage more stakeholders in the process. In the end, the data is open to all.
Far too much information released to the public in the US (and abroad) remains trapped, inaccessible in aggregate because it is locked in scans, PDFs, image files, etc... Not machine-readable data.
- Swiss Canton's use of open source document management system renews dispute Mar 12, 2013
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Joinup - The Swiss Canton of Bern has decided to switch to Open Justitia, a management system for legal documents, developed as open source by the country's Federal Court. The canton procured support for the installing and maintaining the software from a Swiss IT service provider. One competitor disputes the contract. The firm, whose offer of its own proprietary alternative was turned down, is rallying for political support.
- New UK.gov cyber-security standard puts MANAGERS in firing line Mar 08, 2013
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The Register - The UK government is seeking to hear from businesses that would be interested in submitting evidence to help form a new "organisational standard" for cyber security.
The Cyber Security and Resilience Team within the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS) has asked businesses to detail initial interest in submitting views on such a standard by 8 April with a view to providing guidance to those companies about their submissions before the beginning of May. Respondents will then have until Monday 14 October 2013 to make those submissions.
- Will all government services take a cloud first approach? Mar 08, 2013
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The Guardian - As financial pressures build and cloud offerings mature we could see an acceleration in adoption amongst public sector agencies.
The public sector has not been immune to the appeal of cloud computing, with governments keen to accelerate adoption of cloud services. However, while the private and commercial sector has taken to cloud computing more readily, there still exists a somewhat sporadic adoption across the public sector.
Introducing a cloud first policy can be an effective way to endorse and encourage the sector to embrace the benefits that cloud computing can bring. Factors that need to be addressed to promote acceptance and bring about simplified adoption include cultural barriers, based around fear, uncertainty, and a lack of information.
- G-Cloud to push cloud first strategy Mar 07, 2013
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CloudPro - The UK Government is set to introduce a ‘cloud first’ policy across all departments, forcing them to take on public cloud services wherever possible.
Speaking at a Q&A session co-hosted by Salesforce and attended by Cloud Pro, Denise McDonagh, Home Office IT director and head of the government’s G-Cloud initiative, said: “One of the things we are looking at is how to quicken the pace [of cloud uptake] and so ... there is a paper on public cloud first policy, which is with (Minister for the Cabinet Office) Francis Maude and will go to one of the next Cabinet committees to endorse.”
The paper, when implemented, will mandate central government departments to attempt to find a public cloud solution to their IT need. Failing that, they will have to seek a private cloud resolution or, as a last resort, a traditional IT implementation.
The policy will not be enforced through sanctions, McDonagh said, but during the capital expenditure control and scrutiny process.
- EU fines Microsoft $731 million for broken promise, warns others Mar 07, 2013
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Reuters - The European Union fined Microsoft Corp 561 million euros ($731 million) on Wednesday for failing to offer users a choice of web browser, an unprecedented sanction that will act as a warning to other firms involved in EU antitrust disputes.
It said the U.S. software
company had broken a legally binding commitment made in 2009 to ensure
that consumers had a choice of how they access the internet, rather than
defaulting to Microsoft's Explorer browser.An investigation found that Microsoft had failed to honor that obligation in software issued between May 2011 and July 2012, meaning 15 million users were not given a choice.
It is the first time the European Commission, the EU's anti-trust authority, has handed down a fine to a company for failing to meet its obligations.
- Microsoft Faces Fine in Europe After Breaking a Deal Mar 06, 2013
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NYT - BRUSSELS — Europe’s antitrust regulators are preparing to deliver a strong message: a deal is a deal, and if a company fails to live up to a settlement agreement, there will be consequences.
- Podcast: Mark Bohannon on government open source, open standards, andopen clouds Mar 05, 2013
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Connections - Mark Bohannon is the VP for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at Red Hat. He was in our Westford facility recently to give a talk and I was able to grab him for a few minutes and sit him down in front of a microphone. Mark has a lot of great insights about how government procures and uses software. In this podcast, he talks about how government attitudes toward open source have changed, the role of government in open source and open standards, and why governments are taking open approaches as they adopt cloud computing.
- IT certifications can't measure capability Mar 04, 2013
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Professional qualifications sound like a great thing, especially to hiring managers. But could the push to expand them into state and national regulation chill open source use and developer innovation? A recent panel at a UNESCO summit concluded it might.
- Mark Shuttleworth: Serious people are saying Ubuntu is better than Windows 8 on tablets Mar 04, 2013
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ZDNet - ZDNet met with Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, at Mobile World Congress to talk about Ubuntu across tablets, smartphones and more.
Ubuntu OS on the desktop is becoming an increasingly recognisable brand and has a long heritage in the open source community, but rather than confine itself to the one platform, Canonical set out on the path to use the same core kernel and deliver the same platform across smartphones, tablets, the desktop and TVs.
Clearly not one to turn down a challenge, Shuttleworth was one of the first space tourists, 2013 has gotten off to a flying start for the ambitious South African entrepreneur and has already seen the unveiling of the platform on smartphones and tablets.
- Openforum Europe: Procurement law fails to address discriminatory practices Mar 01, 2013
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Joinup - Using technical specifications to discriminate ICT solutions continues to be a widespread practice within the EU, says Openforum Europe, advocating the use of open standards in ICT. Publishing the results of its audit of European procurement, OFE yesterday urged for action. "These persisting discriminatory practices are not properly addressed."
OFE yesterday shared the results of its most recent inspection of 'invitations to tender' published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It studied 785 tender requests from the last quarter of 2012. "Almost one in five, 19 per cent, includes technical specifications with explicit references to trademarks. That is the highest in the last three years."
"Such practices are against the principles of competition and the fulfilment of the Single Market" OFE writes. It says that this discrimination is an obstacle to small and medium-sized enterprises. "The procurement market should be open, innovative and transparent."
- Don't let the cloud get hijacked online! Mar 01, 2013
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Cloud Industry Forum - Applications for the proposed internet gTLD of .CLOUD are illogical and fundamentally flawed, warns those representing the Cloud industry
The Cloud Industry Forum is calling for greater education and promotion by ICANN about the proposed gTLD registry consultation process, and to ensure it has taken appropriate actions to ensure the consequences are understood and feedback is sought rather than passively awaiting a deadline.
OFE quote - Graham Taylor, CEO of Open Forum Europe stated: “We support CIF in their concern based on a number of issues not least the fact that the broader market appears to be completely oblivious of the proposed changes to gTLD registry. We are convinced that if they are aware of the fact that some commercial organisations are applying for generic categories in the industries in which they compete, and could operate them at their discretion without having to abide by a clear set of rules, this is anti-competitive in the extreme and in particular regard to .CLOUD will only serve to confuse the market about a nascent method of delivering IT as a service. In the same way as the Internet itself was successfully built on the principle of Openness - open standards, open access, and free of restriction allowing innovation for all – so must the Cloud. It will be only too easy to slip into the bad old days of lock-in to closed systems, controlled by single suppliers”
- Microsoft joins Open Data Center Alliance to promote cloud standards, interoperability Feb 28, 2013
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ZDNet - The OCDA—a group that includes Deutsche Bank, Nokia, J.P. Morgan Chase, AT&T, and eBay—will find its position bolstered by the software giant by giving the alliance a greater voice and a gain in credibility moving forward.
- Big Data tools cost too much, do too little Feb 28, 2013
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The Register - Hadoop and NoSQL are the technologies of choice among the web cognoscenti, but one developer and technical author says they are being adopted too enthusiastically by some companies when good 'ol SQL approaches could work just as well.
Ever since a team at Yahoo! did their turn at being prometheus and brought Google-magic down to the rest of us via Hadoop, companies have been on a tear to put the technology into play. But the costs are high, the effort is great, and the advantage it grants you can be slight, Tim O'Brien said in a packed session at the O'Reilly Strata conference in Santa Clara on Wednesday.
"There is a feeling afoot that some of the technologies we've been talking about at a conference like this end up having a huge price tag," he said.
- France Considers Operating System-Level Filtering Feb 27, 2013
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Computer Weekly - Glyn Moody - Long-time readers will remember the appalling way in which the UK's Digital Economy Act was brought in - with no research, no debate, and no democracy. At its heart lies the infamous "three strikes" idea: if you are alleged - not proved, but merely alleged - to have shared files online on three occasions you will be subject to some punishment. Originally that was cutting off your hand, er, your Internet connection, but as the discussions over implementing this unjust and punitive law have dragged on, it's become less clear how it will actually work.
- Do we need an open source GPS alternative? Feb 27, 2013
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Computer Weekly - Although occasionally infuriating around roundabouts and new developments, we have placed an inordinate amount of faith in Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites as they exist for in-car and/or smartphone usage.
So why would we need an open source alternative?
Well the GPS system was created and is still predominantly run by the US Department of Defense (they mean Defence) with a history that dates back as far as the early 1970s.
The US authorities have been accused of 'degrading' the system from time to time (presumably to suit their own needs) and alternatives have surfaced from the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) to Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) system.
But British design student Philipp Ronnenberg believes that now the time is right for an open source version on GPS based on seismic ground vibrations.
- Ubuntu unveils Linux tablet Feb 21, 2013
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The Telegraph - The company is developing a united phone, computer, TV and tablet operating system that it hopes will provide a more intuitive interface than that currently offered by Google’s Android.
It announced a mobile phone interface using the open-source operating system in January, and has since secured a partner to make compatible silicon chips. It claims it will launch to consumers in October. Devices aimed at both the premium and budgets ends of the market will be available.
Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical, said that “Android is a very clever interface if you’re clever”, but claimed Ubuntu had been praised by design experts and would offer a friendlier and more secure way of using computers that ran across a range of devices. He added that although Android is also an open-source operating system, many of its key features are in fact proprietary.
- You can help fix patent laws … now! Feb 21, 2013
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The Register - While Barack Obama frets about patent law and trolls attack even helpful government e-health initiatives, IP experts around the world are quietly working on something that might just help: a survey!
Not just any survey, mind. This one was created by Tegernsee Experts Group, an entity composed of representatives from patent offices in Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the USA. The European Patent Office is playing, too, and other patent offices like Australia's are watching the group's proceedings closely and urging locals to participate.
So what is the Tegernsee Experts Group? The name is derived from the Bavarian town where in July 2011 patent offices got together to talk about patent law harmonisation. The group met again in 2012 and resolved to tackle four issues outlined by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The four, as defined by that agency, are:
- G-Cloud celebrates one year anniversary Feb 21, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - The government’s G-Cloud project is celebrating its one year anniversary this week, having undergone many changes and attracted a lot of attention from both the public and private sector.
Launched in Febrary last year, the G-Cloud is the government’s first attempt at making it easier for the public sector to buy commoditised IT products from a pre-approved list of vendors via a constantly changing framework.
“In just 12 months, G-Cloud has shown itself to be a model for efficient public sector IT procurement, establishing a dynamic marketplace for cloud-based IT services. We have simplified the procurement process through G-Cloud to make it more accessible to a wider range of companies, leading to more choice, better value for the taxpayer and growth for the economy. Suppliers are asked what they can offer government, rather than being issued with complicated specifications that stifle innovation.
- Big data: Why most businesses just don't get it Feb 20, 2013
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ZDNet - Despite the buzz around big data, take-up among businesses remains low — because most organisations don't understand how to exploit it.
Many are looking at big data — large datasets from multiple sources — and trying to figure out what it is, according to Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Debra Logan.
"People have that sense that once things get hyped like this they are somehow behind the curve," she told a London roundtable debate.
"But I would say that 95 to 97 percent of the organisations that I know — outside research organisations, people who crunch weather data, that kind of thing — are in fact only in the exploratory phase right now," she said. "Of that 97 percent, how many are actually going to have big-data issues or big-data benefits?"
According to Logan: "It's almost as if this is a solution looking for a problem."
- Silicon Roundabout worthies in £2m UK.gov cash battle royale Feb 20, 2013
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The Register - The UK Cabinet Office has handed out two slices of its £10m Social Incubator fund to bankroll more macchiato-sipping big dreamers on East London's Silicon Roundabout.
Telefonica's venture capital outfit Wayra will get £1.2m of money from the public purse and, with the help of UnLtd, is expected to dish the cash out to startups deemed worthy of investment. Wayra and UnLtd didn't reveal exactly how the money will be spent, but promised to help fund 30 companies over the next two years as well as providing logistical support and any other help they can think of.
Meanwhile, Bethnal Green Ventures will get £900,00 from the government fund and split it into annual grants of up to £15,000 for 20 companies for the next four years. It'll also find them desk space in Google's Shoreditch Campus in the capital.
- Public sector staff know open data matters but fail to get government plan Feb 19, 2013
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The Guardian - Most public sector staff recognise the importance of open data – but don't understand the benefits of government transparency plans, a survey has revealed.
While 72% of the staff in the survey of open data understanding recognised that understanding data and its uses would be increasingly important over the next three years, 78% did not know about specific government open data initiatives or what their benefits would be.
Of more than 1,000 respondents across the UK public sector, 57% did not know how to access or interpret data sets, and 66% did not understand their personal role in delivering the open data agenda.
Just over half (52%) of those surveyed recognised that ready access to data and data standards would generate new enterprises, jobs and services in the public and private sectors, but 75% did not know what data was available outside their department to help develop new approaches to service delivery.
- Obama says patent trolls 'extort money', pledges reform Feb 19, 2013
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The Register - US President Barack Obama has used a “Fireside Hangout”, captured on YouTube, to label patent trolls as leeches who extort money from their victims.
Asked about the potential for patent trolls to hamper innovation, Obama said his administration's attempts at patent reform “only went about half way to where we need to go” and have not “captured all the problems”.
Among those problems are patent trolls, who “do not produce anything themselves” and are “trying to leverage and hijack someone else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”
- Unitary Patent A Threat To Small Business Feb 18, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Simon Phipps - A short article in today's Independent on Sunday looks uncritically at the single European patent and thinks the new patent rules coming in Europe will help small business. The article seems to start from the idea that patents are good, thus more patents are better. But consider this statement from the article:
"If a company believed its patent was being infringed in Germany and France, it could defend its rights in the court in London, receiving a judgment that would apply to Germany and France."
That cuts both ways. A small British company could find itself subject to court cases it can't understand in countries it can't afford to defend itself. Any patent holder in any one of the 27 EU countries can go to a local court and get a judgment in any one of the 23 official languages. Once Cable signs this agreement, the UK government agrees a judgment like this is enforceable against any UK business.
Such judgments could well become a huge business opportunity - but not for genuine innovators. It's likely we'll see companies whose only business is to own patents springing up in unlikely European jurisdictions, "trolling" innovative small businesses who can't afford to defend themselves across Europe. Faced with the threat of costly international litigation, most small businesses will just fold, settling out of court regardless of the merits of the case.
- Australia cuts Microsoft bill by $100m Feb 18, 2013
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The Register - Australia has reduced the amount of money it pays for Microsoft products by $AUD100m, according to the nation's Chief Technology Officer John Sheridan.
Speaking yesterday at the Kickstart conference, Sheridan explained that consolidating contracts from 42 to one and working through a single reseller has enabled the savings. One contract now covers 300,000 devices and 260,000 people across 126 entities. Work has begun on negotiations for the successor contract with Redmond.
Sheridan did not say what savings he expects or hopes for that deal, but said cutting costs further by using open source software is not his preferred tactic, as big bang upgrades are costly and complex. A mandated replacement for Office may also hamper innovation and productivity, he opined, pointing to the presentation he created in the free iOS graphics app Haiku Deck.
- Why it's time to stop using open source licences Feb 15, 2013
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The H Open - Glyn Moody - Free software is built on a paradox. In order to give freedom to users, free software licences use something that takes away freedom – copyright, which is an intellectual monopoly based on limiting people's freedom to share, not enlarging it. That was a brilliant hack when Richard Stallman first came up with it in 1985, with the GNU Emacs General Public Licence, but maybe now it's time to move on.
There are signs of that happening already. Eighteen months ago, people started noting the decline of copyleft licences in favour of more "permissive" ones like Apache and BSD. More recently, the rise of GitHub has attracted attention, and the fact that increasingly people have stopped specifying licences there (which is somewhat problematic).
I don't think this declining use of copyleft licences is a sign of failure – on the contrary. As I wrote in my previous column, free software has essentially won, taking over most key computing sectors. Similarly, the move to "permissive" licences has only been possible because of the success of copyleft: the ideas behind collaborative creation and contributing back to a project are now so pervasive that we don't require "strong" copyleft licences to enforce them – it's part of coders' mental DNA. As Ian Skerrett put it in 2011:
- Apache OpenOffice Valued at £13m Per Day Feb 15, 2013
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TechWeek Europe - The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has revealed the value of its open source productivity suite, saying Apache OpenOffice has a value of $21 million (£13.4m) a day.
ASF officials said Apache OpenOffice has averaged 131,455 downloads per day since its 3.4 release last May. That represents an average value to the public of $21 million per day or $7.61 billion (£4.9bn) per year, ASF said.
- Cloud revenue will go on expanding – slowly Feb 13, 2013
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ChannelWeb - As the cloud hype fades, will the market be all that resellers hope for? Analysts are suggesting that smaller companies and IaaS, as well as competition from telcos, will increasingly move centre-stage.
Steve Hilton, principal analyst at global market watcher Analysys Mason, says enterprise cloud services revenue will go on expanding, reaching $31.9bn (£20.4bn) by 2017. Some $28.7bn of this will come from the so-called developed nations, representing a compound annual growth rate of 11 per cent.
That is slower than initially predicted due to the global economic downturn, but IaaS is slowly changing places with SaaS, and sales to SMBs with one to 249 seats will become increasingly important, rising to 49 per cent of the market by 2017, he adds.
- No cash for broadband: Europe's super-fast future torpedoed by budget cuts Feb 12, 2013
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ZDNet - With negotiations over the EU's budget for the next seven years now concluded, the continent's broadband looks to have been the loser.
Discussions over the budget for the rest of the decade were wrapped up in Brussels on Friday, with the EU's member states agreeing a cut to Europe's 'payment ceiling' from €942.8bn in 2007-13 to €908.4bn in 2014-2020.
One of the areas to suffer as a result of the cut is Europe's broadband infrastructure. The initial budget proposed by the European Commission would have seen €7bn devoted to broadband networks and €1.2bn to digital services. The money would have come from a budget of €40bn destined for the Connecting Europe facility, a fund intended to foster "smart, sustainable and fully interconnected transport, energy and digital networks".
Under the budget now agreed by European leaders, that fund has now been cut to €29.3bn, with only €1bn to go on ICT and digital projects.
Europe's digital commissioner Neelie Kroes pronounced herself "disappointed" by the cut, and said that as a result of the reduced funding, the facility cannot now finance broadband projects.
- LibreOffice 4.0 ships with new features, better looks Feb 11, 2013
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The Register - The Document Foundation has announced LibreOffice 4.0, the latest version of the free software competitor to Microsoft Office that spun off from the OpenOffice.org effort in 2010, describing it as nothing less than "the free office suite the community has been dreaming of since 2001."
"LibreOffice 4.0 is the first release that reflects the objectives set by the community at the time of the announcement, in September 2010: a cleaner and leaner code base, an improved set of features, better interoperability, and a more diverse and inclusive ecosystem," the Document Foundation's Italo Vignoli wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
Among other improvements, version 4.0 is more compatible with Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF) and DOCX file formats – the latter being the XML-based Word document format first introduced in Office 2007.
LibreOffice Writer can now import ink annotations from both formats, in addition to supporting a number of new DOCX features, such as floating tables and inline comments.
- Neelie Kroes unveils EU cybersecurity strategy Feb 08, 2013
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ITPRO - The European Commission has published two documents aimed at improving online security for citizens and businesses within the EU.
The new cybersecurity strategy, dubbed ‘An Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace’, and the Proposed Directive of Network and Information Security (NIS) were both announced in Brussels by the Commission’s vice president for the digital agenda, Neelie Kroes.
“We are all here because we recognise the internet is important: for our economy, for our values, and for human rights,” said Kroes.
- NISO Launches New Initiative to Develop Standard for Open Access Metadata and Indicators Feb 08, 2013
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infoDOCKET - The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) voting members have approved a new project to develop standardized bibliographic metadata and visual indicators to describe the accessibility of journal articles as well as potentially describe how “open” the item is. Many offerings are available from publishers under the banner of Open Access (OA), Increased Access, Public Access, or other descriptions; the terms offered vary between publishers and, in some cases, based on the funding organization of the author. Adding to the potential confusion, a number of publishers also offer hybrid options in which some articles are “open” while the rest of the journal’s content are available only by subscription or license. No standardized bibliographic metadata currently provides information on whether a specific article is freely readable and what re-use rights might be available to readers. Visual indicators or icons indicating the openness of an article are inconsistent in both design and use across publishers or even across journals from the same publisher.
- No, Microsoft, open source software really is cheaper, insists Munich Feb 08, 2013
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ZDNet - The city of Munich has hit back at Microsoft in a row over whether the city's plan to use open-source software is cheaper than using Microsoft's products.
The city is currently migrating 13,000 computers from Windows NT 4 and Microsoft Office 97 to a custom build of Ubuntu and OpenOffice as part of its 'LiMux' project. A further 2,000 computers will stay on Windows but are being switched to OpenOffice. The move began in 2004 and will be completed in the autumn of this year.
Last year Munich released figures that it said demonstrated the project would save the authority more than €10m by sidestepping the need to license Windows 7 and newer versions of Microsoft Office, as well as associated hardware upgrades.
In total the LiMux project would cost €23m, compared to the €34m the authority estimated it would have cost to stick with Windows and MS Office.
Munich's figures were challenged in a study produced by HP for Microsoft, which claimed the LiMux project would cost €60.6m, considerably more than claimed by the authority. In comparison, the report claimed, migrating to Windows XP and Microsoft Office would have cost only €17m.
- When open-source eats itself, we win Feb 07, 2013
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The Register - Matt Asay - Open ... and Shut For years the headlines have been about open source cannibalising proprietary software. But what happens when open source starts to cannibalise itself?
In some markets, open source rules the roost. For example, Drupal, Joomla, my old company Alfresco and other open-source content management systems regularly duke it out for supremacy, depending on the workload. In application servers, JBoss and Tomcat spar. In cloud, Cloudstack, Eucalyptus, OpenStack, and others battle.
But web servers? That's a market that Apache won ages ago, with no open-source competition to speak of.
That is, until recently.
- NZ, Don't Make Our Mistake on Software Patents As Such Feb 07, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - A couple of months ago, an MEP asked the European Commission an interesting question:
The intellectual property rights associated with ICT standards can apply to patents covering computer programmes granted by the patent offices of some non‐European countries, for instance the USA. The application of these standards on the basis of the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non‐discriminatory) obligation may require the purchase of licences for patents not recognised in EU Member States.
Is it not the case that these standards will act as a sort of first step towards the EU's formal recognition of software patents?
This is something that has worried me too during the increasingly heated discussion around open standards, and whether they should require FRAND or RF licensing. That's because FRAND implicitly accepts the validity of patents as applied to software - otherwise there would be no need to get a "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" licence.
Here's what the European Commission replied:
- Levelling the playing field: open source in the public sector Feb 06, 2013
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Computing - The government claims to be levelling the playing field for open source technology. It wants local and central government departments to open source software an equally viable alternative to more traditional proprietary solutions.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office emphasised these claims, when Computing asked about the progress of this levelling activity.
“Open source is at the heart of our commitment to deliver digital public services designed around the needs of citizens,” said the spokesman.
- Software innovation will blast monolithic hardware Feb 04, 2013
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Computer Weekly - The forward "predictions for 2013" pre-Christmas honeymoon is now thankfully over. Time enough then... for a serious look at software futures.
The so called "explosive amount of structured and unstructured data" is, as we know, having a profound impact upon cloud, middleware, storage and virtualisation technologies.
But where are the biggest ripples being felt?
Is it inside the hardware universe or the software universe?Red Hat's Paul Cormier is president of products and technologies. He asserts that open source software will now, in the immediate future, start to drive proprietary storage hardware and software stacks.
So what is he talking about?
- What's the next big platform for Linux? Feb 04, 2013
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The H Open - Glyn Moody wonders whether the car – a currently undeveloped yet important platform with great potential – can provide the inspiration for the next generation of Linux coders.
Linux has a problem: it's running out of platforms to conquer. It's already the top operating system for smartphones and supercomputers, and is widely used in embedded and industrial systems. It's true the Year of the GNU/Linux desktop continues to be five years in the future, but the rise of tablets makes up for that in part.
That seems to suggest that there are no major, completely new areas where young Linux hackers can make their mark: instead, they seem doomed to mopping up minor problems left behind by the people who were fortunate enough to get to a platform first. To avoid disillusionment of the next generation of top coders, Linux desperately needs to colonise a major new product platform – one that is simultaneously hugely important and yet without any established digital leaders.
How about the car?
- Danish municipalities using open source to innovate and collaborate Feb 04, 2013
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OpenSource.com - Danish municipalities are increasingly using free and open source software for collaboration and innovation of ICT solutions. More than 10% of the country's municipalities last year joined the newly founded Open Website Community OS2. The group has already delivered a Drupal-based municipal content management system (OS2Web) as well as an application offering paperless meetings (OS2dagsorden).
- Microsoft incorporates open-source Git for development tools Feb 04, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Once vehemently opposed to open-source software, Microsoft has warmed to the development model over the years and will now take the unusual step of incorporating an open-source program developed by Linus Torvalds into its own development tools.
Microsoft is integrating the widely used Git, a distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) system, into its Visual Studio IDE (integrated developer environment) and Team Foundation Server (TFS), two of the company's main tools for enterprise developers.
"TFS is a very popular tool in the enterprise, and Git has grown up in the open-source community," said Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow and the TFS product unit manager. "By embracing Git, we want to bridge that gap, so it can be a great tool for both the open-source community and for the enterprise."
- Researchers dive into copyrights and wrongs of the download age Feb 01, 2013
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ZDNet - The University of Glasgow will be home to a research centre that will examine how copyright is changing and the need for new business models for distributing creative content.
The Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise, and Technology (CREATe) will seek to address the challenges that are presented to businesses and government by an increasingly digital world, while helping policy makers develop new regulatory frameworks around copyright.
"TheUK creative sector is the largest in the world and worth £60 billion a year, or about 6 percent of GDP," CREATe director, Professor Martin Kretschmer told ZDNet. "If you've got issues such as whether copyright exceptions facilitate new services or kill existing businesses, the right answer matters greatly."
- Researchers dive into copyrights and wrongs of the download age Feb 01, 2013
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ZDNet - The University of Glasgow will be home to a research centre that will examine how copyright is changing and the need for new business models for distributing creative content.
The Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise, and Technology (CREATe) will seek to address the challenges that are presented to businesses and government by an increasingly digital world, while helping policy makers develop new regulatory frameworks around copyright.
"TheUK creative sector is the largest in the world and worth £60 billion a year, or about 6 percent of GDP," CREATe director, Professor Martin Kretschmer told ZDNet. "If you've got issues such as whether copyright exceptions facilitate new services or kill existing businesses, the right answer matters greatly."
- Tim Berners-Lee speaks: what can we do in NZ? Feb 01, 2013
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The National Business Review - Last night, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, aka the inventor of the web, presented in Wellington to an InternetNZ-sponsored event, supported (and thank-you) by the Department of Internal Affairs (the NZ Government CIO), Chorus, Catalyst IT and Google (watch it again via the link here).
Sir Tim made the point that just as the US government reaches beyond its borders, so too can we; we can lobby offshore, change laws here to show and spread the benchmark.
His key points, as I saw them, and suggestions from me for NZ action:
- The Battle for the Soul of EU Privacy Jan 31, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, 2013 is already shaping up to be a year in which data protection is a key battleground. That's been confirmed by a flurry of stories around Data Privacy Day, which was yesterday in case you missed it.
For example, Mozilla had some good news on this front:
- Google grant gifts 15,000 Raspberry Pis to UK schools Jan 31, 2013
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ZDNet - A grant from Google is to fund 15,000 free Raspberry Pi devices for UK schools, to help foster the next generation of computer scientists.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation hopes donating credit card-sized microcomputers, which normally cost $35, will encourage schoolchildren to take up coding.
The grant was announced at Chesterton Community College in Cambridge on Tuesday, where Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton gave students a programming lesson.
"We hope that our new partnership with Google will be a significant moment in the development of computing education in the UK," Upton said in a statement. "We believe that this can turnaround the year-on-year decline in the numbers and skill sets of students applying to read Computer Science at university."
- Cabinet Office hits the road to engage with ‘new generation’ of suppliers Jan 30, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - The government has begun a tour of the UK, where it will be hosting a number of events to engage with a ‘new generation’ of IT suppliers that will help the Cabinet Office deliver on its ambitions of transforming public services for the digital era.
Chief technology officer, Liam Maxwell, and crown representative for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Stephen Allott, will be hosting events in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and London.
The Cabinet Office has said that government departments are looking to work with ‘more innovative and efficient IT suppliers’ to help deliver savings of £1.2 billion by 2015 by digitising public services and transactions, a plan that was set out in the government’s Digital Services Strategy.
- The meaning of the 4.0 Jan 29, 2013
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Moved by Freedom - Powered by Standards - The Document Foundation will be releasing LibreOffice 4.0 in the beginning of February. It is a big and important release for us, and a major symbolic milestone. We have received questions and comments, however, that were basically about our reasons to change the major number, from the 3.x to the 4.x . I believe it’s important to explain why we are doing this, and what the 4.0 release is all about.
- Government IT Cost Containment at an Inflection Point Jan 28, 2013
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Gartner - Government organizations around the world have been on a continuous path toward greater IT efficiency as a result of overall spending cuts and budget reductions driven by the economic and financial situation in most of the developed world.
An excellent report recently published by the UK National Audit Office shows that recipes for IT cost containment applied by the UK government, especially in the area of better and more consolidated procurement, are delivering the expected results.
There are jurisdictions where there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to IT cost containment: insufficient coordination and standardization, complexity and devolution of decision making processes, conflicts of interest or even corruption get in the way.
- Making open data more valuable, one micropayment at a time Jan 25, 2013
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O'Reilly Radar - Yo Yoshida's startup, Appallicious, is using San Francisco's government data as a backbone.
When it comes to making sense of the open data economy, tracking cents is valuable. In San Francisco, where Mayor Ed Lee’s administration has reinvigorated city efforts to release open data for economic benefits, entrepreneur Yo Yoshida has made the City by the Bay’s government data central to his mobile ecommerce startup, Appallicious.
Appallicious is positioning its Skipitt mobile platform as a way for cities to easily process mobile transactions for their residents. The startup is generating revenue from each transaction the city takes with its platform using micropayments, a strategy that’s novel in the world of open data but has enabled Appallicious to make enough money to hire more employees and look to expand to other municipalities. I spoke to Yoshida last fall about his startup, what it’s like to go through city procurement, and whether he sees a market opportunity in more open government data.
- Bigging up big data: Why the hype is about to stop Jan 25, 2013
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ZDNet - Big-data hype has reached its peak and the concept is likely to plunge into the "trough of disillusionment," according to analyst group Gartner.
Businesses are exploring the use of big data to analyse and understand the vast amounts of information they have stored. But according to Gartner, big data has now reached the peak of inflated expectations.
According to Gartner's hype-cycle model, technologies reach a point where they are completely overhyped, after which users become disillusioned, only later to actually find a realistic business use for the technology.
- Obama calls 'National Day of Civic Hacking' Jan 25, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - It's not unusual for free and open source software projects to enlist the help of their fans and supporters in debugging and other efforts to make the software better.
What's less common is for major national governments to do the same thing.
Sure enough, though, the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy on Tuesday announced the National Day of Civic Hacking on June 1 and 2, calling it "an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly-released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans."
- National Audit Office tears government's savings claims in HALF Jan 24, 2013
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The Channel - The National Audit Office has questioned the Cabinet Office's weighty ICT savings claims and revealed it still does not know how many small biz suppliers are winning public sector contracts.
Minister Francis Maude's merry band claims it saved taxpayers £702m on tech and comms spending in fiscal 2012 ended March - £354m through tighter spending controls and £348m by revisiting major supplier contracts, as has happened with Microsoft and others.
But the NAO claimed in a report today it could not verify the £348m figure being bandied about central government, due to a "weakness in data" held by the Cabinet Office.
It seems it was unable to rubber-stamp those claims, an insider tells us.
The remaining £354m savings boasted by Cabinet Office (£145m saved due to control spend, £64m from sharing ICT services on the Public Services Network, and £144m due to centralised procurement) were also scrutinised by NAO, which said only £316m met its criteria.
- Why sharing data can save services Jan 24, 2013
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The Guardian - In the information age, the public sector – as provider of thousands of services to millions of people – handles more information than most. And with increasing amounts of collaboration between public bodies in order to cut costs and improve services, plus sharing with private-sector contractors and partners, there is a growing need to share this often sensitive information or data in a timely, secure and auditable way.
These issues are being tackled head on by the new multi-agency safeguarding hubs, or "Mash", which bring together police, children's and adult social care teams, health services and others to collect and share information on vulnerable children, families and adults.
But there are serious blockages to progress. A survey of data sharing of 33,000 public servants, published this month by the Guardian and specialist public sector information management solutions firm Objective, found that while 90% of respondents had a business requirement to share files, 71% were restricted from doing so.
- Cabinet Office chucks hefty rulebook at paper-chewing gov bods Jan 23, 2013
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The Register - The Cabinet Office will have its money-saving, IT-tightening digital service standards ready for government offices by April and has said it wants all departments to have swotted up and be ready by next February, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said yesterday at a gathering of "digital warriors". The newer websites and services have just three months to achieve compliance, however.
The minister spoke about the new cost-cutting rulebook at Sprint13 conference yesterday, where he was joined by Martha Lane Fox to help whip up excitement among their fellow civil servants about government's digital dream.
The new Digital Service Standards for Government will be published in April, and all new government sites and services after that date will have to be compliant. By early 2014 it is hoped that all government services will have shifted over to the new platform and will be following the guidelines.
Maude has said he expects savings of £1.2bn by 2015 for the UK taxpayer, when the government manages to fully transition its admin off paper and onto the internet. He is also hoping to reduce overall IT spend - currently, according to the Cabinet Office, the UK government has the highest IT spend per capita in the world.
- Will Neelie Kroes Defend or Destroy EU Net Neutrality? Jan 22, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - I have a lot of time for Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for the Digital Agenda. She's easily the most tech-savvy of the European Commissioners - although cynics would point out that's setting a low bar. Sometimes, she's downright radical, as in this speech about copyright, delivered back in 2011:
let's ask ourselves, is the current copyright system the right and only tool to achieve our objectives? Not really, I'm afraid. We need to keep on fighting against piracy, but legal enforceability is becoming increasingly difficult; the millions of dollars invested trying to enforce copyright have not stemmed piracy. Meanwhile citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it. Sadly, many see the current system as a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward.
Similarly, as early as May last year she openly admitted that ACTA was probably dead, even while the European Commission was still stubbornly insisting the contrary:
We have recently seen how many thousands of people are willing to protest against rules which they see as constraining the openness and innovation of the Internet. This is a strong new political voice. And as a force for openness, I welcome it, even if I do not always agree with everything it says on every subject. We are now likely to be in a world without SOPA and without ACTA. Now we need to find solutions to make the Internet a place of freedom, openness, and innovation fit for all citizens, not just for the techno avant-garde.
Against that heartening background, I do nonetheless wonder whether Mrs Kroes really appreciates what true net neutrality for the Internet entails, and is prepared to defend it in Europe through legislation. Last week, the French newspaper Liberation published a major opinion piece by her, prompted by the decision by one of the largest ISPs in France, Free, to block Web ads by default on its FreeBox router. That's obviously problematic for many sites that depend upon advertising in order to generate revenue.
- Toxic Cloud Computing, and How Open Source Can Help Jan 18, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - There are so many parts to the institutions running the European Union that it's easy to lose sight of them all and their varied activities. For example, one of the lesser-known European Parliament bodies is the Directorate-General for Internal Policies. You might expect the studies that it commissions to be deadly dull, but some turn out to be not just highly interesting but hugely important.
One such is the new report "Fighting cyber crime and protecting privacy in the cloud" [.pdf]. Here's the basic background:
- Net neutrality? Let the market decide, says Europe's digital chief Jan 18, 2013
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ZDNet - ISPs should not be barred from selling tiered web, according to Europe's digital commissioner Neelie Kroes.
Telecoms providers should be able to sell access to the internet at varying speeds and with differing download limits, Kroes wrote in an article for the French newspaper Libération.
Common ISP practices like throttling the speed of internet access for heavy downloaders or at peak times violate the principle of net neutrality - the idea that no bit of information sent over the internet should be prioritised over another. With The Netherlands passing legislation last year guaranteeing net neutrality, there have been calls for the concept to be enshrined in European law - an idea that Kroes appears to reject.
"On net neutrality, consumers need effective choice on the type of internet subscription they sign up to. Choice should also drive innovation and investment by internet providers, with benefits for all," Kroes wrote in the Libération article published on Wednesday.
Speaking on Thursday, Kroes' official spokesman clarified what she meant by 'choice':
- Open standards drive needed in risk-averse public sector says govt Digital Director Jan 18, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Public sector organisations need to quicken adoption of open source and open standards software in order to meet government aims for digitising services, Cabinet Office Director for Digital Mike Bracken has said.
Speaking at the Government ICT conference in London this week, Bracken warned that a bigger push is needed in order to introduce a wave of digital services during this parliament, including digitising hundreds of thousands of transactions across government.
Last November departments were told they must comply with Open Standards Principles (OSPs) in order to enable interoperability and reduce costs. However Bracken said more needs to be done to open the doors to innovative technologies that will enable a swift IT transformation.
"There are a bunch of companies, [and] open source open standards services that we really need to plug into this government system if we are going to transform these transactions as quickly as we need to do," he said.
- German government should make its software available as open source, committee advises Jan 18, 2013
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PCAdvisor - A government committee recommends a change in German law to accommodate software.
Germany should change a law to enable public administrations to make their software available as free and open source, a German parliamentary committee has advised.
German public administrations currently are not allowed to give away goods, including software, said Jimmy Schulz, a member of Parliament and chairman of the Interoperability, Standards and Free Software Project Group in an email Thursday. The current law prohibits governments from being part of the development process in the free software community, he said.
"This is a clear disadvantage because it cuts off all benefits obtained from free software, such as being cost-efficient and state-of-the-art," he said.
Besides a recommendation that the government should explore whether the law can be changed for software, the group also called for the use of open standards in order to make sure that everybody can have access to important information, Schulz said. "We also called for public administrations in general to make sure that new software is created as platform independent as possible," he added.
- UK urged to air its views on EU cloud strategy Jan 18, 2013
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CloudPro - The UK needs to speak up now if it wants to influence the rollout of the European Union's cloud strategy, the vice president of Eurocloud, Phil Wainewright, has warned.
The European Commission, under the direction of vice president Neelie Kroes, has been working towards a Europe-wide cloud strategy since 2011.
So far the introduction of unifying cloud standards across the 27 European Union member states has been mooted, with Kroes stating in September 2012 that “you shouldn’t have to have a law degree to use the cloud”.
However, the Government’s deputy CIO Liam Maxwell has been hostile to the EU's plans.
- Google Grants $3.7 Million to Civic Innovation and Open Data Projects Jan 17, 2013
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Mashable - Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, announced it's funding two new tech projects on Wednesday, one to encourage civic innovation and the other to open government data.
The larger of the two grants, a $2.1 million gift, was given to the Sunlight Foundation. The Foundation will use the money to grow its local programming, particularly to create consistant standards for open data in all U.S. cities.
Another $1.6 million was given to mySociety, a UK charity that builds open source codes for local authorities, governments and corporations. The grant money will be used to accelerate building new civic apps.
Matthew Stepka, VP of Google.org, told Mashable that these two grants are an extension of Google.org's mission to create and spread technology solutions that can make a positive impact and combat major challenges.
- Could Governments Run Out of Patience with Open Data? Jan 16, 2013
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Gartner - Andrea Di Maio Yesterday I had yet another client conversation – this time with a mid-size municipality in the north of Europe – on the topic of the economic value generated through open data. The problem we discussed is the same I highlighted in a post last year: nobody argues the potential long term value of open data but it may be difficult to maintain a momentum (and to spend time, money and management bandwidth) on something that will come to fruition in the more distant future, while more urgent problems need to be solved now, under growing budget constraints.
Faith is not enough, nor are the many examples that open data evangelists keep sharing to demonstrate value. Open data must help solve today’s problems too, in order to gain the credibility and the support required to realize future economic value.
While many agree that open data can contribute to shorter term goals, such as improving inter-agency transparency and data exchange or engaging citizens on solving concrete problems, making this happen in a more systematic way requires a change of emphasis and a change of leadership.
- Fighting for Open Access Jan 15, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - As you may have noticed, this weekend the online world has been filled with news of and responses to the suicide of the young American activist Aaron Swartz. Many excellent personal tributes have been written about the man and his achievements, but here I want to concentrate on the just one aspect: the incident that led to his arrest and probably to his suicide too. Here's how Techdirt explained the situation:
Swartz, the executive director of Demand Progress, was charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a catch-all designation for "computer activity the US government doesn't like."
Swartz had accessed MIT's computer network to download a large number of files from JSTOR, a non-profit that hosts academic journal articles. US prosecutors claimed he "stole" several thousand files, but considering MIT offered this access for free on campus (and the files being digital), it's pretty tough to square his massive downloading with any idea of "theft."
Not only that, but JSTOR was not the entity pressing charges. It had stopped the downloading and secured the "stolen" content, along with receiving assurances from Swartz that the files would not be distributed. Despite this, the feds felt compelled to arrest Swartz and charge him with four felony counts (one each for Wire Fraud, Computer Fraud, Theft of Information from a Computer and Recklessly Damaging a Computer). At this point, Swartz was looking at a possible 35-year sentence and over $1,000,000 in fines
- G-Cloud iii adds identity services, BPO and others Jan 15, 2013
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ZDNet - The third G-Cloud framework has been announced with four new supplier categories and an increased procurement limit, less than a year after the pan-government public cloud service went live.
G-Cloud is the government's initative to encourage greater use of cloud software and services among government IT departments, with a view to making public sector IT cheaper and more flexible. It incorporates CloudStore, an online marketplace where public sector IT buyers can purchase cloud services.
The new categories being introduced to G-Cloud iii include: identity services, service integration and management, software support and business process management.
- How e-invoicing could revolutionise public sector procurement Jan 14, 2013
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The Guardian - Many other countries in Europe no longer use paper invoicing because they believe electronic trading is so much more efficient. Two Tory MPs say it's time Britain caught up.
Electronic invoicing could streamline government administration at a stroke, save taxpayers billions of pounds and enable the government to use its immense purchasing power to open new markets.
- Open source clouds gather over Microsoft Jan 14, 2013
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Computer Weekly - The Microsoft Open Technologies subsidiary has announced a public preview of its app store for Windows Azure known as VM Depot.
This programmer resource is hoped to allow developers to construct, deploy and share Linux configurations and create custom-made open source stacks.
Developers can also use this community-driven catalogue of open source virtual machine images for Windows Azure to collaborate and build new architectures.
VM Depot features preconfigured operating systems, applications and development stacks.
Microsoft's intention here is to push more open-source applications forward (running on Linux) as guest inhabitants on the Azure cloud service.
- EU antitrust chief growls at Google, hopes to avoid sanctions Jan 14, 2013
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The Register - Ignores 'noise and fury' from cymbal-clashing Microsoft camp.
Brussels' competition chief Joaquin Almunia has sniffed at any suggestion that the European Commission would follow the US consumer watchdog by allowing Google to avoid a tough settlement over its alleged "abuse of dominance" in the online search market.
Speaking with the Financial Times, the commissioner said that the stateside Federal Trade Commission's decision would have no bearing on the EC's separate probe of Google's business practices. For his part, Almunia has said it is his "conviction" that the multi-billion dollar corporation is "diverting traffic" to its own services.
- EU FRAND Report Signals Problems Jan 14, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Simon Phipps - The final report from a European Commission meeting designed to whitewash patents in standards may prove a helpful marker for watchful eyes looking out for abuse.
You may recall I spotted a meeting happening in Brussels that looked as if it was a set-up job. I suspected its goal was to ensure that a report was produced which could be referenced in future discussions over EU procurement policies -- especially Britain's. While it was probably not a documented goal, such a report could be used to falsely demonstrate that technical standards with patents in them are no problem for open source software.
Well, the report is out, and as Glyn Moody disclosed on December 31st, it's everything I predicted. This was a shameful set-up job to ensure there would be a plausible-looking statement on the public record. Its purpose: propagating the strawman needed to defend procurement policies that require permission to be sought from a commercial power-broker.
The strawman is that, if any open source project can be found that's successfully implementing a technical standard that requires use of patented techniques and has those patents licensed under "Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory" (FRAND) terms, then it must be OK for all open source projects and all variants of FRAND.
- The Norwegian Ministry of Finance may open source cash registers to prevent tax fraud Jan 14, 2013
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TNW - The Norwegian Ministry of Finance wants all the cash registers in its country tossed, and replaced with new machines, this time with code that it can verify. Norway is not the largest of countries, but this move would result in the installation of as many 90,000 replacement registers.
The Ministry of Finance wishes to ensure that no fraud is occurring, and therefore that no tax revenues are going uncollected. It has posited a number of new rules that, if implemented would certainly cut down on any potential fraud, including required receipt printing, and the inability to retroactively change entries. One proposed new rule however has raised eyebrows: the code that the registers run on must be open source.
The tingling you feel is the parallel between this story and the system of closed-system voting machines used in the United States, if you were curious.
- EU Data Protection and Open Standards Jan 10, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - As happened for last year, 2013 will doubtless see plenty of battles in the domains of open standards, copyright and software patents, but there will also be a new theme: data protection. That's a consequence of an announcement made by the European Commission almost exactly a year ago:
- ‘Digital by Default’ will be a complex and costly transition but the initial infrastructure is now in place Jan 10, 2013
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LSE - The launch of GOV.UK was accompanied by extensive hoopla, some of it markedly self-congratulatory in tone, that hailed the site’s revolutionary approach to service delivery in putting the needs of users rather than the needs of government at the core of its functionality. Martha Lane Fox, the UK Digital Champion, described the arrival of the new site as being “as profound a moment for us as citizens as the laying the first railway track or the designing the first school curriculum – it’s the beginning of the blueprint, values and style for the next wave of services that we will use into the next century”.
Putting hyperbole to one side, there is no doubt that GOV.UK represents a step forward in the organisation of the government’s digital resources. The design team (the Government Digital Service) built and utilised an application to map and prioritise typical and unusual user needs from the webpages, which they titled – wonderfully – the ‘Needotron’. The outcome of this work is a website that is informed by user-centred design principles in a way that its predecessors weren’t, and, if its been done well, that will exceed previous levels of usage and satisfaction.
Alongside the benefits from increased usage are the potential for cost savings and further economies as more government departments adopt the GOV.UK standards for online service delivery. Frances Maude claims that the new pages will cost taxpayers £70 million a year less than the services that it replaces. It is hoped that the open source technologies used will make web publishing simpler for government, and therefore allow them to deliver more – and better – services online.
- Government reaffirms commitment to open source technology Jan 09, 2013
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V3 - The government has used the publication of its mid-term review on Monday to reaffirm its intention to level the playing field for open source vendors competing for public sector contracts.
The mid-term review contained a number of promises relating to the government's IT strategy, although few were surprising.
However, the government's recommitment to open government procurement, particularly to open source vendors, will be good news for some.
"We will continue to open up government procurement, create a level playing field for open-source software and split large ICT projects into smaller components," said the review.
- New gov rules stick pin into bloated ICT frameworks Jan 09, 2013
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The Register - Following an internal review of government IT procurement, the Cabinet Office has announced that it has scrapped plans to use some existing ICT frameworks.
It has said that government departments will only be able to establish framework agreements in future if they can show it will "explicitly deliver against key strategic needs" and if suppliers "of all sizes" are given a "reasonable chance" of winning work through the system.
Framework agreements allow buyers to obtain services they want from a select list of "pre-approved" suppliers without "excessive procurement procedures and the need for extensive tendering" to occur, the Cabinet Office said.
"Framework agreements only work if they deliver what they set out to deliver and drive the greatest competition from a wider range of suppliers, including SMEs – that’s why we’re strengthening procurement by ensuring they align with what Government needs as well as working for suppliers," Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary Chloe Smith said in a statement.
- US Patent Office seeks public input on software patents' future Jan 08, 2013
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The Register - The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has asked the software community to help advise it on how to properly handle software-related patents – a move that could represent the first steps toward software patent reform.
The agency published its request for comments in the Federal Register on Thursday, explaining that it wants to form a Software Partnership with members of the public to share ideas and discuss several key issues.
Top-of-mind for the USPTO is figuring out how to establish clear boundaries for patent claims that use "functional language," meaning claims that describe processes but have no corresponding hardware invention.
As the USPTO's notice explains:
- Top Ten FOSS Legal Developments in 2012 Jan 07, 2013
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OpenSource Delivers - The year 2012 had many important FOSS legal developments which reflects the continued increase in FOSS use. During a recent webinar with Black Duck, we noted that FOSS projects have increased from 600,000 in 2010 to 900,000 by December 2012. In addition, a Dr. Dobbs’ survey in the third quarter of 2012 stated that more than 90% of developers are using FOSS in two of the most rapidly growing areas, cloud computing and mobile computing.
Continuing the tradition of looking back over top ten legal developments in FOSS, my selection of the top ten issues for 2012 are as follows:
- European Commission's Low Attack on Open Source Jan 07, 2013
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - If ACTA was the biggest global story of 2012, more locally there's no doubt that the UK government's consultation on open standards was the key event. As readers will remember, this was the final stage in a long-running saga with many twists and turns, mostly brought about by some uncricket-like behaviour by proprietary software companies who dread a truly level playing-field for government software procurement.
Justice prevailed in that particular battle, with open standards being defined as those with any claimed patents being made available on a royalty-free basis. But of course these things are never that simple. While the UK has seen the light, the EU has actually gone backwards on open standards in recent times.
Again, as long-suffering readers may recall, the original European Interoperability Framework also required royalty-free licensing, but what was doubtless a pretty intense wave of lobbying in Brussels overturned that, and EIF v2 ended up pushing FRAND, which effectively locks out open source - the whole point of the exercise.
Shamefully, some parts of the European Commission are still attacking open source, as I revealed a couple of months ago when Simon Phipps spotted a strange little conference with the giveaway title of "Implementing FRAND standards in Open Source: Business as usual or mission impossible?"
- Mr. Cable: Disconnected from Digital Reality Dec 21, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Rather out of the blue, Business Secretary Vince Cable has made a series of proposals affecting patents, copyright and trade marks:
Business Secretary Vince Cable, today set out new plans to make sure UK creativity and innovation supports growth. Speaking at The Big Innovation Centre, Dr Cable launched a range of measures that will improve services to business, strengthen enforcement, and help consumers get the most out of creative products and services.
The plans, which will involve a step change in the way the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) delivers services, include:
launching a superfast patent processing service to deliver patents in just 90 days and a faster trade marks examination service which will deliver a full examination report in five days, instead of 10;
a campaign to educate smaller businesses about getting the best value from their creativity and innovation;
action to help consumers and young people understand the importance of respect for IP and the harm counterfeiting or illegal downloading can do; and
working with key partners, such as the City of London Police, to tackle IP crime such as counterfeiting and online piracy.
Let's take a look at these in turn.
- Behind Bern's Open Source Policy Dec 21, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Simon Phipps - It's taken a strong political decision to overcome the lock-in inertia of ICT procurement in Bern. Will the policy succeed?
The city council of Bern, Switzerland's federal capital, decided this month to tell its ICT department that it should use open source wherever possible. This comes at a time when two German cities - Munich and Freiburg - have announced very different outcomes from similar decisions. To understand more about this decision I spoke with Matthias Stuermer, an elected member of the city council who has played a key role in the decision.Stuermer is an expert when it comes to enterprise open source. Advising clients on the subject is part of his day job at Ernst and Young. He was elected to Bern's city council in 2008 as a deputy (able to stand in for absences of full members), joined as a full member in 2011 when a vacancy arose and has recently be re-elected as a full member. He has been advocating a move to an open source strategy for the city since being first elected.The council has been moving towards favouring open source for some time, but the desire was not matched by the city's ICT department. They continued to prefer proprietary systems, finding it easier to live with the lock-in than to challenge it. The matter came to a head in 2011 when the city set out to procure new enterprise agreements from Microsoft.
- The Highest Jump Dec 21, 2012
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Government Digital Service - In November the Government Digital Strategy set out a shared vision for digital by default government; our digital services must be so straightforward and convenient people prefer to use them. This strategy committed government departments to 14 actions and was written by Digital Leaders representing every central government department.
It was praised at the time, I believe rightly, for both its ambition and its bias towards action. Tim O’Reilly, the open source leader who coined the terms Government as a Platform and Web 2.0 declared: “This is the new bible for anyone working in open government”.
There are many government strategies now lying gathering dust which promised much but delivered little. Often this is due to a lack of ambition, the result of unactionable statements and risk aversion. Not so here.
Today, 18 government departments have published their own digital strategies. They have set the bar high.
- Government plans £100m digital framework for agile development Dec 20, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - A ‘neutral vendor’ will be responsible for providing suppliers to support government departments.
The Government Procurement Service and the Government Digital Service (GDS) have agreed the need for a new ‘digital procurement framework’, which aims to provide government departments access to a pool of suppliers of agile software development.
It is hoped that the framework will support the government’s recently unveiled Digital Strategy, which outlined plans to digitise thousands of transactions used by the public, in a bid to save the public sector £1.7 billion a year after 2015.
It also said that digitising transactions, such as paying car tax, booking driving tests, completing tax returns, or applying for pensions, could deliver savings of up to £1.2 billion over the next three years.
- How to liberate government IT from its hostage situation with system suppliers Dec 20, 2012
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The Guardian - Central government IT systems have become a byword for complexity, opacity, expense and poor delivery.
Central government departments are increasingly being held hostage by a handful of huge, often overseas, suppliers of customised all-or-nothing IT systems.
These administrative IT systems, which cost 1% of GDP, have become a byword for complexity, opacity, expense and poor delivery.
Unfortunately, hostage and hostage taker have become closely aligned in Stockholm-syndrome fashion. Many people in the public sector now design, procure, manage and evaluate these IT systems and ignore the exploitative nature of the relationship.
- Bankrupt Kodak misses $2bn target, flogs imaging patents for $525m Dec 20, 2012
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The Register - Iconic camera-maker Eastman Kodak has reached an agreement to sell its portfolio of imaging patents for $525m.
Patent shop Intellectual Ventures is among the buyers, and together with RPX Corporation leads a consortium of 12 unnamed licensees to buy a portion of the patents.
- IBM taps Red Hat for cut-throat priced Linux on big supers Dec 20, 2012
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The Register - Big Blue is going to Red Hat for a Linux environment for its largest supercomputers, and it is mothballing its own LoadLeveler workload manager for x86 clusters in favor of the Platform LSF control freak that it acquired a little more than a year ago.
It is no surprise that IBM has chosen Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as the Linux of choice for its massively parallel BlueGene/Q supercomputers and the Power 775 behemoth that was to be the "Blue Waters" machine at the University of Illinois and that is now being positioned as a big data muncher. (Cray eventually got the Blue Waters contract.)
- Digital "to-do" list: new digital priorities for 2013-2014 Dec 19, 2012
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Europa - The European Commission has today adopted seven new priorities for the digital economy and society.
The digital economy is growing at seven times the rate of the rest of the economy, but this potential is currently held back by a patchy pan-European policy framework. Today's priorities follow a comprehensive policy review and place new emphasis on the most transformative elements of the original 2010 Digital Agenda for Europe.
- EC postpones its guideline on ICT standardisation and procurement Dec 18, 2012
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Joinup - The European Commission will postpone until early next year the publication of its guideline on how to make best use of ICT standards in tender specifications. Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, in a video speech on Friday said that the guideline should ensure that public authorities get the most value from open source and open standards. "And also that open source suppliers can compete fairly in tenders."
The guideline is one of the actions of the Digital Agenda for Europe. The draft was published almost exactly one year ago, following an EC workshop on ICT procurement.
The draft warns that choosing standards is complex and public administrations should be aware. For instance, the draft begins: "Whilst standards that are set through formal standard setting organisations go through a formal development process, they may still contain barriers to implementation by all interested parties, or may not be widely implemented by the market."
This 'Communication on standardisation and public procurement' was originally planned to be adopted this year. However, in a message posted on Twitter on Friday, Carl-Christian Buhr, member of the cabinet of Kroes, said the planning "looks challenging" and may slip to early 2013.
- The future impact of open source on our information infrastructure Dec 18, 2012
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Computer Weekly - Much of what we read relating to the future impact of open source, or cloud computing, or any significant 'still-nascent' technology paradigm tends to be focused on the user/consumer end.
With more "BYOD trends will impact our future use of cloud" headlines that many readers can stomach, the (arguably) more analytical approach just now is most productively taken by looking at the underlying information infrastructure level.
- Inside outsourcing interview: Banks moving to open source software and need control Dec 18, 2012
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Computer Weekly - Today I interviewed Jonathan Charley, who is a partner in financial services at IT and business consultancy Bearingpoint. He was a CIO at Lloyds Bank previously.
I asked him what trends he was seeing in the banking sector. I found what he is seeing around the use of open source software very interesting. He said the company's CIO advisory is supporting banks on their use of open source software.
There is a problem. "Increasingly people are using open source software but they don't necessarily know how much they are using, whether they have paid for a license and whether they are using it effectively."
- Digital Agenda: Turning government data into gold Dec 14, 2012
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Europa - The Commission has launched an Open Data Strategy for Europe, which is expected to deliver a €40 billion boost to the EU's economy each year. Europe’s public administrations are sitting on a goldmine of unrealised economic potential: the large volumes of information collected by numerous public authorities and services. Member States such as the United Kingdom and France are already demonstrating this value. The strategy to lift performance EU-wide is three-fold: firstly the Commission will lead by example, opening its vaults of information to the public for free through a new data portal. Secondly, a level playing field for open data across the EU will be established. Finally, these new measures are backed by the €100 million which will be granted in 2011-2013 to fund research into improved data-handling technologies.
These actions position the EU as the global leader in the re-use of public sector information. They will boost the thriving industry that turns raw data into the material that hundreds of millions of ICT users depend on, for example smart phone apps, such as maps, real-time traffic and weather information, price comparison tools and more. Other leading beneficiaries will include journalists and academics.
Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: "We are sending a strong signal to administrations today. Your data is worth more if you give it away. So start releasing it now: use this framework to join the other smart leaders who are already gaining from embracing open data. Taxpayers have already paid for this information, the least we can do is give it back to those who want to use it in new ways that help people and create jobs and growth.” See Mrs Kroes video quote here.
- Ordinary people must have a say in deciding the future of the web Dec 14, 2012
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The Guardian - Against the backdrop of the ITU World Conference of International Telecommunications, David Rogers explains why the existing approach to web governance would benefit from broader participation
- Liam Maxwell named as first government chief technology officer Dec 14, 2012
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Computer Weekly - Liam Maxwell, formerly the deputy government CIO, has been appointed as the first Whitehall chief technology officer (CTO), in the latest stage of a major shake-up of the government IT leadership organisation.
- 'Troll' warning as EU gets unitary patent scheme, after decades of failure Dec 13, 2012
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ZDNet - The European unitary patent is finally set to become a thing, ending more than 30 years of failed attempts to leap mostly language-based hurdles. However, anti-software-patent campaigners say the European Parliament's approval could have disastrous consequences.
The European Parliament has approved the rules for a new EU-wide patent system, which is intended to drastically reduce the cost of getting a patent that applies across the union.
However, anti-software-patent campaigners say the scheme's approval will make it easier for patent trolls to bring their activities to Europe.
- Dell commits to open-source software for its future clouds Dec 13, 2012
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ZDNet - Dell will use the OpenStack cloud management and automation software for its public and private cloud products, the company has announced, in a sign of increasing support for the open-source project.
The company said its upcoming public and private cloud products will be built around OpenStack, a package of software for running clouds that has received broad backing from the technology industry from companies such as HP, Cisco, IBM, Red Hat and Intel.
"Dell is increasing its commitment to OpenStack as its open-source cloud platform of choice for public and private cloud," Dell said in a statement on Wednesday.
- Government IT reform - now the real battle starts Dec 13, 2012
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Computer Weekly - Despite the understandable scepticism that was aired about the government's IT reform plans when the coalition came to power, it is worth reflecting on some of the achievements that have been delivered this year.
- The new Gov.UK website launched, on time, and at a much reduced cost, replacing the ungainly Directgov. The site was developed using agile methodologies, open source software, and has published all its work for others to share. You simply cannot imagine any of that happening two or three years ago.
- The G-Cloud project has created an online software and services catalogue, Cloudstore, packed with small suppliers, with publicly available pricing, and a procurement regime that avoids the need for endless EU-compliant buying processes. G-Cloud is starting to show how, for certain IT purchases at least, SME suppliers can compete on a level playing field with the oligopoly of large systems integrators that dominate Whitehall IT.
- We now have an open standards policy for IT that openly rides roughshod over the demands of proprietary software suppliers to protect their incumbencies. Open source can compete on an equal basis. And the cost of lock-in is now attributed to the existing supplier from the outset, not to the cost of replacing them.
Just those three initiatives alone promise to end several of the most frequently cited criticisms of past government IT - namely, too costly and inefficient; not enough SMEs; the restrictions from European procurement rules; no open source; no open standards; too much lock-in to big incumbents; and not enough use of modern software development techniques.
It would be wrong to underestimate how far the IT reformers in Whitehall have come to reach this point. But the real battles lie ahead.
- After 50 years, Europe gets one patent to rule them all Dec 12, 2012
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The Register - Patent trolls have a new bridge to hide under, after the European Union (EU) today announced that it will now offer applicants the chance to win a single patent spanning 25 member nations.
The EU has been haggling over this issue for more than 50 years - a unified patent system was one of the EU's founding aspirations, while a 1973 agreement languished - and is proclaiming the new decision as “good news for EU economy and especially for European small and medium enterprises.”
The reasoning behind that assertion is that explained in the FAQ about the new regime, which states “maintaining a European patent for ten years in only six European countries can be four times more expensive than it would be in the US, Japan and many other advanced economies.” Those high costs come from the fact that would-be registrants need to file for a patent all over Europe, incurring legal and application fees, plus translation costs, in each jurisdiction.
- Silicon Roundabout £50m THING to spew 200 startups A YEAR Dec 12, 2012
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The Register - Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson have unveiled plans to establish a £50 million "technical and creative institute" around the area dubbed the Silicon Roundabout at Old Street in London.
The plans, set out at a conference organised by LSE Cities, propose an architecture-designed scheme housing 200 startup companies a year, and hosting two annual conferences for companies from the technology sector and creative industries. Potential locations for the institute are being assessed in a feasibility study which will be completed in the New Year.
The Greater London Authority will have responsibility for delivering the project, which has already been backed by several companies including KPMG, IBM and Microsoft.
- Help Avoid the EU Unitary Patent Disaster Dec 11, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - I've been writing about the attempt to craft a Unitary Patent in Europe for some years. The idea in itself is not bad: a patent that is valid across all of Europe. That would simplify filings and save costs, both of which are to be welcomed. But the devil is in the details, and it looks like those details are increasingly devilish.
There are two main issues for this column. The first is that the Unitary Patent could make it easier to obtain software patents in Europe. That's because German courts are already much friendlier to the idea, and if they approve such patents, they would then be valid even in software patent sceptical countries.
The second is related to the first, and concerns which court would ultimately rule on the validity of Unitary Patents. The two options are the EU's own European Court of Justice, or else an independent court populated by patent lawyers. The latter would not be an EU institution, and therefore would not need to take cognisance of things like the European Parliament's rejection of software patents a few years back. It could and almost certainly would do whatever it liked in this sphere, which would lead to a massive expansion in Europe of patents that concern software.
There are lots of deep issues about the overall legality of the Unitary Patent, but here I'd like to concentrate on the more pragmatic issues, which are probably easier to discuss with MEPs who are not necessarily lawyers, and don't really have time to get into the minutiae of this stuff.
First of all, there is the question of the timetable. Here's a summary:
- Report: Apple, Google, Microsoft join forces to buy Kodak patents Dec 10, 2012
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The Register - The technology industry may be moving to a more cooperative mode on patents, with Apple, Google and Microsoft putting their patent disputes to one side for the sale of former photography giant Kodak's patent stack.
Kodak went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January and got a cash infusion based largely on the value that could be realized on the auction of its patent portfolio. Kodak has a huge amount of digital imaging patents and estimates the stack's value at over $2bn at current market rates.
According to Bloomberg, two consortia had been planning to bid on the patents. Apple, as it did in the Nortel patent buy, sided with Microsoft and ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures with an opening bid of around $500m.
Meanwhile Google teamed up with a group of Asian smartphone vendors and patent firm RTX to offer a similarly sized rival bid and it might have been hoping to get the support of Kodak, since there's little love lost for Cupertino in the company at the moment.
Apple and Kodak have been involved in a fractious legal battle this year over the patent issue, with Kodak accusing Cupertino of trying to stall a sale, claiming ownership of ten patents in the auction. The courts sided with Kodak and now the bidding is back on and the company seeks funds.
Now, according to two sources, Apple and Google's groups have hammered out their differences and the two consortia have joined together to share costs.
- Five out of six developers now using or deploying open source Dec 10, 2012
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ZDNet - Five out of six developers today use or have used open source tools or deployed open source software in their projects, a recent Forrester Research study revealed.
But in which software categories? The top five, according to the recent survey, are operating systems, web servers, relational database management systems, IDEs and software configuration management tools.
The vast majority -- 56 percent -- are using open source operating systems such as Linux in their development or deployment projects, according to the survey of almost 500 developers in a third quarter of this year
- Adobe's revenge on Steve Jobs: HTML5 Dec 05, 2012
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The Register - Open ... and Shut Despite significant investments from Microsoft, Google, and others, HTML5 remains not quite good enough for a range of apps. So says Mark Zuckerberg, but I also heard that this week from the chief technology officer of a large media company. Rather than gloat over HTML5's long road to native app parity, though, he fretted about how much money is being wasted rebuilding the same app multiple times for disparate platforms.
In other words, HTML5's as-yet unfulfilled promise is minting money for app development shops.
- Is it all over for UK.gov's G-Cloud 3.0? A footnote in history awaits Dec 05, 2012
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The Register - The clock is ticking on G-Cloud, the UK government's IT shopping catalogue for the public sector. A year in, those running the programme are already dreaming of life after the project and admit significant cultural hurdles stand in the way of their success.
G-Cloud is the Cabinet Office’s plan to make government IT more modular and cheaper; the publication of the Government’s cloud computing strategy in October 2011 signified the birth of the project.
- Comment: OpenOffice's Tale of Two Cities Dec 04, 2012
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The H Open - Failure in Freiburg, success in Munich. Experiences with open source software in the public sector couldn't be more different. If there's a lesson to be drawn from this, it's "go the whole hog or not at all".
At first sight it looks pretty straightforward – a licence for Microsoft Office Professional 2010 costs just under €400. Add that up over 10,000 workplaces (as is the case in Munich's city administration) and it comes to more than €4 million. For open source alternatives OpenOffice and LibreOffice, by contrast, licensing costs are zero, so you've saved at least €4 million. In view of the state of public finances, you'd think that would be the end of the discussion.
But it's not. Companies and other organisations that buy large numbers of licences do, of course, enjoy significantly lower prices, benefiting from Microsoft's volume licensing programme. Specific figures are hard to come by, but if you're paying three figure prices for five figure volumes of Microsoft Office, you probably need to work on your negotiating skills. Licensing costs also need to be seen in relation to overall costs for each workplace. If an administrator earns €25 per hour, just a few hours of lost productivity per year can quickly negate any savings on licensing costs.
- Cloud decisions are no longer in the IT department's hands - the suits have taken over Dec 04, 2012
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ZDNet - A new report has revealed that decisions around cloud are increasingly being made by people outside IT departments.
The cloud has well and truly slipped the bonds of the IT department, a new report has found.
The report, commissioned by IT consultants Capgemini and released on Thursday, surveyed 460 organisations globally and 50 in the UK, and shows that the responsibility for cloud adoption lies primarily with employees without an IT background.
"The real cloud evangelists these days seem to be on the business side and not the IT side," Ron Tolido, senior vice president for Continental Europe at Capgemini, told ZDNet. "Until now cloud was often considered a more technology-driven topic."
- EU digs trenches in 'real battle' over the future of the internet Dec 04, 2012
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ZDNet - The EU has set out its common position on proposed changes to global telecoms rules, which may see a UN agency given control over the internet for the first time.
The European Union has set out its position in the looming fight over control of the internet, arguing that it should 'stay open and global'.
"There is a real battle about how to govern the internet," digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement on Friday. "The European Union's firm view is that the internet works. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
- Open Data Institute to open this week, highlighting big data innovation in the UK Dec 03, 2012
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TNW - The Open Data Institute (ODI) officially opens this week and it is “a collaboration between businesses, entrepreneurs, researchers, government and society to unlock enterprise and social value from the vast amount of open government data now being made available”.
That’s quite a mouthful – put plainly, there’s a truck load of open data around, so let’s have at it and see what we can do.
The organisation has some pretty weighty founders, father of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, created it to be independent, non-profit and non-partisan.
So far the ODI has nailed down £10 million ($16m+ USD) over five years from the UK government via the Technology Strategy Board, which invests in tech research and development, and a further $750,000 fromOmidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm. The organisation is also working toward long-term sustainability through match funding and direct revenue.
- Portuguese government adopts OpenDocument Format Nov 30, 2012
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OpenSource.com - Andy Updegrove - According to a press release issued by the Portuguese Open Source Business Association, the government of Portugal has decided to approve a single editable, XML-based document format for use by government, and in public procurement. And that format is not OOXML.
Instead, the Portuguese government has opted for ODF, the OpenDocument Format, as well as PDF and a number of other formats and protocols, including XML, XMPP, IMAP, SMTP, CALDAV and LDAP. The announcement is in furtherance of a law passed by the Portuguese Parliament on June 21 of last year requiring compliance with open standards (as defined in the same legislation) in the procurement of government information systems and when exchanging documents at citizen-facing government websites (an unofficial English translation is here).
While exceptions are permitted under the law in the case of "impossibility," an agency making that contention must report and justify that conclusion, as well as provide a defense of its proposed alternative, to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, whose decision to grant or reject the request is final. All of the foregoing must be posted at a public portal to be provided for that purpose, and if the request is granted, the determination must be periodically revisited thereafter.
The Portuguese decision is reminiscent of a decision (later overruled) taken by the CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2005, which sparked a global standards war between supporters of ODF, developed by OASIS, a global standards consortium, and the Open Office XML Format, created by Microsoft. Shortly after OASIS announced that it would submit ODF to ISO/IEC for adoption, Microsoft contributed OOXML to ECMA, another consortium. In due course, ODF was adopted by Joint Technical Committee 1 as an ISO/IEC standard.
- Forrester: open source project explosion driving a "golden era" in app dev Nov 29, 2012
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ZDNet - An explosion in the number of open source technologies and projects is driving the new paradigm of application development in the mobile, cloud and big data era.
Of course, one would have to live under a rock not to notice the huge "app" industry around smartphones and tablets.
But Android is not the only open source game in town driving the innovation. jQuery, Phonegap, Hadoop, Sencha , Apache Cordova, dojo, Ehcache, Riak, Munin and OpenStack are among the many key open source technologies driving the new wave of innovation across the consumer space and enterprise markets, according to Forrester Research.
- Munich Shows How Open Source Saves Big Money Nov 28, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Recently I've written about several moves towards mandating openness in various ways - in the UK, Spain and Portugal. That's all well and good, but what people want to know is whether moving to open solutions brings benefits - in particular, whether it saves money. Fortunately, we have a long-running experiment being carried out by the city of Munich that provides us with some hard data.
The latest calculations indicate that the city has saved over £8 million so far. The full details are contained in a report in German, but The H Open has provided a handy summary in English:
According to the calculation, Windows with Microsoft Office would so far have incurred about €11.6 million (£9.3 million) in operating-system-related costs. Microsoft Office and its upgrades would have cost €4.2 million (£3.3 million), and the Windows system about €2.6 million (£2.1 million). The LiMux project allowed a further €5 million (£4 million) for hardware upgrades in connection with the Windows 7 system upgrade. Application migration costs were estimated to be around €55,000 (£44,000). If the city council had chosen Windows but used OpenOffice, the estimated cost would have been about two thirds, or €7.4 million (£5.9 million).
That compares with just £218,000 that has been spent on the free software-based solution using the city's own LiMux distro. As well as zero costs for software upgrades, the open source approach also saved money because it was not necessary to upgrade hardware, unlike for Windows - something that is worth remembering.
Against that background, the decision of the city of Freiburg to move back to Microsoft Office, discussed recently, seems particularly perverse. Perhaps they should have asked their colleagues in Munich for a little advice first.
- Beware these open source lock-in schemes Nov 28, 2012
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Some vendors want you to think you're benefiting from open source when you're not. Keep an eye out for potential traps.
When the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was formed in 1998, one of the important objectives of those involved was to create a phrase that can be used to represent all the values of software freedom easily in everyday speech. The phrase "open source" was intended to become a strong, respected brand representing the values of software developers across the software freedom communities. The OSI website says:
Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.
- The U.K. Cabinet Office Solves the Open Standards Policy Conundrum Nov 26, 2012
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The Standards Blog - Andy Updegrove - Governments certainly have more than enough to concern themselves with these days – financial crises, natural disasters and terrorism, to name just a few. Given that’s the case, it’s surprising that so many are finding the time to worry about what kind of standards the products and services they purchase comply with. But they are.
That’s the case in the EU, where the final terms of version 2.0 of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) were the subject of heated debate, resulting in a watered down definition of what should be regarded as acceptable standards for use in enabling communications between EU member nations. It’s also the case within those EU member states that are considering adopting definitions similar to the original formulation that appeared in the original, 2004 version of the EIF.
It’s somewhat ironic that this discussion is occurring not in the context of standards generally, but with respect to information technology (IT) standards, where the standards of greatest concern are those that enable interoperability. I say ironic, because once a standard has become universally adopted in the marketplace, customers – including governments – have little choice but to adopt it as well, because interoperability standards not only enable government IT systems to interact with each other, but also with the citizenry. Moreover, one great economic benefit that can be gained from procuring products and services that comply with widely adopted standards is that it protects the purchaser from becoming locked in to the proprietary products and services of a single vendor.
- Linux brings over €10 million savings for Munich Nov 26, 2012
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The H Open - Over €10 million (approximately £8 million or $12.8 million) has been saved by the city of Munich, thanks to its development and use of the city's own Linux platform. The calculation of savings follows a question by the city council's independent Free Voters (Freie Wähler) group, which led to Munich's municipal LiMux project presenting a comparative budget calculation at the meeting of the city council's IT committee on Wednesday. The calculation compares the current overall cost of the LiMux migration with that of two technologically equivalent Windows scenarios: Windows with Microsoft Office and Windows with OpenOffice. Reportedly, savings amount to over €10 million.
- GCHQ aims to tackle open source security clearance problem Nov 26, 2012
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Computer Weekly - UK security services have begun bridging the gap that has stopped open source software getting security clearance for use in government systems.
The initiative has come too late to stop the first big contract wins delivered under the government's flagship G-Cloud procurement vehicle going to a supplier that shunned open source products because they did not have security accreditation.
Open source suppliers meanwhile insist the certification block has not disallowed their software from government systems – but it has allowed proprietary suppliers to raise doubts over open source security.
CESG, the IT security arm of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), has begun working with an unnamed small UK business which has agreed to sponsor an open source virtual private network (VPN) system through its strenuous security clearances.
The small firm is the first open source supplier to break the impasse that has stopped open source software getting CESG security clearance.
- Tomorrow's public sector CIO is a business-led, user-focussed hybrid Nov 22, 2012
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CIO - Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 quote that “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror” seems tailor-made for IT. Far too many programmes replicate how things were done in the past, rather than how they should be done now.
This partly explains why inefficient and fragmentary business processes and systems continue to operate in the public sector even though faster, better and cheaper alternatives exist. Many of the most essential systems – such as those relating to welfare and taxation – also need http:// to be built to adapt quickly and cheaply to meet changing political and socio-economic demands.
- Open source Java for Android? Don't bet on it Nov 22, 2012
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TechWorld - Industry observers aren't optimistic, despite chatter about the possibility in OpenJDK circles.
Google's Android mobile software platform, as we know, has caused quite a conflict with Oracle, given Oracle's failed lawsuit that claimed Java-like Android infringed on Java patents and copyrights. But now, might Oracle and Google, or even just one of them, decide to formally develop an open source implementation of Java especially for Android?
- Enterprise Linux consolidation and optimization on IBM System z Nov 21, 2012
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ZDNet - That Linux has come a long way in the past 15 years is undeniable. The opportunity exists to consolidate workloads onto more powerful systems, to reduce operational costs, and to improve scalability, availability and reliability...
- Portuguese government goes ODF only Nov 21, 2012
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The H Open - The Portuguese government has published a listing of open standards to be used within the country's public bodies and has decided on ODF (Open Document Format) as the sole editable document format according to a report from the Portugese Open Source Business Association
.The listing is part of the National Digital Interoperability Regulation
which activated a previous law that mandated open standards within public authorities. ODF began life as the XML-based document format for the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and later went on to become an international standard, first with OASIS and later with the ISO.The selection of ODF means that the ISO standard OOXML, pushed by Microsoft, is not eligible to be used even though it is technically an open standard. The decision does not mean that Microsoft's Office suite cannot be used: Office is also capable of working with the ODF files. Other formats and protocols that have been approved for use are PDF, XML, XMPP, IMAP, SMTP, CALDAV and LDAP.
Portugal's open standards mandate is part of the country's ICT reform program which hopes to save €500 million a year and provide an economic stimulus to Portugal's native ICT suppliers. There are allowances in the law for when an agency says it will find implementing open standards "impossible" but that requires that the Presidency of the Council of Ministers is informed and will trigger a review of the decision.
- Digital Agenda: Tech CEOs and leaders kickstart new EU cloud computing board Nov 20, 2012
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Europa - The Steering Board of the new European Cloud Partnership (ECP) met for the first time in Brussels today, kicking-off a process where public authorities and industry work together to help building the EU Digital Single Market for cloud computing pursuant to the European Cloud Computing Strategy. Specifically, the ECP aims at leveraging the public sector's buying power to shape the growing and maturing market for cloud computing services. Chaired by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia, the board brings together tech Chief Executive Officers and government representatives with responsibility for IT procurement. The board will deliver strategic advice to Vice President Kroes (see annex for full list of members).
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes said: "I need this top-level input so that all of Europe can see the full benefits of cloud computing, and quickly. President Ilves and all Board members are going to give no-nonsense, action-oriented advice to get the European Cloud Partnership moving."
Under the guidance of its Steering Board, the ECP will bring together public authorities and industry consortia to implement pre-commercial procurement actions for public sector cloud computing. The ECP will develop common cloud computing procurement requirements for use by Member States and public authorities throughout the EU.
- Portuguese Government Adopts ODF as Sole Editable Document Format Nov 20, 2012
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The Standards Blog - Andy Updegrove - According to a press release issued today by the Portuguese Open Source Business Association (reproduced in full at the end of this blog entry), the government of Portugal has decided to approve a single editable, XML-based document format for use by government, and in public procurement. And that format is not OOXML.
Instead, the Portuguese government has opted for ODF, the OpenDocument Format, as well as PDF and a number of other formats and protocols, including XML, XMPP, IMAP, SMTP, CALDAV and LDAP. The announcement is in furtherance of a law passed by the Portuguese Parliament on June 21 of last year requiring compliance with open standards (as defined in the same legislation) in the procurement of government information systems and when exchanging documents at citizen-facing government Web sites (an unofficial English translation is here).
- Control vs. influence: Which way for open source? Nov 19, 2012
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Organizations ferociously attempting to enforce controls around copyrights may end up alienating both users and developers in the process.
Apparently, all that's stopping the music industry from returning to its former glory is its failure to punish people who download music without paying for it. But if that's the case, why did music sales in Japan fall when downloaders of unlicensed content were slammed with draconian penalties?
The same reverse effect applies to open source. Why do open source projects with a vendor tightly controlling the code usually fail to grow? Why do open source projects with relaxed licenses still get plenty of code contributions, though the license does not require them?
- A Tale of Two Lock-ins Nov 19, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Yesterday I was reviewing Mozilla's current position in the browser sector and its wider achievements in the Web world. One thing I omitted to mention there was that even if it did nothing more for the rest of its existence - unlikely given its current fecundity - it would still deserve our thanks for what it managed to accomplish in the early years of its life.
This is now sufficiently long ago that some people may not be aware that once upon a time Internet Explorer 6 dominated the Web browser sector to the extent that (a) people wrote specifically for its quirks and (b) Microsoft didn't bother updating it for years. That led to a monoculture that was parasitised by a massive plague of malware taking advantage of both facts.
- Open data group puts its stamp on addressing issue Nov 19, 2012
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UKA - Postal addresses - created and owned by the public sector but not available for free reuse - are emerging as the test case of the government's commitment to open data. In its first significant action, the Open Data User Group (ODUG), set up by the Cabinet Office earlier this year to represent users of public sector data, is urging the government to strip Royal Mail of rights to the Postcode Address File (PAF).
With Royal Mail being groomed for privatisation next year, the call will attract high level political controversy.
ODUG says that addresses are so central to our lives that the generation and maintenance of a collection of individually addressed locations is essential to the efficient operation of modern society.
However it says that current arrangements for the National Address Gazetteer do not meet the criteria. Licensing is "complex and overpriced". It is particularly critical of the Royal Mail's custodianship of PAF. "The only reason ODUG can surmise that Royal Mail might wish to keep hold of the PAF would be a future intention to charge more for PAF licences. This option is not in the interests of our society."
- Android really is the new Windows Nov 15, 2012
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ZDNet - The figures don't lie: Android not only has almost three-quarters of global mobile device sales, but it's outselling PCs too. So the Linux-based OS is the new Windows, not only due to its ubiquity, but because it represents a key aspect of Windows that Microsoft is throwing away: openness.
Analyst figures can be a dry affair, but sometimes they're so stark that they make the future a bit clearer. That's the case with the mobile sales numbers that came out of Gartner yesterday.
It seems that Android really is the new Windows. By extension, that means Linux — on which Android is based — is currently whipping ten shades out of Microsoft and indeed everyone else. How times change.
- Prime Minister’s advisor wants £10bn taken out of government IT spend Nov 15, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Rohan Silva, senior policy officer to Prime Minister David Cameron, has said that the government can take £10 billion out of public sector IT spending in the years ahead, whilst also improving digital services for citizens.
Silva was speaking alongside Mike Bracken, executive director of Government Digital Service, and Liam Maxwell, deputy CIO for the government, at a special briefing at the Treasury this week to discuss the recent developments in the government’s digital strategy.
To put Silva’s bold claims into context, the government spends between £15 billion and £20 billion a year on public sector IT (depending on which estimates you follow).
- U.K. Digital Strategy Receives Praise Nov 13, 2012
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WSJ - The U.K. government’s digital strategy is “the bible” and other countries should follow its lead, says the man most closely associated with the phrase “government 2.0.”
Tim O’Reilly, speaking at an event hosted at the British Treasury, heaped praise on the government’s commitment to open standards, its embracing of digital and the requirement to put users’ need first.
“This is the new bible for anyone working in open government,” he said. “Everyone around the world should be following this. If we can apply that as our scripture for government best practices at every level around the world we would be doing a fantastic service.”
- Whitehall's open standards champions face 'real battle' to win over sceptics Nov 12, 2012
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Computing - There's going to be a battle in overcoming resistance to the government's Open Standards Principles for IT, according to an advisor to the Cabinet Office.
Launched at the start of November, the standards are designed to make government IT cheaper, better connected and more open when delivering services across Whitehall.
But according to Mark Thompson, strategy director for service innovator Methods and ICT futures adviser to the Cabinet Office, it's just the start of what could be a long, tough process.
"The real battle is overcoming all the resistance and all the attempts to smear it politically, to put it in a political box. It's just a fact of life that we are seeing this happen out there in the world," he told Computing.
"Historically, this country has always been an innovator, we're not so good at putting it into practice, and we're very good at having ideas."
- UK Government finalizes Open Standards Principles: The Bigger Picture Nov 12, 2012
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OpenSource.com - Last week, the UK Cabinet Office released its Open Standards Principles: For software interoperability, data and document formats in government IT specifications. It became effective November 1, 2012, and applies to IT specifications for software interoperability, data, and document formats for all services delivered by, or on behalf of, central government departments, their agencies, non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), and any other bodies for which they are responsible.
For the open source community and advocates of open standards, the UK’s Open Standards Principles policy is a welcome and positive development. It follows a lengthy, and often tumultuous, consultative process that began in 2011.
On behalf of Red Hat, I was pleased to work with our UK colleagues to voice support for the Cabinet Office policy consultation, including participating in one of the Roundtables, along with others in the community. Great to see Open Forum Europe, the Free Software Foundation Europe, and Simon Phipps, President of the Open Source Initiative, all welcome the policy.
- Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin on the New Lock-in Nov 12, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Last year, I interviewed the head of the Linux Foundation, Jim Zemlin, about his own career, and about his organisation. That interview took place at the first European LinuxCon, which was held in Prague. This year, it took place in Barcelona, and I took the opportunity to catch up with Zemlin on what had happened in the intervening time (disclosure: the Linux Foundation paid for my travelling and accommodation while I was there.)
It seems it has been a good year for the Foundation, with a number of major companies joining up for the first time, or upgrading their membership. Zemlin says that income as a result has gone up by "double digit percentages".
The involvement of one company in particular has caused a few raised eyebrows. Microsoft's appearance as a "gold sponsor" of the European meeting has led some to suggest that the Linux Foundation had sold out by allowing Microsoft to speak at one session. But Zemlin says that the speaking session did not come as part of the sponsorship deal:
"There ain't an event sponsorship that they can pay us that's big enough for us to compromise principles. Part of our organisation's strength is the legitimacy that we've earned over a decade servicing this community in a humble, helpful way. We're not going to give that for a two-bit events sponsorship."
- Mozilla director: We'll make content more webby Nov 12, 2012
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Computer Weekly - Holiday season is just around the corner, but this week it's festival season.
To be more accurate, it's time for the Mozilla Festival. A gathering of web-centric happy geeks that features peer learning time as well as hands on coding and tool experience sessions, plus a chance to hear from executive director of the Mozilla Foundation himself Mr Mark Surman.
The Computer Weekly Open Source Insider team attended an informal gathering held in Mozilla's London HQ last night to speak to Surman personally and listen to his commitment to the open web and digital web literacy for all.
Mozilla has research up its colourful sleeves which contends that among a sample of British children aged 8-15, a total of 67% say they are interested in learning how to code, but only a disappointing 3% actually know how to.
- Government online data ignored by 'armchair auditors' Nov 12, 2012
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BBC - Ministers were "naive" to believe an army of "brilliant people" would spring up to analyse raw spending data for them, a think tank chief says.
The coalition published vast amounts of previously secret data online in the hope that "armchair auditors" would pore over it to discover waste.
But Neil O'Brien, of Policy Exchange, said the new industry never took off as the data was largely "unusable".
The Cabinet Office is attempting to make the data more user-friendly.
- IoT Takes Off Bottom-Up Nov 12, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - To see the power of the the Internet of Things, with its capability of linking high quality sensors cheaply and interactively, you don't have to wait for the big supplier companies and traditional business to show the way forward.
Just go to meet-up groups and join the social media groups to see how the Internet of Things is catching the imagination of fast growing numbers of younger technically-oriented people who have been growing up in the sharing co-operative environment of Open Source software.
Cheap sensor devices are beginning to be increasingly deployed in international collaborative networked projects to produce low cost, accurate measurements of environmental data. This new transparency is likely to throw up data that organisations, municipalities and governments might traditionally prefer to conceal.
- Is FRAND Dying? Nov 08, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Last week's big announcement by the UK government was principally about procurement, detailing the new rules that will apply when government departments acquire software. Naturally, then, it concentrated on the details of that approach, and how it would be deployed and enforced. A key part of that was using open standards to create a level playing field for all companies, regardless of whether they offered open source or proprietary code.
As I explained in my post last week, the critical issue then became what exactly "open standards" meant, and, specifically, how standards that might be encumbered by patents would be dealt with. As I've noted many times before, the only way open source can implement general interoperability standards is if any claimed patents are licensed under royalty/restriction-free (RF) terms. Although that's the preferred mode for key Internet organisations like the W3C, it stands in contrast to the older approach, which was based on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" - FRAND.
The problem is that licensing can be perfectly fair, reasonable and non-discriminating, but nonetheless incompatible with open source code. Typically, FRAND requires a per-copy payment, but for free software, which can be shared any number of times, it's simply not possible to keep tabs on just how many copies are out there.
- Cannibal cloud: How spending on the cloud is eating into IT budgets Nov 07, 2012
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ZDNet - One of the biggest questions of the moment for the IT industry is what the shift to the cloud will mean for how IT budgets are spent.
The early indications are that when it comes to spending on IT services, while some areas will see budgets dwindle, cloud will lead to an increased expenditure on new types of IT services, research from analyst house Gartner has found.
According to Bryan Britz, research director at Gartner, the reality of how the cloud is affecting IT spending is complex, and while spending on cloud is cannibalising some revenues it is also creating new requirements for IT services.
For example, while an organisation may move some workloads to the public cloud – thereby spending less on datacentre outsourcing — this can often lead to a bigger rethink of their hosting strategies, which will often mean more IT services spending: "In a lot of cases it actually kicks off new growth," Britz told ZDNet.
- UK defence ministry deploys its first cloud app Nov 06, 2012
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ZDNet - The UK Ministry of Defence says it has deployed its first cloud-based application: an online suggestion box that has been rolled out through the government's G-Cloud framework.
The service, GEMS Online, comes from Skyscape Cloud Services, the same company that is hosting the government's centralised Gov.uk portal. According to an MoD spokeswoman, it is the first time the department has opted for a cloud-based service, due to security considerations.
"Obviously [the cloud] is not something that we're going to be ahead of the curve on," she said.
- The Cloud made of Penguins: Open source goes 'industrial scale' Nov 06, 2012
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The Register - Thanks to projects like OpenStack and the mighty operation that is Amazon’s EC2, open source and Linux are quickly becoming the building blocks of “cloud” computing.
OpenStack, which started life in 2010, releases compute, storage, networking and other components under an Apache licence, and it is being adopted by huge companies such as telecom giant NTT in Japan and IT behemoth Hewlett-Packard in its fledgling cloud.
Amazon EC2 runs tens of thousands of Linux servers, providing – among other things – storage, with 762 billion objects housed last year following growth of 200 per cent. 2012 will see the number of objects grow again.
Open-source clouds - and we’re talking platform and infrastructure-as-a-service rather than hosted email or collaboration – currently have closed-source efforts such as Microsoft’s Windows Azure encircled and outnumbered.
- U.K. Government Embraces Openness Nov 06, 2012
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WSJ - There’s a risk that being based in the U.K., that Tech Europe takes too Anglo-centric view of the world, but London is one of—and perhaps the—main tech hubs in Europe ,and the U.K. government has hit a series of right notes when it comes to tech. It has just sounded another.
After a faltering start (its ICT strategy paper was somewhat patchy), the Conservative-led coalition has taken a number of well-placed steps. From its use of fiscal incentives to reward angel and seed investing, through some key appointments (Facebook’s head of EMEA Joanna Shields to run Tech City), key organizations (the Government Digital Service under Mike Bracken) and key principles (the Open Data Institute under Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt), there is a very strong and very positive thread uniting them all.
The latest step is the publication of its report on open standards. And once again, the government has got it right. It is a refreshing, well-crafted, thorough document, that admits the mistakes of the past, points the way to the future and lays down seven principles that few could argue against.
It is not often you read a government document and repeatedly mutter to yourself “yes!”
- Government IT projects: UK adopts open technology standards Nov 06, 2012
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BBC - The UK government is drawing up a set of open technology standards all future IT projects must comply with.
The standards will dictate how data should be formatted and the ways that software should interoperate.
The push for open standards builds on earlier work to standardise the hardware on which government services are built.
The decision to mandate the open standards follows a four-month consultation exercise.
"For too long, government IT has been too expensive, over-specified and run in contract structures that encourage complexity, duplication and fragmented user services," said Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude in a speech announcing the strategy.
- Finally: UK Open Standards are RF, not FRAND Nov 02, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - In a huge win for open standards, open source and the public, the long-awaited UK government definition of open standards has come down firmly on the side of RF, not FRAND. The UK government's approach is enshrined in an important new document defining what it calls Open Standards Principles. Annex 1 provides definitions and a glossary, including the following crucial definition of what is required for a standard to be considered open:
rights essential to implementation of the standard, and for interfacing with other implementations which have adopted that same standard, are licensed on a royalty free basis that is compatible with both open source and proprietary licensed solutions. These rights should be irrevocable unless there is a breach of licence conditions.
The Principles are not just about central government, which means their impact is likely to be extremely wide:
whilst this policy focusses on central government, we shall work to promote the open standards principles for software interoperability, data and document formats with all public bodies in the UK. Local government, the wider public sector and the Devolved Administrations are encouraged to adopt the principles to deliver wider benefits.
The seven Open Standards Principles are as follows:
- UK governments must comply with open standards Nov 02, 2012
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ITWorld - The new policy is a major step forward for competition and innovation in the UK software market, the FSFE said.
All governmental bodies in the U.K. must now comply with open standards to prevent vendor lock-in and stimulate interoperability of government IT, the Minister for Cabinet Office announced on Thursday.
Compliance with the Open Standards Principles will make U.K. government IT more open, less expensive and better connected, the Cabinet Office said.
"The publication of the Open Standards Principles is a fundamental step towards achieving a level playing field for open source and proprietary software and breaking our IT into smaller, more manageable components," wrote Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General in his foreword to the Open Standards Principles document.
The new policy does not cover open-source software, which is part of a different policy document.
"This is a major step forward," said the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) of the Open Standards Principles.
The new rules cover open standards for software interoperability, data and document formats, and should enable software to interoperate through open protocols.
- The government's open standards policy is bold, important and very carefully written Nov 02, 2012
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Computer Weekly - The government has finally released its policy for open standards in IT - after an often controversial consultation process - and it will surprise and delight many observers who expected a meek compromise to the lobbying power of the software industry.
The new "Open Standards Principles" are bold, important, and clearly written with a smart lawyer and a clever linguist looking over the shoulder of the author. They are mandatory immediately for all central government IT purchases. And they will worry the big incumbent suppliers who have been used to a long-term lock-in to their products.
Here are a few of the boldest highlights from the policy document:
- MPs slam Europe's plan for rejig of data protection law Nov 02, 2012
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The Register - A proposal to overhaul data protection law in Europe came under attack today from a panel of British MPs. The politicians have urged Brussels' justice commissioner Viviane Reding to rewrite her plan.
A scathing report published this morning by the House of Commons Justice Select Committee warned that Reding's proposed directive, in its current form, was too rigid and that it failed to address "national context" relating to how such legislation might fly in different parts of the European Union.
The MPs complained:
- Cabinet Office puts all new ICT frameworks on hold Nov 01, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - An internal review is being carried out to assess frameworks are the best method for procurement.
All upcoming Government Procurement Service (GPS) ICT procurements have been put on hold pending the outcome of a newly launched internal review to assess the effectiveness of the current framework approach.
Framework agreements allow departments to sign a number of suppliers, providing a variety of services, to one contract. The aim is that this gives buyers more choice at a lower cost.
However, Bill Crothers, government chief procurement officer, has now asked David Shields, managing director of GPS, to lead the review to assess whether or not this is the best approach.
- Open Source Outlook in UK Government still Cloudy? Nov 01, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - I've been noting "hopeful" moves towards the wider use of open source by the UK government for so long that I daren't do it again. But the following is certainly worth mentioning:
Sirius, the UK's Flagship Open Source company, has confirmed that it has been awarded a place on the G-Cloud Framework and will be making the full range of Open Source products available through the CloudStore.
The UK Government has been working to make the purchasing of public sector ICT as simple and transparent as possible. All services listed on the CloudStore are part of the G-Cloud framework and so immediately available for the public sector to procure and use. For buyers this means:
No need to go through the time and expense of issuing OJEUs
Assurance that every product and service in the catalogue as been accredited to Government standards
Suppliers approved by Government as agile, efficient and offering value for money
Find low cost and high quality solutions simply
That's clearly good news, not least for Sirius - and deservedly so, given the amount of work the company has done trying to get the UK government to use open source more widely. But given my disappointments in the past, I'll reserve judgement until it's clear whether this latest announcement actually changes anything, and whether people in UK government will now give open source a fair chance, at least in the world of cloud computing.
- Open source gets look in as UK government rolls out G-Cloud Oct 31, 2012
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The H Open - Open source companies have managed to get on board the UK Government's G-Cloud supplier framework, which enables public sector bodies to access and buy services from a range of listed suppliers. The idea of the G-Cloud is to make it less complex for public sector organisations to purchase by allowing companies to sign up and be validated with the CloudStore.
With pre-validated suppliers, public sector ICT buyers can skip issuing OJEU tenders and have assurances that the companies they use have been accredited. The supplier list has doubled since the first G-Cloud framework and is now made up of 75 per cent small or medium-sized enterprises.
This expansion of the program now allows open source-focused companies such as Sirius to offer open source based services and support for identity management, big data and databases, enterprise search and enterprise infrastructure. Sirius Chief Executive Mark Taylor has in the past been critical of government open source policies which would see it promote the adoption of open source but leave in place a procurement system built to serve large consultancy companies. "This really is a first!" he said, "The myth 'you can't get support for Open Source' is dead and now it's time to lay to rest the ogre of procurement."
- UK's Intellectual Property Obliteration office attacked by Parliament Oct 31, 2012
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The Register - With the British economy now increasingly dependent on "intangibles" - brands, designs, patents and copyright - a cross-party group of MPs and peers has called for stronger support for the industries which produce such things at Whitehall. It has also called for bureaucrats to stop kicking these industries in the nuts whenever they can.
In a new report, the All Party Parliamentary IP Group chaired by John Whittingdale MP wants stronger ministerial oversight of Whitehall bureaucrats and the transfer of the UK Intellectual Property Office, known before 2007 as the UK Patent Office, to the Ministry of Fun (aka the Department for Culture Media and Sport).
Following an inquiry earlier this spring, the MPs call for IP to be explicitly recognised as a property right, bringing it into line with the rest of the world. The Group says emphasis on creating new IP (and economic growth) has been neglected in favour of a focus on how existing stocks of IP are accessed. The report also calls for a champion for IP in government, and for all departments to recognise the impact of their policies on IP sectors - much as they're obliged to do now for "sustainability" when it comes to environmental regulation.
- Government and open source's open relationship Oct 31, 2012
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ITWorld - While the U.S. government has historically leaned towards the use open source software, lately there have been a few signs to remind us the government can still very much be a proprietary software consumer. Is the love affair with open source cooling in the halls of government?
Last week, the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency announced it would be shifting all of its old BlackBerry phones to Apple iPhones, which led to some consternation about why they didn't go with a less-expensive, more open option like Android.
The day before that, at the Red Hat Government Symposium in Washington, DC, Neil Ziring, the Technical Director for the National Security Agency's Information Assurance Directorate made the argument in his talk to the gatherers that open source projects need to start focusing on the origins of their code and documenting it to the satisfaction of those government and industry customers who need to be assured that that code doesn't contain any nasty surprises.
Coming from the NSA, which has invested quite a bit of time and effort in contributing to SELinux, that was a pretty surprising statement. I'll come back this this in a bit.
- Does OpenOffice have a future? Oct 30, 2012
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ZDNet - The Apache Software Foundation has made OpenOffice a top-level project but will that be enough to make OpenOffice matter? Should OpenOffice remain an independent open-source project?
A few days ago the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced that Apache OpenOffice had graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a Top-Level Project (TLP). That's nice but will be it enough to make OpenOffice matter given that its LibreOffice fork has stolen much of its thunder?
Sure, it's nice as Andrea Pescetti, VP of Apache OpenOffice, said "The OpenOffice graduation is the official recognition that the project is now able to self-manage not only in technical matters, but also in community issues. The 'Apache Way' and its methods, such as taking every decision in public with total transparency, have allowed the project to attract and successfully engage new volunteers, and to elect an active and diverse Project Management Committee that will be able to guarantee a stable future to Apache OpenOffice." Really? Why?
- UK open standards and the proprietary ecosystem Oct 29, 2012
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Computer Weekly - The coalition government was elected on the promise that it would resolve the notorious problems that had turned public sector IT into a disaster story.
It expressed some firm ideas. Then it had second thoughts. Now two and a half years on, its flagship policy has stalled.
What happens next will depend on the results of a public consultation, due imminently. The government's dilemma is how to implement the policy.
The question for the consultation is what the policy really means.
- Linux Foundation: Windows 8 is stuck in a "liminal space" Oct 29, 2012
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Computer Weekly - What does the open source world think of Windows 8?
Now there's a loaded question surely?
If Microsoft has reinvented and reengineered itself to be able to position its OS to serve not just the desktop WIMP space, but also now the touch-enabled search-centric mobile-first always-on cloud-driven market -- then this is a reinvention that was never going to happen without the firm facing a little criticism.
But let's remember, the last time Microsoft launched an operating system there was no iPad (it was still six months away) and Linux was still (apart from a brief honeymoon period with netbooks) still comparatively "in the server room" by most people's estimation.
But since that time, Linux on mobile has grown massively and Android now accounts for 64% of the smartphone market in 2011 (says Gartner).
Also in 2011, we finally saw smartphones outsell PC for the first time and millions of those smart phones run Android.
As Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin suggests, the consumer market is "fully accustomed" to Linux-based software.
- EC: Microsoft didn't honour browser-choice commitment Oct 25, 2012
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The Register - Microsoft has failed to comply with its commitments to offer people the chance to ditch Internet Explorer, the European Commission has said in a preliminary Statement of Objections that it has fired off to Microsoft HQ.
From 2009, Microsoft has been legally obliged to show EU Windows users a "choice screen" so they can decide which browser they wish to install. Automatically tying Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system was a breach of antitrust legislation, the Eurocrats declared.
But the "choice screen" did not materialise in Windows 7 when it launched in February 2011 and from Feb 2011 until July 2012 millions of users were never shown the "choice screen".
If the commission decides that the commitment was breached, Microsoft may be fined up to 10 per cent of its total annual turnover.
- Is Amazon Playing Fair? Oct 24, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - In the online world, it's hard to remember a time before Amazon. Today, it dominates the ecommerce space, and is rapidly becoming equally dominant in the ebook world. Against that background, a story that broke yesterday is rather worrying.
Simon Phipps has perhaps the most complete background to the events, but the basic facts are as follows. A Norwegian lady was unable to access her Kindle device, which had developed a fault. While she was trying to get this fixed, she unexpectedly received the following email from the Executive Customer Relation department at Amazon:
We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled.
It gets worse. When she tried to find out what the problem was, the same customer services department sent her the following:
- Rights? You have no right to your eBooks. Oct 24, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Simon Phipps - Amazon unwittingly mounts a perfect demonstration why you should not trust Kindle as a place to purchase books.
News spread quickly on the web today of the predicament faced by a woman in Norway, Linn, who has lost all access to the eBooks she legitimately purchased from Amazon. The story first emerged on a friend's blog, where a sequence of e-mails from Michael Murphy, a customer support representative at Amazon.co.uk were posted. These painted a picture some interpreted as Amazon remotely erasing a customer's Kindle, but in conversation with Linn I discovered that was not what had happened - something just as bad did, though.
- Cloud Apache OpenOffice plans to be discussed next month Oct 24, 2012
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ZDNet - The transition of Apache OpenOffice to a Top-Level project from the incubator hopefully clears the way for speedier innovation for the cloud.
It's not clear what the Apache folks are going to do for the cloud, particularly as six versions of the much anticipated online Microsoft Office 365 service is set for debut soon. But it is clear that a hosted online version of Apache OpenOffice is being planned.
At ApacheCon Europe from Nov 5-8, one IBM China and Lotus Symphony exec will discuss a vision of OpenOffice for the Cloud -- "Cloud Apache OpenOffice based on HTML5."
Here's an excerpt from the planned talk:
- 5 ways big data can build better governments Oct 24, 2012
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Innovation Trail - How big a deal is big data?
It's pretty big. The question is how we should be handling all the massive amounts of information we’re collecting. The ubiquity of computers and the exponential growth in their processing power has made this a hot topic in just about every field of human endeavor, including government.
Big data touches everything from campaign contributions, to budgets, employment, environmental regulations, and corporate responsibility.
Experts from around the globe are talking about it this week in Albany, at the 6th annual International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV).
The conference brings together thinkers from more than 50 countries, and this is the first time it's being held in the United States.
On Tuesday a panel discussion on open government delved into how countries can make the most out of releasing data to the public. Here are some of their ideas:
- Numbers don't lie: Patent trolls are a plague Oct 23, 2012
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - Recent research supports view that patent troll activity is rising -- costing America a fortune in wasted legal fees and lost jobs.
Jeff Bezos is not the most obvious advocate for change to the patent system. The founder and driving force behind Amazon, he has in the past encouraged his staff to file for controversial Web patents on obvious ideas like "one click to buy." Under his guidance, Amazon has wielded those patents as part of lawsuits against competitors; the one-click patent was used against Barnes & Noble, for example. At one point, the Free Software Foundation was even coordinating a boycott of Amazon as a result.
Bezos is no bleeding-heart patent liberal. Yet in London this week, he told local newspaper Metro:
Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and we're starting to be in a world where they might start to stifle innovation. Governments may need to look at the patent system and see if those laws need to be modified because I don't think some of these battles are healthy for society.
- Oracle's Hurd: World is 'drowning in data,' warns of overload Oct 23, 2012
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ZDNet - Oracle president Mark Hurd has warned that the growing number of smartphones, tablets and other devices are adding to the ever-growing pool of data, and businesses are struggling to cope with it.
- On Open Source, Standards, Clouds, Strategy and Open Stack Oct 22, 2012
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Bits & Pieces - Simon Wardley - The issue of standards and in particular open standards is a hotly debated topic. The recent UK Government consultation on open standards was embroiled in much of the politics on the subject with even a media expose of the chair of a consultation meeting as a member of a paid lobbyist group. The rumours and accusations of ballot stuffing of ISO meetings with regards to Microsoft’s OOXML adoption as an open standard are also fairly widespread. The subject matter is also littered with confusing terms from FRAND (fair, reasonable and non discriminatory licensing) being promoted as an “open” standard despite it being IP encumbered by definition.
In general, the principle of standards is about interoperability. In practice, it’s appears more of a battleground for control of a developing market. Standards themselves can also create new barriers to entry into a market due to any onerous cost of implementation. There are also 17 different definitions of what an “open standard” is varying from international bodies to governments. Of these the OSI definition is probably the most respected. Here, open standards are defined as those which have no intentional secrets, not restricted by patents or other technology, no dependency on execution of a license agreement, freely and publicly available and royalty free.
- Mozilla debuts Firefox Marketplace for Android apps Oct 22, 2012
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The Register - Android users who enjoy living on the edge might like to try out the alpha version of Firefox Marketplace, the Mozilla Foundation's new online bazaar for mobile apps based on web technologies.
"Just last year, we started working to turn the Web into a viable apps development platform," the Mozillians wrote in a blog post announcing the Marketplace on Thursday. "We created the Firefox Marketplace to allow developers to build, distribute and monetize rich, immersive apps that use Web technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS."
It's premature to call Firefox Marketplace a "store" just yet, since Mozilla has yet to add features like ratings, reviews, and payment processing – in short, just about everything you'd expect from a proper app store.
- GOV.UK "Open" for Business; More to Follow Oct 19, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Back in February I wrote about an exciting project from the Cabinet Office: a complete overhaul of the UK government's "citizen-facing" Web sites. It was exciting in part because it was rather good, which made a nice change for a government computing project, but more particularly because it was open source through and through.
At the time, I gave a list of the main software it was using. Here's what the site is currently running/built with - there are quite a few additions:
- Hold my feet to the fire using open gov data, pleads minister Oct 19, 2012
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The Register - Head of the Cabinet Office Francis Maude has told journalists that he wants them to pore over government data and hold the feet of ministers "against the fire".
Opening a conference to mark the Open Government Partnership today, he gave a rallying cry to the media everywhere to use data to hold governments to account.
Whitehall will no longer "disguise and deny" he said, but would be pumping out "unprecedented amounts" of data, and Maude wants a lot of people to look at that data closely.
I don’t have any doubt that giving our press a lot of data to pore over will at times be uncomfortable for us in government. But that’s the whole point. A closed door culture encourages complacency at best and at worst corruption.
That’s why I’m issuing a call to arms to the media the world over to hold the feet of government officials and ministers like me squarely against the fire.
His speech is excerpted on the Cabinet Office site and expanded on in a Telegraph article by the minister.
- Government data PDF enthusiasts will be 'dealt with', says Maude Oct 19, 2012
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The Guardian - Most government departments breaching Coalition's own transparency rules.
Nearly every major department could be in breach of the government's own open data license, after Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude committed to force them to publish their spending data in transparent formats today.
The Minister, in charge of the government's transparency drive, said that departments who continue to publish the data in their annual reports in PDF format would be 'dealt with'.
"Data in annual reports in PDF, that is in breach of our own open government license - and we will deal with that," he said
- United Kingdom's central e-services site an open source showcase Oct 19, 2012
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Joinup - The United Kingdom's government unveiled its new central services and information website, GOV.UK, this week Tuesday. The site is completely built on open source, saving the government some 70 million GBP (about 86 million euro) compared to the previous site, according to Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office. He expects the site to achieve further savings "as more departments and agencies move to on the platform".
Commenting on the new site, the minister writes: "GOV.UK has been built using open source technology, which means we don’t have to pay expensive software licensing costs."
Minister Maude says the release of GOV.UK "is a key element in the Digital by Default agenda. Digital by Default aims to transform public services online – making them better and cheaper for taxpayers and more effective and efficient for government."
"Today marks the start of a new way of delivering public services digitally. GOV.UK is a platform for future digital innovation. In stark contrast to the way IT has been delivered in government in the past, GOV.UK can rapidly accommodate new standards for development and security, catering to emerging technologies and user requirements quickly and effectively."
- The 5 key forces driving open source today Oct 19, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Simon Phipps -From the rise of foundations to emerging revenue models, the open source movement is primed for even greater impact on tomorrow's technologies.
Nearly 15 years since the term "open source" was first applied, the trends driving the open source movement are not the same. Back then, price advantage, direct differentiation on licensing versus proprietary software, adoption-led marketing by innovative entrepreneurs, and market reaction against an ever more abusive monopolist were key factors shaping the direction of open source.
Today's open source movement is more mature, and the trends underlining it are more nuanced and widely engaged. The revolution has had a meaningful impact, and to treat open source as if it is still about saving a few bucks on a software license or socking it to Microsoft is to misunderstand how far the open source movement has come.
The following five trends are key drivers of today's open source communities and projects. From governance to emerging revenue models, they paint a picture of an industry evolving to see the value of the freedoms at the heart of the open source movement.
- Gov.uk: why this new government website really matters Oct 18, 2012
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The Guardian - On Wednesday 17 October, the new digital service Gov.uk moves out of public beta and replaces the two main government digital brands, Directgov and Business Link. It is the first major full platform release from the Government Digital Service.
This release heralds a new approach to digital delivery of public services in the UK. It is the start of a new approach to all things digital in central government, so here are just a few reasons why it matters.
- Australia ponders patent refresh to restrain trolls Oct 18, 2012
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The Register - Simple 'innovation patents' likely to get tougher regs to stop holders blocking rivals.
Australia’s patent system will be overhauled to make life harder for cynical abusers of the patent process.
The review will focus on 'innovation patents', a type of patent introduced in 2001 to encourage IP protection for SMEs and function to protect “simple inventions and improvements to existing technologies”. Such patents last just eight years, compared to the 20 years for conventional patents in Australia. Winning an innovation patents requires only the demonstration of an “innovative step” rather than the standard patent’s “inventive step”.
The Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) has issued a call for public comment on changes to the innovation patent system in light of changes to the market and an unusually high growth of patents applications for certain technologies within IT, electronics and pharmaceutical sectors.
ACIP is also currently holding a comprehensive review on the innovation patent system in Australia.
- European net neutrality discussions close Oct 17, 2012
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The Inquirer - EUROPEAN DISCUSSIONS on the openness of the internet closed yesterday with pressure groups asking that net neutrality be enshrined in law.
The consultation was opened in July and asked groups and individuals to respond. When it launched, the European Commission asked respondents to consider issues like transparency and traffic management.
"Today there is a lack of effective consumer choice when it comes to internet offers. I will use this consultation to help prepare recommendations that will generate more real choices and end the net neutrality waiting game in Europe," said European Commission VP Neelie Kroes.
- Last Chance: Consultation on Net Neutrality in EU Oct 17, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - Back in July, I wrote about a consultation on net neutrality from the EU,entitled On-line public consultation on "specific aspects of transparency, traffic management and switching in an Open Internet". Just to remind you, here's the background:
This public consultation seeks responses to specific questions on transparency, switching and certain aspects of traffic management which emerged as key issues in the net neutrality debate that has taken place in Europe over the past years.
In order to allow consumers to have access to Internet service offers that truly meet their needs and to enable them to effectively exercise their choices, the Commission is envisaging policy measures addressing the issues of transparency, switching and certain aspects of traffic management, including deep packet inspection (DPI). DPI technologies examine different layers (header and content) of data packets to decide whether a packet may pass or needs to be routed to a different destination.DPI can be used to protect the network and users against malware (viruses etc.) but also to block or slow down other data packets. Union-wide guidance on these issues would avoid diverging approaches in the Member States and a fragmentation of the Digital Single Market.
The bad news is that this consultation closes on Monday (well, I did mention it three months ago, so you can't really complain....). The good news is that it can be done online in five minutes: here for organisations, and here for individuals. As you can see from the questions [.pdf], this is essentially asking us what we think about the loss of net neutrality. This means all we need to do is to tell them that we don't like it, don't want it and expect the European Commission to stop it.
- EU data bosses order Google to sort out privacy Oct 17, 2012
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The Register - EU data regulators have told Google that it has to make changes to its new privacy policy due to "incomplete information and uncontrolled combination of data across services".
The regulators, led by France's Commission Nationale de l'Informatique (CNIL), have spent several months investigating the policy, which basically allows Google to mash up all its previous 60 policies into one document and grab data on folks from across their services.
The data authorities said today in a CNIL announcement that Google needed to make the new terms of their over-arching policy clearer for users and give those users an opt-out option for each product so they can stop information being taken from one to the other.
A letter has been sent to the search giant outlining the changes that are wanted, signed by 27 out of the 29 countries' regulators involved. But although the EU is asking for alterations to the policy, it has not yet fined or threatened to fine the firm or accused it of breaking the law.
Google's Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel, said that it was reviewing the findings.
- It's official: Open source is an engine for growth Oct 17, 2012
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - When I wrote about open source as a stealth stimulus package this summer, some readers expressed skepticism. But two reports from Europe today support the growing hypothesis that open source provides an excellent monetary bundle for economies that embrace it. More than that, it can be a springboard for businesses that engage it on the basis of delivering flexibility rather than restricting their vision to cost savings.
The Open World Forum has been held annually in Paris for the last five years, in part because of the regional government's decision to invest in open source. The man responsible for that allocation is the deputy mayor of Paris, Jean-Louis Missika; it was especially appropriate for him to break the news of how open source has benefited the city. Using data from a PwC survey of 27 international cities known for their business power, Missika reported that Paris is second only to Beijing in economic strength, third in intellectual capital (behind Stockholm and Toronto), and of course first in quality of life.
- Checking Back in on OpenStand Oct 16, 2012
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The Standards Blog - Andy Updegrove - In case you haven’t thought about it lately, it’s a fair bet that everything in your life today depends to some greater or lesser extent (usually the former) on the Internet and the Web. And in case you’ve never thought about it at all, what makes those vital services possible has less to do with servers and fiber optics than it does with protocols and other standards. Take that reality a step further, and it becomes obvious that that the processes by which these essential enablers of our interconnected world are created is pretty important.
Further to that thought, a few weeks ago I was intrigued to read that five of the standard setting organizations (SSO) most responsible for the Internet and the Web had united to launch a new initiative called OpenStand. Intrigued, because while the press release answered the “who, what, when and where” aspects of the story, the “why” was a bit less fully fleshed out. I did some investigating on that front, and wrote about what I learned here.
Since then, I’ve had conversations and exchanged email with a variety of people who were involved in creating OpenStand, and I’ve also paid close attention to a number of other announcements, such as the launch last week of WebOpen.org hosted by the W3C, and supported by its own intriguing list of “Stewards:” Adobe, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Nokia, Mozilla and Opera Software, thus bringing together the developers of all four of the most popular Web browsers, plus some interesting partners.
OpenWeb.org describes itself on its home page as follows:
- Yes, Network Effects Are a Problem for Open Formats Oct 15, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - As we know, lock-in is one of the biggest obstacles to moving from closed, proprietary formats, to open ones. But so far as I know, no one has tried to quantify the extent to which people cling to old formats. That makes the following piece of research useful, at least as a first stab at finding out what is really going on:
we analysed a corpus of over 2.5 billion resources corresponding to the UK Web domain, as crawled between 1996 and 2010. Using the DROID and Apache Tika identification tools, we examined each resource and captured the results as extended MIME types, embedding version, software and hardware identifiers alongside the format information. The combined results form a detailed temporal format profile of the corpus, which we have made available as open data. We present the results of our initial analysis of this dataset. We look at image, HTML and PDF resources in some detail, showing how the usage of different formats, versions and software implementations has changed over time.
The key question was as follows:
- Steelie Neelie: Settle your Do-No-Track squabbles or else Oct 12, 2012
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The Register - Regulators may impose a Do-Not-Track standard on squabbling tech vendors and web businesses after they missed a deadline to develop their own proposal.
EU member states are looking at how to enforce DNT under ePrivacy rules, the vice president responsible for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said Wednesday.
Kroes also hinted at action in the US, too, pointing to the Federal Trade Commission's growing frustration with the ongoing lack of agreement and watering down of proposals.
Kroes said techies and businessmen have one last opportunity to agree something that suits users, business and the internet.
“Let me be frank: standardisation work is not going according to plan. In fact, I am increasingly concerned,” she said.
- Open source's secret ally: Moore's Law Oct 11, 2012
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The H Open - Glyn Moody - Linux went from being a cool personal hack in a bedroom to software that would eventually change world just over 21 years ago when Linus sent out his famous "Hello everybody out there using minix" message that invited people to join in. As I noted last month, that open, collaborative approach was really quite new and proved key to the uptake and development of Linux.
That was possible because the internet was sufficiently widely available for enough people to join Linus' distributed team of volunteers. In other words, the rise of free software is intimately bound up with the internet. Indeed, the rapid take-off of Linux compared with the rather slower progress of the GNU Project is probably due, at least in part, to the fact that the latter could not take global connectivity for granted. It was thanks to this that Richard Stallman was able to live off the sales of GNU Emacs, which he sent out on tapes.
The symbiotic nature of free software and the internet – with the former using and being used by the latter – is now widely recognised. But another key factor in the rise of open source has been overlooked, and yet Linus himself mentions it in that first, famous post:
- New British tax-cuts-for-patents scheme criticised Oct 10, 2012
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The Register - A new tax cut tied to the number of patents a business owns could lead to a wave of trivial patents being filed, favour big businesses over small businesses, and distort research priorities, speakers at the London Patent Summit warned today.
Businesses have broadly welcomed the Patent Box tax scheme that will see them getting a billion pound windfall in tax cuts over the next few years. Corporate tax is currently at 28 per cent, it will reduce to 23 per cent by 2013 and as an extra sweetener, revenue that is "attributable to patents" - will only be taxed at 10 per cent, starting in April 2013.
A consultant from Deloitte was warmly in favour: "There are no bad sides to this!" said Carmen Aquerreta, sketching out how the scheme will affect business at the Summit today.
"The tax guy will just have to get as much as possible into the 10 per cent bracket."
- Gartner has its head in the clouds - and its numbers are WRONG Oct 09, 2012
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The Register - Mat Asay Gartner analyst Frank Ridder recently opined that "the number of cloud offering[s] is not at all at a satisfactory level today."
He made this assertion after canvassing a number of IT users at two Gartner summits. Unfortunately, he may have missed the message these users were sending him. It's not that we need more cloud offerings. Arguably, we already have more than any buyer can reasonably evaluate. Instead of more cloud vendors, we need better cloud vendors.
Not that every cloud vendor is selling shoddy solutions. In fact, I'd argue that very few are given the state of cloud computing today. In other words, given the somewhat nebulous market today, it's not surprising that many cloud offerings are similarly nebulous in their feature sets and quality. If we don't know exactly what we want the technology to do, how do we reasonably evaluate whether it's doing a good job or not?
Indeed, in a recent survey of Zenoss users, the company found that 38.4 per cent of respondents are held back from using an open-source cloud because of a lack of maturity in existing offerings.
- EU Clears Way to Use Consortium Standards Oct 09, 2012
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The Standards Blog - Andy Updegrove - While the decade long debate in the European Union over the definition of “open standards” has been well-publicized, it may come as a surprise to some that EU member nations are required to utilize a second standards filter in public procurement as well.
That filter relates to whether a standard has been developed by a “formal” standard setting organization (SSO). In other words, by either an EU SSO, such as CEN/CENELEC or ETSI, or by one of the global “Big Is” (ISO, IEC or ITU). If it doesn’t, then it’s supposed to be off limits - until now.
That filter has roots in a sixty year standards-based quest to benefit European trade, both within the EU and internationally. Historically, this goal was met by seeking to develop EU-wide standards that member states would be required to adopt, thereby replacing the national standards they had long used to keep the goods of neighboring nations out of their own markets. At the same time, these standards would be designed to facilitate EU goods internationally.
Of course, in an era of multinational companies and increasingly global trade, the concept of “European standards” makes even less sense in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector then it does generally. And with the rise of consortia, even standards developed by the Big Is (where every EU nation has its own vote, comprising quite a large voting block) are diminishing in importance, since the majority of the standards in ICT are now created within consortia and not by the old-line, mainstream SSOs.
- The Big Data revolution: Big Bang or loud noise? Oct 09, 2012
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The Register - Anyone currently employed in any area of the IT business will be aware, however reluctantly, of the considerable amount of effort being put into marketing ‘Big Data’. Well brace yourselves, there's more of this to come.
During August and September of 2012 Freeform Dynamics surveyed 502 IT professional readers ofThe Register to gauge how far organisations have advanced in their adoption of Big Data solutions and the current state of play concerning business analytics. This article looks at where organisations report they currently hold business data, how well they exploit the value locked in their data stores and their thoughts on how things may develop in the near future.
Today the words ‘Big Data’ are currently used and abused in a myriad of ways. From these it is possible to distill the term as shorthand for a number of advanced data storage, access and analytics technologies aimed at handling high volume and/or fast moving data in a variety of scenarios. These typically involve low signal-to-noise ratios, including but not limited to brand monitoring, log file analysis, high volume transaction monitoring for fraud detection.
- The Patent, Used as a Sword Oct 08, 2012
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NYT - When Apple announced last year that all iPhones would come with a voice-activated assistant named Siri, capable of answering spoken questions, Michael Phillips’s heart sank.
For three decades, Mr. Phillips had focused on writing software to allow computers to understand human speech. In 2006, he had co-founded a voice recognition company, and eventually executives at Apple, Google and elsewhere proposed partnerships. Mr. Phillips’s technology was even integrated into Siri itself before the digital assistant was absorbed into the iPhone.
But in 2008, Mr. Phillips’s company, Vlingo, had been contacted by a much larger voice recognition firm called Nuance. “I have patents that can prevent you from practicing in this market,” Nuance’s chief executive, Paul Ricci, told Mr. Phillips, according to executives involved in that conversation.
Mr. Ricci issued an ultimatum: Mr. Phillips could sell his firm to Mr. Ricci or be sued for patent infringements. When Mr. Phillips refused to sell, Mr. Ricci’s company filed the first of six lawsuits.
- Open source equals software freedom, not free software Oct 08, 2012
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - How can big companies like Tibco misunderstand open source so badly nearly 15 years after the term was coined?
Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, is one of the industry's big thinkers, complete with a profile in Esquire. So why would a smart guy like him dismiss open source as "fool's gold"? And why do some software vendors believe they can justify "FRAND terms" on software standards and permit patented capabilities to be inserted into software standards?
These anachronisms and more arise from the "price frame" surrounding open source software. A result of misunderstanding the meaning of the word "free" in "free software," the price frame has been the Rosetta Stone for decoding open source for the past decade. But that's ending, now that we're able to see the true power of open source in ecosystems like OpenStack, where the price of a license is barely relevant.
- Robert Bork on antitrust: Google is no Microsoft Oct 08, 2012
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CNet - The onetime Supreme Court nominee, who once attacked Microsoft over antitrust, says competitors are "seeking to use antitrust law" to punish Google. Meanwhile, the FTC is beginning to wrap up its probe.
Robert Bork, the fiery former federal judge whose U.S. Supreme Court nomination battle galvanized a generation of conservative activists, spent the late 1990s arguing that Microsoft should be carved up into multiple pieces because of antitrust violations.
Bork, an antitrust scholar and author of a landmark book on the topic, is now saying that Google is no Microsoft.
In a new analysis released at an event in Washington, D.C., today, Bork offers a point-by-point refutation of claims that Google has violated the law or acted in an anticompetitive fashion. Rather, Bork says, it's a case of competitors' sour grapes.
- Reform of the European standardisation system Oct 08, 2012
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Council of the Europeam Union - The Council today1 adopted a regulation aimed at modernising and improving the European standardisation system (PE-COS 32/12 and 13876/12 ADD1).
Harmonised standards are a well-established tool for promoting the technical conformity of products. They are drawn up by the European standardisation bodies (ESOs)2 and open to voluntary, though widespread, use by manufacturers throughout Europe in order to fulfill essential requirements of products laid down in EU legislation. The European Commission regularly gives mandates to the ESOs for developing new standards.
The regulation adapts the current legal framework to simplify it and to cover new aspects in order to reflect the latest developments and future challenges in standardisation. It includes, in particular, means for the development of voluntary standards for services and not only for products as it is the case nowadays.
- Declaration on Parliamentary Openness Oct 05, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - Glyn Moody - An increasing number of Open Enterprise posts are about moves to open up government in myriad ways. That's not really surprising, since open source clearly is a perfect match for public administrations, as are open standards, and open data is a natural outgrowth of software openness.
Obviously, this shift is taking place around the world, as governments everywhere open up to varying degrees. So it's only natural that some kind of distillation of this process should occur; and here it is, the newDeclaration on Parliamentary Openness, hosted on theOpeningParliament.org site:
- Google rewrites dot-doc death note Oct 05, 2012
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The Register - Google’s plan to give old Microsoft Office file formats a quiet bullet behind the woodpile seems to have fallen by the wayside, with Mountain View quietly revising its feature announcement.
- Impact Imminent: Open Source and Standards Oct 03, 2012
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Adobe - Dave McAllister - Many years ago I wrote a posting on the similarities between standards development and open source. It seems like now would be a good time to revisit that topic, given all the activities that are blurring the barriers.
The premise still remains. Standards are designed to stabilize a technology or interface, package or connection. Open source is driven by continual development. Standards tend to update and publish on a schedule measured in years, while open source updates and publishes in sometimes days. Standards drive the status quo. Open source (often) drives innovation.
However, the engagement between open source and standards are creeping ever closer together. We now see significant standards developments defined by and driven by corresponding open source work. Think HTML5, CSS, even (now emerging) ECMAscript (Javascript by any other name). We have seen significant trends to allowing the acceptable advances in open source software to define the standard.next. In short, the cycle of innovation adoption within standards is becoming significantly shorter as a reflection of the popularity of ideas expressed within open source products.
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Open source is the operative paradigm for development these days, whether it is within a company firewall or not. Open source underlies even the most innovative of closed software products. Estimates from analysts state that 90% of software is a hybrid of open source and closed source code. Open source practices help define innovative techniques, or to paraphrase “Linus’ Law” from Eric Raymond, “Given enough eyeballs, all ideas are approachable.”
- Government IT chief hits out at EU cloud strategy Oct 02, 2012
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ITPRO - Speaking at the Strata conference in London earlier today, Liam Maxwell, the Government's deputy CIO, took issue with EU plans to certify cloud providers.
The Government’s deputy CIO Liam Maxwell has hit out at EU plans to certify “trustworthy” cloud providers, claiming it will limit the range of IT suppliers the public sector can do business with.
The initiative was one of a number the European Commission put forward last week in its “Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe” strategy document.
Speaking at the Strata: Making Data Work conference in London earlier today, Maxwell described the cloud provider plans as a “tremendously retrograde step,” in light of the work the UK Government has been doing to widen the range of IT suppliers it uses.
“It will enable the oligopoly that has driven IT for many years to police the cloud...and Governments will sleepwalk into buying into them. Not just here, but across Europe,” said Maxwell during the event’s opening keynote.
To prevent this, Maxwell called on the EU to ensure the certifications are based on “sensible, open standard and open source” approaches.
- Data 'tsar' needed to deliver billions in government savings Oct 02, 2012
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Wired UK - It's been said that the UK is an information economy, powered by the internet industry, ecommerce and professional services and you just have to walk along the high street or consider ads for "all you can eat data" to get a sense of how our society has developed. In the last decade, we've seen a ten-fold growth in the size of our digital universe -- hefty databases, rich video and photography, vibrant discussions on social media and an ever-burgeoning mountain of email. But what is the value of that growing universe of information -- and what is the potential we could derive from it if appropriate data-sets were to be mashed together and the right questions asked? There's any number of ways of cutting this, but the Policy Exchange estimated a potential of £33billion in savings for the government through using a new breed of big data analytics tools to improve or change the way government services are delivered.
- Openness is Alive and Well (and Living in Europe) Oct 01, 2012
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The Standards Blog - Andy Updegrove - Last week I took something of a trip back through time. The transition began somewhere over the dark Atlantic, on my way to Brussels via Heathrow, when the person sitting next to me struck up a conversation. Improbably, I found myself discussing ODF – the OpenDocument Format – with a former Sun engineer who had followed the ODF–OOXML contest with great interest back in 2005 - 2007. I was sorry to tell him, and he was sorry to hear, that things had not gone so well in the years that followed, and that many of the bright hopes of those that had supported ODF remained to be realized.
The conversation set me thinking about how much of the energy that had surrounded open standards back then has faded from view in the U.S.That’s not the case in Europe, though, where the promise of openness in all things IT-related, including in open standards, remains a hot topic. Only a few weeks ago, for example, the EU Parliament voted to amend its regulations relating to the use of open standards, and these regulations will flow through to the member states as of January 1 of next year.
The level of government interest in openness in Europe is what had me heading East - to participate in two conferences, one convened by OpenForum Europe and the other by OpenForum Academy.
The reasons for the enduring interest in openness on the Continent are several, but perhaps the most obvious one is that the European Union is not a long-settled federation like the United States, but a still evolving work in process. The result is that the relationship of nation to nation, and of nation to Union, remains very much in flux, and policy continues to evolve on a constant basis.
- Government support of open source falls short Oct 01, 2012
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InfoWorld - Simon Phipps - American and European governments are hailing open source innovation, but failing to act aggressively on patent reform
Two news items over the last week signalled to me that the benefits of open source, open data, and other artifacts of the meshed Internet society are making it through to policy makers. A new section of the White House website and a speech by a European Commission political prove that progress is under way. But when it comes to legal support, both stop short of advocating real open innovation.
Open source spans the Atlantic
Last week, the White House launched an unusual website that offers a glimpse of the Administration's thinking about IT. The White House Developer Page (captioned "Connecting citizen developers with the tools they need to unlock government data") provides a catalog of resources available to software developers to be able to manipulate data about the workings of government. With sections on open government, open data, and open source, it's clear that the benefits of empowering citizen-creator-consumers appeal to the Obama administration.Meanwhile, I attended a conference in Brussels at which Neelie Kroes, a senior vice president of the European Commission, announced her plans to earmark 5 percent -- maybe more -- of the Commission's budget for open and innovative solutions from small and medium-size businesses while also seeking ways to stimulate more open innovation. As if anticipating her move, the French government signalled plans to promote open source adoption and allocate the money saved on licenses for investment in open technology.
Kroes has a record of intelligent advocacy of open solutions, especially open standards, and was the Commissioner responsible for sanctioning Microsoft following its antitrust conviction in Europe. This is not the first time Kroes has been an advocate of open source, and her stance has previously been rewarded with a cabinet portfolio in the European Commission with responsibility for Europe's digital agenda.
- French government to use PostgreSQL and LibreOffice in free software adoption push Oct 01, 2012
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ComputerWorldUK - The plan could see up to 10 percent of money saved on proprietary software licenses reinvested in improving free software.
French government agencies could become more active participants in free software projects, under an action plan sent by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in a letter to ministers, while software giants Microsoft and Oracle might lose out as the government pushes free software such as LibreOffice or PostgreSQL in some areas.
Ayrault wants different branches of the French administration to use the same free software as one another when possible, so as to share experience and cut support costs. Until now, each ministry or agency has been left to pursue its own strategy.
He also wants them to reinvest between 5 percent and 10 percent of the money they save through not paying for proprietary software licenses, spending it instead on contributing to the development of the free software. The administration already submits patches and bug fixes for the applications it uses, but Ayrault wants to go beyond that, contributing to or paying for the addition of new functionality to the software.
OpenForum Academy - Cyber-Security Conference
On Wednesday, 5 June 2013, at the Thon Hotel EU, in Brussels, European Voice will hold a conference to discuss the proposed legislation on network and information security and whether it will serve its aims of improving cyber-security throughout the EU. The event features a keynote address by Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for the digital agenda.
Last year OpenForum Academy hosted a Round Table discussion on “Who do you Trust with your Data in the Cloud?” which featured the launch of a report by Hogan Lovells on Government Access to Data in the Cloud and a comparison of the Patriot Act with national schemes across Europe. In an updated session we have invited back Hogan Lovells to respond to the questions previously raised, the challenges to their conclusions, and to present an update to the Report which specifically now includes the impact of the US authorities Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendment (FISAA).
The Round Table will be held on the 22nd May from 12:30-14:00 at the Silken Berlaymont Hotel, Boulevard Charlemagne 11/19, Brussels. This is likely to be a highly popular session and to preserve the discussion format spaces are limited so please book your place as soon as possible by registering here.
Discriminatory practices continue to plague IT public procurement across Europe
For the fifth consecutive year, OpenForum Europe publishes a report on the EU Member States' practice of referring to specific trademarks when procuring computer software packages and information systems.
We found that almost 1 in 5 notices included technical specifications containg explicit references to trademarks.
These results clearly show that there is an entrenched and continuing EU-wide level of discrimination in the purchase of IT supplies. More than ever, there is urgent need for more transparent, open and fair EU and national procurement practices.
In the UK OFE submits written evidence to Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) inquiry on Public Procurement.
TheOpenForum Academy (via OpenForum Europe) will be participating in the Google Policy Fellowship in 2013. This program is a unique way for students to get involved with our work, and to experience the business of policy discussion in Brussels.
OpenForum Academy is one of only four European institutions selected to participate this year, joining Lisbon Council, BREUGEL and ECIPE to provide a cutting edge opportunity for students actively engage at the forefront of European governance.
OpenForum Academy is an independent programme established by OpenForum Europe. It has created a link with academia in order to provide new input and insight into the key issues which impact the openness of the IT market.
Latest - Round Table
"Harnessing the Power of IT through Collaborative Open Innovation"
This
year's OFE Summit focused on the power of openness and collaboration
to promote innovation in Europe. Our Keynote speakers gave two
inspiring speeches
Mitchell
Baker, Chair of the Mozilla foundation, told us that true innovation
is hard but that the reward is there if we persist. She talked about
the danger of controlling the process, of getting into the habit of
asking for permission to innovate: the essence of true innovation is
that it departs from the mainstream.
Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes – returning for the 3rd time to the OFE Summit – was on the same page. She presented her wish to try out support for “truly open, disruptive innovation in ICT”, 5% of Horizon 2020 funds could be used to create an open, agile, responsive funding instrument: an experiment to support creativity and innovation.
As long as changes in the marketplace threaten to lead to new forms of lock-in we still have work to do.
Media partner 
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Vote in Britains Global Impact Challenge
European Public Policy — May 23, 2013 06:43 AM
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European Standardisation Reform - good analysis on critical issues
Jochen Friedrich — May 22, 2013 06:40 AM
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Some outlook on European standardisation in 2013
Jochen Friedrich — May 19, 2013 06:53 AM
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Enquete-Kommission Internet und Digitale Gesellschaft verffentlicht Zwischenbericht
Jochen Friedrich — May 19, 2013 06:53 AM
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Partially rebuilding the kitchen porch
Bob Sutor — May 19, 2013 06:53 AM
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Extremadura: 'Already 9 thousand downloads Linex open source distribution'
European Commission Joinup News — May 23, 2013 06:43 AM
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Finnish education board funds open source cloud services for schools
European Commission Joinup News — May 23, 2013 06:43 AM
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Five Star Movement urges Italian city of Bari to move to open source
European Commission Joinup News — May 23, 2013 06:43 AM
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Major update to Joinup this Thursday and Friday
European Commission Joinup News — May 23, 2013 06:43 AM
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Denmark's Drupal municipalities taking over development of Cprbroker
European Commission Joinup News — May 23, 2013 06:43 AM
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