Summit 2010
Relevant link of today: Video message from Vice-President Kroes to GUADEC 2010
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2010-07-14
Jochen Friedrich's Open Blog - Vice-President Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, has given a video message on open source to the upcoming Gnome conference GUADEC 2010. The message is available on Youtube and embedded on the GUADEC website as well.
In her speech Commissioner Kroes outlines the high acceptance of open source, its potential for innovation and its relevance for governments and public administrations. She mentions the leadership Europe has pursued on openness with the European Interoperability Framework, with other programmes like OSOR.EU, and now with the Digital Agenda and its focus on open standards and interoperability. Only 4 minutes long this is a remarkable address from the Commissioner bringing Europe back into the pacesetting position on driving growth, competitiveness and transformation in the digital age.
Read More
Jochen Friedrich's Open Blog - Vice-President Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, has given a video message on open source to the upcoming Gnome conference GUADEC 2010. The message is available on Youtube and embedded on the GUADEC website as well.
In her speech Commissioner Kroes outlines the high acceptance of open source, its potential for innovation and its relevance for governments and public administrations. She mentions the leadership Europe has pursued on openness with the European Interoperability Framework, with other programmes like OSOR.EU, and now with the Digital Agenda and its focus on open standards and interoperability. Only 4 minutes long this is a remarkable address from the Commissioner bringing Europe back into the pacesetting position on driving growth, competitiveness and transformation in the digital age.
Read More
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OFE WORLD NEWS ROUND UP
The value of restricting choice
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2010-07-28
Rob Weir: An Antic Disposition - The language game - Microsoft’s talking points go something like this (summarized in my words)
If you adopt ODF instead of OOXML then you “restrict choice”. Why would you want to do that? You’re in favor of openness and competition, right? So naturally, you should favor choice.You can see a hundreds of variations on this theme, in Microsoft press releases, whitepapers, in press articles and blogged by astroturfers, by searching Google for “ODF restrict choice“. Read More
Standard set for universal wireless charger
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2010-07-28
ZDNet - The Wireless Power Consortium has finalised a standard for
wireless charging of mobile devices, bringing universal charging for
products one step closer to reality.
On Friday, the trade alliance said that it has agreed upon specifications for three key areas of the Qi low-power standard,
which is based on magnetic induction technology. The three areas are
interface definition, which outlines the requirements for power
transfer between the transmitter and receiver; the performance
requirements; and the test procedure for compliance with the standard.
Read More
Openness at the core of eGovernance
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2010-07-27
Jochen Friedrich's Open Blog -A couple of weeks ago a Yale scholar,
Dr Laura DeNardis, visited Europe and presented on e-Governance
policies for interoperability and open standards. Dr DeNardis was, for
instance, keynote speaker at a breakfast briefing hosted by OpenForum
Europe. Unfortunately, I could not attend this event due to some
schedule conflict, but only got the report – which made me regret even
more that I couldn't attend.
But here's good news: Laura DeNardis' paper on the topic is available for download – I just came across this download link on the Social Sciences Research Network today.
Read More
Brussels to probe IBM mainframe market role
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2010-07-27
FT.com - IBM on Monday became the latest big US technology group to come under
attack from Europe’s top antitrust watchdog with officials at the
European Commission launching a formal probe into its behaviour in the multibillion-dollar market for mainframe computers. The Commission – which has fought long battles with Microsoft and Intel and is also taking a preliminary look at issues surrounding Google – said it was opening two separate cases against IBM.
Read More
Google Apps for Gov battles fear of floating data
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2010-07-27
The Register - Google Apps for Government
is designed to meet the information-security laws that bind federal
agencies. But it's also meant to provide a kind of comfort blanket for
any government agency — from the federal level down to the local
— that's wary of moving their data onto third-party servers in the
so-called cloud.
Read More
Government Computers to Get Linux-Based Operating System
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2010-07-26
The Moscow Times - The government is hoping to launch the first version of a "national
operating system" for its computers as early as next year, a senior
Communications and Press Ministry official said Thursday.
The operating system, for use on the computer systems of government
agencies and state-run companies, will be 90 percent based on the
open-source Linux operating system, Deputy Communications and Press
Minister Ilya Massukh said.
Read More
Forrester: IT spending growth holding up
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2010-07-26
The Register - The prognosticators at IT watcher Forrester Research are not letting
a little debt crisis in Greece and the fears by some that it will
"metastasize across the European Union" put a damper on global IT
spending growth for 2010.
In a report
released this week from Andrew Bartels, the vice president and
principal analyst who is responsible for economic and IT spending
modeling at the company, Forrester says that it expects global IT
spending to rise by 7.8 per cent this year, to $2.46 trillion, and that
tech spending in the United States will rise by 9.9 per cent, to
$753bn. If you take out telecommunications from those numbers, you get
core IT hardware, software, and services spending in the U.S. coming in
at $564bn, with the whole planet spending $1.58 trillion.
Read More
Innovation culture and Germany’s digital society
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2010-07-23
European Public Policy Blog - When Members of Parliament regrouped in Berlin last year after the German Federal elections, one of the first things they did was establish the Enquete-Kommission to look into the internet and digital society. The group was tasked with examining how Germany’s political, legal and social frameworks need to adapt to the opportunities and challenges presented by the digital revolution.
Read More
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EC Says Cloud Will Evaporate Without Open Standards
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2010-07-22
eWeek - The European Commission has continued its push against proprietary
software and standards by pointing out the key role that openess played
in the development of cloud computing services.
In a wide-ranging speech this week in London, Joaquín Almunia, vice
president of the European Commission responsible for competition policy
discussed how member states need to compete more aggressively in the
digital arena with the US and Asia. In particular he said that open standards and approaches were key to development of new services and platforms.
Read More
EU pledges huge spend for small biz R&D
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2010-07-21
The Register - The European Commission has pledged €6.4bn for research investments
across Europe in various areas for both academics and small businesses. In total 16,000 organisations should benefit including 3,000 small
businesses. The cash will be awarded after a 'call for proposals' -
which should start later today. The Commission hopes the money will kickstart innovative businesses as well as create jobs.
Read More
Tax office goes Ubuntu for AUSkey Linux standard
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2010-07-21
Computerworld - The Australian Taxation Office is preparing to release a Linux port of its AUSkey authentication software with Ubuntu being the reference distribution for testing and development.
Read More
Technology Rivals Lobby to Break Microsoft’s Hold
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2010-07-20
NYT - A European plan to advise governments on software purchases has set off
a lobbying battle this summer between the U.S. software giant Microsoft and its rivals Google, I.B.M., Red Hat and Oracle over a set of guidelines that could redefine the competitive landscape for proprietary and open-source software.
Read More
Peppermint Ice Chromium-based Linux OS is out
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2010-07-20
The Inquirer - We gave you a UK exclusive heads up
on the Ubuntu Linux derivative, Chromium-based cloud-centric Peppermint
Linux OS in an interview a couple of weeks back. Now the team that
bought out the web-centric Peppermint is ready to go with Peppermint
Ice.
Peppermint Ice has Google's Chromium as the default web browser and
the Peppermint developers claim it runs ridiculously fast on its
cloud-centric OS.
Read More
Portugese Government Favours Open Source in Schools
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2010-07-19
OpusVL - The majority of children in Portugal are now familiar with using Open Source Software within their schools thanks to help from the government and the linux based operating system Caixa Mágica In the last two years the Portuguese government has installed over 60,000 notebooks running the open source operating system and other open source applications. A further 450,000 Classmate PCs and 11,000 desktops PCs also use OSS. The government hopes to roll out another quarter of a million open source PCs to schools later this year.
Read More
End of Microsoft NHS deal means mass deletions
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2010-07-19
The Register - Microsoft has warned any NHS worker who took advantage of the huge discounts available for installing MS Office at home that they must now delete the software.
Read More
NEWS FROM THE OPEN SOURCE OBSERATORY
RECENT OFE PRESS RELEASES
E-Governance Policies for Interoperability and Open Standards
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2010-07-02
Consensus emerging on the need for reform of ICT standardisation . 2010-06-24
OFE CEO's Summit 2010 Review . 2010-06-13
Openforum Europe (OFE) welcomes the European Commission's Digital Agenda, and commends Vice President Neelie Kroes for her determined effort to build an open, competitive and innovative ICT market for the benefit of citizens and businesses in Europe. . 2010-05-19
FSFE founder Georg Greve awarded German Cross of Merit . 2010-04-28
OFE Congratulates EU Ministers on Progressive Plan for Digital Agenda, Calls for Further Endorsement of Open Public Procurements . 2010-04-19
The Document Freedom Day - 2010 31st March 2010
OFE Press Release - Government Action Plan for Open Source, Open Standards and Software Re-Use - Updated 27-01-2010
OFE Press Release - Unique Partnership Brings Open Source Software to BETT 21-12-2009
OFE Release - The EC Settlement Sends an Unambiguous Message to the Market – Lock-In is Dead 16-12-2009
Consensus emerging on the need for reform of ICT standardisation . 2010-06-24
OFE CEO's Summit 2010 Review . 2010-06-13
Openforum Europe (OFE) welcomes the European Commission's Digital Agenda, and commends Vice President Neelie Kroes for her determined effort to build an open, competitive and innovative ICT market for the benefit of citizens and businesses in Europe. . 2010-05-19
FSFE founder Georg Greve awarded German Cross of Merit . 2010-04-28
OFE Congratulates EU Ministers on Progressive Plan for Digital Agenda, Calls for Further Endorsement of Open Public Procurements . 2010-04-19
The Document Freedom Day - 2010 31st March 2010
OFE Press Release - Government Action Plan for Open Source, Open Standards and Software Re-Use - Updated 27-01-2010
OFE Press Release - Unique Partnership Brings Open Source Software to BETT 21-12-2009
OFE Release - The EC Settlement Sends an Unambiguous Message to the Market – Lock-In is Dead 16-12-2009
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