Government 'committed' to open source - Public Service

This would seem to be great—but there is so much space between what is promised, what is wanted, and what is delivered, and each space is frequently staffed by those who feel, rightly or wrongly, that change, in the shape of open source or sometimes even open standards—change at all—represents a threat to their job, their comfort level, their quotidian numbness or happiness. So, I spend a lot of my time flying from place to place assuring the principals (reponsables, in French) that, Hey, it's Okay. Indeed, your job, your life, will be improved, especially if you focus on the open standard.

 

OOo Hackfest

The Hackfest is shaping up to be fairly interesting. I think anyone who has expressed interest in coding for OpenOffice.org—extensions and beyond—really ought to try to participate, if only remotely—though being there in person is invaluable.

Added links...

http://technorati.com/technology/article/openofficeorg-hackfest/

and,

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Hackfest2010

Geist: Significant new costs.....

A simple question: do we wish to put children (and everyone) else under a regime of license and proprietary relations for all they do as students, or ....?

And if so are we ready to deal with the very ominous consequences of the logical economic and social disparities? Rich would mean, even more than now, full access to informational wealth—that is, the doings of others—and poverty would mean, more than it does now, a profound ignorance, enforced economically, socially, legally.

 

http://www.thestar.com/article/859233--geist-significant-new-costs-loom-for-students

Piracy and its discontents

Interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=all

BE: Political party moving to a complete open source desktop —

It's about time.... Yet what would help even further, of course, is if all of Belgium (divided or not) were to move to a free desktop, too, and then if we could also use the migration, and the use, as case studies. We sorely need case studies of significant migrations to OOo. Many public enterprises want to move but refrain from doing so for the excellent reason that no one wants to be first, all want to see what others have learnt so that they do not incur those costs. Well....

BE: Political party moving to a complete open source desktop —

It's the ecosystem and the new companies....

The TImes' article points out that it is not the size of the company that makes it effective in hiring new people but its youth. Start ups hire people. And open source lowers the bar for the formation of start ups. The ecosystems we speak of, the ones that form ancillary to the central project, are often composed of start ups, and they are hiring people.

Italian school lunches go organic, low-cost, local | GlobalPost

This is really great news. I wonder about the effect on the local farms, big and small, and whether the WTO provisions will ultimately forbid this great (seemingly great) law.

Italian school lunches go organic, low-cost, local | GlobalPost

Italian school lunches go organic, low-cost, local | GlobalPost

This is really great news. I wonder about the effect on the local farms, big and small, and whether the WTO provisions will ultimately forbid this great (seemingly great) law.

Italian school lunches go organic, low-cost, local | GlobalPost