“equally critical of proprietary and open source myths, advocating software choice beyond marketing and romanticism”
Assoli today announced that under the free software pact initiative 232 Italian candidates signed the “caro candidato” pact. Candidates signing it state that they favor the development and use of free software, and will protect it from threatening EU legislation.
Only 27 MEP candidates subscribed until now, I hope more will pop up before the elections, Europe needs MEPs informed on free software issues.
Few days ago the Italian MEP Marco Cappato made public a EC report
analyzing the feasibility of a migration to open source software on desktop workplaces.
The study was conducted in 2005, and contains two deck of slides from Gartner’s analysts Michael Silver and Nikos Drakos. Both presentations are worth reading, even if some guesses are not supported by facts.
8 Essential OpenOffice Extensions - Enjoy the Writer’s tool extension, the Sun Presentation Minimizer and other six popular extensions.
How to Import Data From Spreadsheet into OpenOffice.org Database - a simple tutorial to import data in six steps.
Talking about Alfresco’s business strategy I happened to mention that the European open source observatory released guidelines for open source procurement.
The OSOR guideline draws on the extensive analysis conducted by the Dutch government’s OSOSS in 2005, followed by a guide published later by the successor organization to the OSOSS program (Netherlands Open in Verbinding).
Continue reading ‘European Open Source Procurement Guidelines: How Do you Like Them?’
Alfresco meetup for community and customers took place here in Rome two weeks ago, featuring both John Newton and John Powell, respectively Alfresco CTO and CEO.
I asked few questions to John Powell, learning more about Alfresco licensing story, and about differences between Alfresco Enterprise Edition and Alfresco Labs.
Continue reading ‘Open Source ECM: Alfresco Business Strategy’
The EC in March 2009 decided to invest in physical infrastructures, in line with the conclusions of the last 2008 European Council stating the importance of developing broadband internet.
The ECDL Foundation responded with a position paper outlining why ICT investments should be complemented by investments in skills development, and I asked an opinion to Ian Lynch, education lead for the OpenOffice.org community and the man behind a family of qualifications called The INGOTs.
Continue reading ‘Skill Importance and accredited Qualifications Providers: the INGOTs’
The European Commission brings back software patents, this time through a via a centralized patent court, the European and Community Patents Court (draft agreement).
This court - if the draft will get approved at the next competitiveness meeting of May 28-29 - will have exclusive jurisdiction in respect of patent infringements.
Sustainable innovation in public services, to pass from words to action. This is the goal of the barcamp that will take place at the ForumPA (barcamp Innovatori PA), on the 13th of May.
Continue reading ‘ForumPA: Public Administration Innovators Barcamp’
Net neutrality is at risk in Europe, the Telecoms package keeps popping up, the European software patents war is not over and we need to choose carefully our MEP candidates.
CarloMarco Cappato has been fighting software patents since 2003, and I’m not surprised he just signed the free software pact, the initiative mentioned earlier this week. Now he asks for help, if you like what he did on digital freedoms for years it is time to help him to get elected.
Kenneth R. Carter will give a speech at the Ugo Bordoni Foundation during the “socio-economical aspects of network neutrality” seminar, that will be held in Rome on the 14th of May 2009.
Recent Comments