Roberto Galoppini's
Commercial Open Source Software

Last June the former Italian Minister of Reform and Innovations in Public Administration, Luigi Nicolais, announced the creation of the second Italian Open Source Commission, and last week the commission coordinated by professor Angelo Raffaele Meo released a first draft of the report (Italian).

The Neapolitean coffee is finished. Any more coffee? Valpopando (LYJR)

The commission, composed of sixteen members and supported by the National Center for Information Technology in Public Administration and the Department of Innovation, would have probably needed more time to define procurement policies for IT Public procurement of open source software.

Will also the next Italian government take good care of open source?

Technorati Tags: open source government, open source procurement, Italian government, open source report

The second edition of the Italian Conference on Free Software will be held in Trento from the 16th to the 18th of May.

The ConfSL 2008 has multiple working sessions, addressing different point of view about Free Software (Open Session, Academical Session, a brokerage event and a mapping party).

1. Open Session
Dedicated to the widest audience, it aims to disseminate basic concepts around Free Software, with a special accent on  well (and less) known aspects about its practical usage.

2. Academic Session
The primary scientific goal is to catch the state of art of Free Software; seminars and workshops will afford to give an all-around survey about it in a multi-disciplinary fashion.

3.  Open Source 2008 - brokerage event
It is a partner event of ConfSL (managed by Trentino Sviluppo) member of European IRC (Innovation Relay Centre) network. It will be held friday afternoon and it will offer specific opportunites to exchange and transfer knowledge, know-how and experiences between Enterprises, Technology Providers, Associations, and Public Administrations. The main goal is to create concrete partnership opportunities, both commercial and technological, between participants.

My speech on standards conformance has been accepted, and I am glad to join the event both to talk about the importance to prove that software products are meeting open standards‘ specifications and to do some networking. See you there!

Technorati Tags: confSL, Italian conference, open standards, Trentino Sviluppo, European IRC

The OpenOffice.org Italian Association is proud to announce another record: the Italian release of the world’s leading free and open source productivity suite has experienced a surge in demand for its last version, OpenOffice.org 2.4.

OpenOffice.org experienced more than 16,900 downloads per day over the last 23 days, for a total of more than 370.000 downloads!

Davide Dozza, PLIO’s president commented the result:

While we were working on our april foul, downloads were running furiously, doubling the 2.3 rate, and quadrupling last year’s downloads. Likely the availability of new Italian linguistic tools, along with the support for PDF/A, are bringing more and more people to try OpenOffice.org, and learn about free software value.

Technorati Tags: openoffice.org, openoffice, davidedozza, PLIO, PDF/A

I’ve been using OOo for quite some time now, more then four year, started using it around 2003, if I recall.

Last year I needed a feature in OOo index generation I quickly found out it wasn’t available, there were workarounds, but I didn’t like them.

Etched Rock by (sam)

Being OOo available in source code, I started digging into it until I found the code responsible for index generation. Built a patch for myself and solved the index generation problem, at least at my end of the line.

Then I proposed the change to OOo community.

As you can see in that thread, what came up was that ODF 1.0 didn’t support the index structure description needed to completely implement the feature.

So the discussion continued until I was suggested to post a comment to the relevant OASIS list to describe the proposed modification to ODF standard.

I did so, and after some discussion my proposed change was integrated in current ODF 1.2 specification draft.

Unfortunately that meant that the new feature would be implemented in OOo in the next main release, since it implied changing the ODF document format.

That’s the reason why you’ll find it in 3.0 release.

So I waited until the 3.0 source code was ready, when it was ready I implemented that new feature which is now part of the 3.0 functionality.

It was fun, actually.

You can find another comment in Mathias Bauer’s blog.

What’s the moral? A truly public specification can be upgraded by the public at large, provided the suggestion is a sound one.

Technorati Tags: open standards, OASIS, ODF, ODF 1.2, MathiasBauer

Few days ago I joined the first “Mind the Bridge” workshop, a program aimed at helping tomorrow’s Italian entrepreneurs.

I really enjoyed joining the event, organized by 1GN, Partnership4Growth and BAIA Italia. Luigi Orsi Carbone speech on how to write a business model was a good start, while what Italian VCs had to say was pretty depressing.

On the other hand it was a great pleasure to listen to Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, his talk was the exact combination of inspiration and festivity that every entrepreneur must first seek in herself.

It was also interesting to listen to participants’ speeches, but I had little chance to pose deeper questions to PassPack’s proponents Francesco Sullo and Tara Kelly, while I spent the whole evening with Stefano Grini, JabberOut’s proponent.

Italian VCs look too hard to court, offer very little money compared to their US counterpart, and last but not least ask really too much in terms of shares and obligations.

Do you have a brilliant idea? Get in touch with Richard Boly here in Rome, or take a plane and ask Fabrizio Capobianco to show you the way.

Technorati Tags: Italian startups, Mind the bridge, 1Gn, Partnership4growth, baia italia, RichardBoly, FabrizioCapobianco, StefanoGrini, FrancescoSullo, TaraKelly, Passpack, Jabberout

Bob Sutor, IBM Vice President Open Source and Standards, invited the IBM Italian subsidiary to organize an event aimed at public officers or those who have an interest in the public sector.

IBM Italia recognizing the importance of open standards, and knowing that open standards in IT are critical to allow new entrants to participate, invites stakeholders to meet up with IBM open source and open standards pioneers.

The event will be held on the 8 of May at the IBM office in Rome. Giovanni Aliverti, IBM Italy Institutional relationships, will open the session. Then Bob Sutor will give his keynote speech talking of open source trends for the next 12 months. Vittorio Pagani, CNIPA Open Source Observatory, and Flavia Marzano will cover respectively open standards’ issues by central and local public administrations. I will eventually give my presentation on standards conformance, hilighting the importance to prove that software products are meeting open standards‘ specifications.

Last but not least Gianfranco Cesareo will introduce the audience to IBM software products compliant to open standards.

If you wish to join the event send me an email, the event is invitation-only.

Technorati Tags: open standards, open source conference, IBM Italy, GiovanniAliverti, FlaviaMarzano, VittorioPagani, GianfrancoCesareo, file format

“Mind the Bridge“, an interesting opportunity for Italian entrepreneurs to present their ideas to a core group of experienced executives and potential investors in the Silicon Valley, today is running its first workshop.

The event is organized by 1GN, Partnership4Growth and  BAIA Italia and is an invitation only event exclusively for 2007 business plan competition’s participants.

Technorati Tags:   Italian startups, Mind the bridge, 1Gn, Partnership4growth, baia italia

PAAL2008, Open and Free Public Administration, will be held this week on the 17th and 18th of April in Pula (Cagliari).

The second conference on FOSS in public administrations has a rich two days program, if you are in Sardinia this week and you have good command of Italian consider join the event.

For further information contact them.

Technorati Tags: open source conference, PAAL2008, Sardinia, Pula, Cagliari

100 Italian candidates signed Assoli’s letter engaging themselves to promote the use of free software.

The Italian association asked Italian candidates to work to promote the use of free software and open standards, Assoli’s President Paolo Didonè commented the result:

The success of our initiative is clear: in a week, without any substantial media coverage, one hundred candidates signed the letter engaging themselves to promote free software and digital rights. Two thousands voters indicated that they would be more likely to vote for candidates supporting the campaign.

Candidates from all parties backed Assoli’s campaign, Paolo Didonè emphasize the result:

It is important to notice that candidates from all major parties signed our letter. This is a good sign, we are looking forward to get involved together with politicians in sustaining politics in favor of free software, in country’s interest. The day after the election we’ll contact politicians for pragmatic actions.

Technorati Tags: free software, italian elections, assoli , PaoloDidonè

Assoli, the long-live Italian association devoted to the promotion of free software, invited all Italian candidates to sign a letter where they engage themselves to promote the use of free software.

The Italian association asks Italian candidates to work to promote the use of free software and open standards royalty-free, to license custom software under a persistent free software license, to destinate R&D public spendings preferably on free software, to favor coordination of efforts among public administrations to maximize free software dissemination and to use free software in education.

Until now 86 candidates signed the letter.

Other posts on this subject: free software in free elections by Paolo Palmerini.

Technorati Tags: free software, italian elections, assoli