News 2004
From OpenEGov
Note: Current news is on the Current events page
Contents |
Dec 23, 2004
Dutch MPs have actually managed to convince their government that an exclusive deal with Microsoft is not a good idea. When will British MPs get so involved?
Nov 22, 2004
Bristol City Council have confirmed their switch to StarOffice. Relief to see at least one council isn't just waving alternatives around as negotiating leverage with MS. Shame it's not a bit freer than StarOffice, but I keep being told to be grateful for small mercies.
Nov 4, 2004
So Microsoft have won a nine-year lock-in with the NHS. Half a billion in licensing fees. The cute thing is that in all the crowing Microsoft immediately forget all the subtleties over TCO and present this as a 'saving'. A saving over what? Their own licensing fees that they might hypothetically have charged! The OGC are taking their presentational cues from Microsoft and just repeating the savings line, too.
Oct 28, 2004
Left hand, right hand.. Today the government released two new documents: the first is version 2 of the policy document Open source software - use within UK government, already discussed and argued over on this site.
The other is the excellent final report on the Open source software trials in government. One of it's recommendations is 'more joined-up government'. What can they mean?
Oct 25, 2004
Back in March the government announced the e-innovations funding for local authorities. The only big free software project was led Rossendale council which got half a million to look at migrating councils to 'open source' (one of the other councils in the group was Newham, and we already know what happened to them). The register was all chirpy about it.
Now here's the list of funded local authority projects today. Guess which is the only project to have been dropped?
This wave of reversals of direction just has to be coming from the top...
Oct 25,2004
The NHS open source policy has been nobbled by someone in the pay of the proprietary lot - did you know that proprietary software 'guarantees reliability and future maintenance'? The original policy is still available from the wayback machine at http://web.archive.org/web/20040204194259/http://www.nhsia.nhs.uk/text/pages/features/i_250202.asp
Oct 19, 2004
A Felixstowe school has taken advantage of the UK government's Specialist Schools Initiative to implement a switch to Open Source software as its chosen capital project. Under the Initiative Orwell High School, which was recently granted Specialist School for Technology status, qualifies for a government capital grant of £100,000 and £129 per pupil per year over four years.
And relatives of The Register staff were involved, too...
Oct 18, 2004
The biggest ever switch by a UK local authority away from Microsoft software to 'StarOffice' desktop solutions based on open source software is set to take place at Bristol City Council. Bristol is poised to move up to 5,000 of its staff desktop computers to the StarOffice 7 system early in the New Year, in a move aimed at saving an estimated 1.4 million pounds over five years. The Bristol decision concludes a three-year evaluation of the technical, financial and cultural issues of software migration, including a 600-user pilot in the council's Neighbourhood and Housing Services Department.
Taken from eGovernment Bulletin
Oct 12, 2004
The Government of Catalonia has undertaken to encourage the use of free software and open standards. Lafarga.org is a new web site which provides a space for information and debate among the actors in the process which has been created as a result. The site is entirely in Catalan (actually quite readable if you know French or Spanish ;-)
Sept 27, 2004
The APLAWS CMS is moving into a new phase, with funding for a further five pilot councils. There should be more information on the main LAWS site shortly.
Sept 15, 2004
The conference "Open Source Software and the Voluntary Sector" took place at City Temple Conference Centre, London The event looked at the practical uses of Open Source & Free Software (OSS) and its synergy with the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) and was an informal, peer-to-peer networking event in the co-operative spirit of open source: a many-to-many exchange of experiences, curiosity and enthusiasm. See [lasa.org] for more information about this and related events.
August 19, 2004
Just about everyone's reported Newham bottling out. Varying from extremely dry humour in the Register to hysterical in groklaw. Most depressing comment from the Slashdot discussion: The Newham council debacle has sent shockwaves round the UK gov't depts (like mine) who are using Linux and even though the whole thing stinks, procurement folks are asking us why Linux instead of MS now that Newham have proven it is cheaper!!!.
August 14, 2004
Another U.K. city council has joined the list of organizations opting for Linux. The Dundee, Scotland, City Council has chosen the operating system, supplied with IBM Corp.'s eServer zSeries platform, in an attempt to reduce its running costs. Story from linuxworld
July 14, 2004
The French Government has opened a website where AGORA, its open source content management system, is now available for download under a General Public License (GPL). AGORA, which was first made available in a test version in the summer of 2003, has been developed to rationalise content management and to foster interoperability of web content and functionalities across government. AGORA can be found at agora.gouv.fr (in French)
July 5, 2004
- The Dutch Parliament has directed Minister Brinkhorst and Secretary of State van Gennip (Economic Affairs) to withdraw the Dutch vote in support of the Council of Ministers' text for the Directive on Software Patents. This is the first time in the history of the EU that such a course of action has been undertaken; it represents an incisive criticism of the European Council of Ministers' attempts to introduce broad patentability of software. Full details from FFII.org
June 28, 2004
- Judge David Young QC has ruled in the "Bromcom" case, Secretary of State for Education and Skills v Frontline Technology Ltd [2004] All ER (D) 170 (Jun). According to the judgment two claims were deemed invalid as lacking any inventive step. However the third claim was upheld. The DfES reaction is on Teachernet
June 24, 2004
- After a year's discussion, Munich city council voted 50-29 in favour of a plan to switch to Linux from Windows. Companies such as IBM and Novell Inc. are expected to fight for orders. Illuminating interview with the man in charge.
June 20, 2004
- Microsoft back down on threat to sue Brazilian IT supremo, Sergio Amadeu, for libel following his comparison of Microsoft's tactics in encouraging use of pirated software to those of a drug dealer. Rather embarassingly for Microsoft, the quote turned out to be an echo of a talk by Bill Gates on use of unlicensed software in China. [1]. There's an interesting interview with Amadeu on linuxjournal.
- Civil service minister Renaud Dutreil told Reuters France wanted to use "open-source" software providers to resupply some of its almost one million state computers, under a government cost-cutting drive designed to trim a bulging public deficit. [2]
