Open Source Action (and more)

Stop American Censorship — a campaign from Fight for the Future

2012-01-18T11:19:00.000-05:00

Stop American Censorship — a campaign from Fight for the Future

Today, 18 January 2012, we are seeking to stop SOPA and PIPA now. These two bills, the first a US House, the second a US Senate, purport to stop piracy but they are such poorly drafted bills that they actually lay the groundwork for a regime of censorship that would, as virtually every major Internet organization has recognized, destroy the freedoms that have made the Internet and Web a vehicle for economic and cultural growth.

I have proposed to the Apache OpenOffice podling, where I intermittently contribute, to support the protest.

And I blacked out my other blog, www.luispo.com, in support.

I support the protest.

And for the remainder of the day, I ask you, too, to support the protest, if not by blacking out your site or your posts, then by looking at the bills and reading over the discussions. And then by doing what is really very effective: if you are a US citizen, contact your representative and express yourself. This is an election year; your voice counts.

And if you are not a US citizen, keep this in mind: The US is hardly exceptional and the laws that are in circulation and not yet enacted, also work to diminish freedom and weaken community and return us to a regime that didn't work and cannot work this century--but which can still make the oligarchs even richer, and at your expense.

Le logiciel libre propose un potentiel d'économie incroyable | Francis A-Trudel | Économie

2012-01-18T00:18:00.000-05:00

Le logiciel libre propose un potentiel d'économie incroyable | Francis A-Trudel | Économie

See, this is not only interesting but important. And here's a message to Ben: Let's collaborate. Change can start now. It's not a political or cultural thing, it's a simple case of legacy and momentum. There are alternatives now and choices, and we are on the brink of transmigrating to the Cloud for informatics. So now is the perfect time to choose to make data open, source open, and to decide that in the interests of all, it's best to use open standards. The alternative, a life licensed into boxed paralysis, cannot work for all, and not even all the time, for some.

'German cities following Munich's open source example' | Joinup

2012-01-13T18:16:00.000-05:00

'German cities following Munich's open source example' | Joinup

Suppose that several key cities in Germany, such as Hamburg, Berlin, Bonn, Frankfurt--others, too--join Munich in moving, at least in part, their government offices to open source and open standards. What effect would that have on the Foss and open-standards ecosystems? For starters, once every time a major group migrates, it makes it easier for others. Not only does one--ideally--learn about what to do and not do, but also each migration spawns an ecosystem composed of small(ish) companies whose business is helping and supporting the migration. And this further aids the growth of the community, which increasingly includes contributors very interested in sustaining their business, solving client needs, and in making their own work easier by working with--collaborating--others to resolve bugs, add enhancements, and so on.

This is how a market is made, modulo 21st century technologies. It's not too different from any other time. A new technology or commodity or other product finds demand, and the suppliers rejoice, as do all the business people in the middle and periphery. Jobs are created, wealth, too, and it's overall a generally good thing, provided that the community (or in the plural) so established is able to sustain itself and is not simply a useful but temporary outgrowth of a larger business, one very much susceptible to the vagaries of the market.

For instance, here in Ontario, it seems that the largest industrial/manufacturing ecosystem depended--or depends--upon the US automotive industry. Sure, Canadians also drive these vehicles. But, as with so many other things Canadian, it really comes down to what the US buys. So, when the Lesser Depression began in 2008, and continued--continues--and the US automotive companies, once so mighty, once even defining the nature of the American economy, once they were shaken to the point of collapse, Ontario's manufacturing economy was bushwhacked. Poor planning had not provided for a real alternative, meaning that jobs lost to cars gone were jobs gone, at least until the car companies revived enough to resume their ways across the border. The point: The ecosystem up here was big and strong but depended upon the market strength of companies far removed from it and its concerns. The community so formed up here was intensely vulnerable. The solution is to establish a base that removes that vulnerability. But most cities around the world do not have the luxury of doing that. Yet some manage. Berkeley, where I pretty much lived half my life, was ridiculed by its neighbours--San Francisco, for instance, but also the much smaller and somewhat odd Emeryville--for not just ignoring the dot.com businesses of the 90s but for actually disdaining them, and favouring, instead, more or less failed efforts at re-establishing a manufacturing base by developing--way ahead of its time--electrical vehicles, for instance, as well as other things that were meant to provided *lasting* and less vulnerable jobs. The idea was not some Marxist fantasy. It was rooted in the clear perception that the dotcom boom was a bust waiting to happen and that a better future lay in making real things that real people would want because they really solved real problems. Cue to the present: Modern Web technology does not depend upon the mystery of the connection between the eyeball and the wallet. It uses Web and other Internet technology to connect, the represent and to build, and is not an end in and of itself. It's not about eyeballs--though my fellow community managers don't always seem to get this--it's about making things that last, using tools, such as the lowly mobile phone, that are now actually ubiquitous.

City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader - Technology - NewsObserver.com

2012-01-07T20:37:00.000-05:00

City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader - Technology - NewsObserver.com

Raleigh is by no means an insignificant city. So there are at least a couple of things of interest here, not least being the turn to, or at least the decline of a turn away from, open source. The other is that it's Red Hat that's moving this, it seems, and not any of the other big players in Raleigh and the associated Triangle. (The Triangle is one of the key intellectual and business centres of the US, and in some ways rivals Silicon Valley, but not quite: not enough ferment of new companies.)

I look forward to see how this plays out. For instance, will there be a public sector big-scale deployment of Foss? Or is this to be a deferred action, aka lip service.

App Shopper: CloudOn (Productivity)

2012-01-04T08:57:00.000-05:00

App Shopper: CloudOn (Productivity)

Interesting--but when I tried to download it (it's free), the message, "not available for..." this or that country came up. Perhaps that's a sign of how popular it is? For my guess is that there are many who want what I want: an app for the iPad (or equiv Android) device allowing me to create and edit (or even just edit) ODF and (yes) OOXML files.

I will actually try to contact the makers of CloudOn, to see if they are interested in working on something related for ODF. Again, I'm sure there is a market there. It is one both for enterprises and similar environments, such as public sector offices and education institutions, and those who simply want to have a tablet and not a full computer and see the tablet as something more than a purely consumer object. Yes, they can use Apple's productivity apps--they are quite good, in fact, and operate nicely with Apple's own Cloud offerings. But that Procrustean hobble cuts out a huge market.

Mozilla Public License, version 2.0

2012-01-03T19:50:00.000-05:00

Mozilla Public License, version 2.0

So, as Luis Villa announced on a list, Mozilla Public License v. 2.0 has just been published. It's actually an interesting evolution. (Indeed, the overall evolution of open licenses bears scrutiny, as they--the licenses--are being taken as seriously as any other legal instrument.)

As Luis explains in his brief message,

What's New

The result of a two year revision process that included feedback and suggestions from the Mozilla community, users of the MPL (both community and corporate), and the broader open source legal community, MPL 2.0 contains several important changes from MPL 1.1. In particular, MPL 2.0:

is simpler and shorter, using the past 10 years of in-practice application of the license to help better understand what is and isn't necessary in an open source license.
is modernized for recent changes in copyright law, and incorporates feedback from lawyers outside the United States on issues of applicability in non-US jurisdictions.
provides patent protections for contributors more in line with those of other open source licenses, and allows an entire community of contributors to protect any contributor if they are sued.
provides compatibility with the Apache and GPL licenses, making code reuse and redistribution easier.

Apache OpenOffice (Incubating)

2012-01-03T11:11:00.000-05:00

Apache OpenOffice (Incubating)

I suspect that finding the newly christened and newly energised project and application formerly known as "OpenOffice.org" is less than super easy for some. So, the link is there... Right now, I'm using the latest build for Mac OS X of Apache OpenOffice (thanks to Raphael Bircher!), and not only is it stable but fast. I've also added the usual extensions, etc.

And I can further view my ODF files on my iOS devices. (Android-oids can also do this, with different apps.) Increasingly, office apps will read ODF, at least ODT; some are more complete than others. Symphony's ODF reader is the lastest on the scene, and very useful. I do wish I could edit--at least minimally--the ODF files, without converting them or having to use an online Web service. But I'd guess that won't come into play until yet more enterprises demand it by their acts alone, such as giving out iPads to employees.

H.P.’s TouchPad, Some Say, Was Built on Flawed Software - NYTimes.com

2012-01-01T21:14:00.000-05:00

H.P.’s TouchPad, Some Say, Was Built on Flawed Software - NYTimes.com

This is a fascinating article, in particular:

Mr. Mercer gained fame at Apple as a software designer for the first iPod, and Palm recruited him in 2007 to help create the Pre. After some internal debate, the company chose to have WebOS rely on WebKit, an open-source software engine used by browsers to display Web pages. Mr. Mercer said that this was a mistake because it prevented applications from running fast enough to be on par with the iPhone. But a former member of the WebOS app development team said the core issue with WebOS was actually Palm’s inability to turn it into a platform that could capture the enthusiasm and loyalty of outside programmers. There were neither the right leaders nor the right engineers to do the job, said this person, who declined to be named because he still had some ties to H.P.

From concept to creation, WebOS was developed in about nine months, this person said, and the company took some shortcuts. With a project like this, programmers typically start by creating the equivalent of building blocks that can be reused and combined to create different applications. But with WebOS, Palm employees initially constructed each app from scratch. Later, they made such blocks, but they were overhauled once by Palm and then again by H.P., forcing programmers to relearn how to build WebOS apps.

Another issue was recruiting. In 2009, it was hard to find programmers who had a keen understanding of WebKit, Mr. Mercer said, and Apple and Google had already snatched up most of the top talent.

The narrative I read is that a community failed to coalesce around the project and it did so because a) the code was inapt--proprietary, and architected with a proprietary developer group in mind; and b) there was no forethought and no figure or apparatus to bring in developers.

Apple's iOS is famously closed but the charisma of Jobs transcended that huge fence because it promised an exciting market--the point not being (or not being only) money but the excitement of others using as well as devising competing products. That's a compelling, intoxicating complex and its produced wonderful things. (We see a more diluted form of this in Android, simply because Android utterly lacks a charismatic lead who mysteriously figures the market and all its promises.)

So, what can be done to fix this problem with WebOS? Probably, the answer lies in the description of the problem. And the same could be said for RIM's new OS. To form a successful community of app developers there has to be the exciting flux that what one does will be appreciated not only by the consumer (sigh....) but by one's peers--who, if they like the idea, will probably try to one-up it: which is to say, take it seriously, even if they think they can do what you did better.

Put another way, it's not about consumers only. It's really about engaging an open community. The former leads to what we've seen and will continue to see (just wait for MSFT/Nokia?): irrelevance. The latter to ... interesting life and huge markets.

BBC News - Man sued for keeping company Twitter followers

2012-01-01T18:05:00.000-05:00

BBC News - Man sued for keeping company Twitter followers

The article cited above is about Noah Kravitz, who gained his far more than 15 mins of fame earlier this fall when his previous employer sued him for "taking" Twitter followers with him upon his departure from the company.

It's a tricky issue, and one that has particularly concerned me. My own claim to fame derives, in no small part, I am sure, from my role with OpenOffice.org. I've tried, always, to distinguish what I do strictly on behalf of OOo, on behalf of OOo's corporate sponsors and my (former) employers, and on behalf of my own interests.

It gets complicated fast, as my own personal interests overlap those of the others'. For instance, I'm interested in open source, open standards, social media, and the theory and practice of developing community. What's more, I've been interested in these issues since at least my first year in college, when I joined the UC Berkeley Student Cooperative Association (USCA) and by the next year was the youngest elected Workshift Manager (think: community manager but having to coordinate all jobs all the time) and then the youngest member to the university-wide USCA board of directors. (I also held several other positions.) How communities work, whether they be cooperatives or collaboratives or some other form of commons-based peer production networks and how to keep them together, so that things that need to get done actually are done, and that everyone more or less agrees with doing those things--all this has long coloured my working life. It also, in a perverse way, shaped my dissertation: I wrote on the romance of the vagabond (tramp) in the US at the turn of the 19th/20th century. The vagabond, or tramp, as the romantics like Twain and others called him, was a community disruptor. Of course, his disruptions enabled and indeed strengthened the affected community, for he figured a threat that unified those making up the community. It's an old story.

Open source relates in abstract ways: it works (as advertised, say) because of the community, which adds a kind of value that intramural employees can sometimes exceed but which is essentially unlimited in its boundaries, unlike corporate walls. But that's the nature of community and its difference from corporations; and it also points to the great difficulty of commodifying the productive community. One can easily put a price on a corporation. Corporate boundaries exist, in part, just for that reason. A peer network, on the other hand, cannot be priced--and indeed, perhaps the historical record of the transition from commons to property can provide a useful analogy--I'm thinking of the British enclosure movement, which more or less is coeval with the rise of the modern liberal (and propertied) state. But that shift was literally violent, and there seems to be (so far?) little violence associated with free software and any migration it might undergo to privatization. In part, that's no doubt because free- and open-source software *starts* from a position of property. It's not a denial of property nor of any of its rights. Rather, it's an extension of it, but instead of limiting access, open source enables it; by the same token, it limits how one can privatize it, and some licenses are more hostile to privatization than others.

As individuals, when we join a community, we thus have to be clear as to what will happen to the intellectual property we contribute: who owns it and for how long? That is, will rights revert to me? And what can I claim about my contribution? But these questions pertain more to copyright assignment. Some community projects require contributors, for one reason or another, to assign the copyright of their contribution to the project. Usually, "the project" means the governing and organizing foundation that will then disinterestedly manage all contributions. (Ideally, the foundation is not beholden to a primary corporation/contributor/sponsor. If it were, there would likely be a failure--or at least questioning--of trust.) We then join productive communities and participate as essentially rational beings (in the classical economic sense), able not only to understand the (immediate and longterm) value of our contribution but able also to act rationally on that basis. Of course, that, like most other planks making up the classical economic ship is fiction. Indeed, part of the lure of community is precisely to get us to act exuberantly (famous word....): in excess of reason--but also in a way that fulfills our enthusiasm.

I tend to believe that for a great many, it's as much the love of what community offers as the value one invests that makes "community" now so immensely important--even regardless whether the community in question is a production or consuming one. (Disclosure: my current work relates to what I've done all my life, only in a more effective and refined way: making community, and using--as needed and strategically [fancy way of saying, "with some idea of what I'm doing"] the ever-evolving social media tools, coupled with another key driver for me, "marketing.") And I also tend to believe that our love of community is sort of like our love of and ability to use--our capability for--language, especially as Chomsky would present it: as something essential to being human. And you cannot carve that quality into quantity and price it, though you can--and this is done all the time--price specific instances.

But identifying and then applying, and doing so consistently and coherently, the boundaries making up a community, especially one that is characterized as economically essential to the production of a commodity sold by a private company, and distinguishing those boundaries from one's own is difficult. It's easy to say, "If you do something on company time, it's the company's." But if you are fully salaried, there is no moment in time when you are not operating on company time and representing the company. Some company's will allott you private time, say, or loosen the legal identity so that you can represent yourself as yourself, without implicating the company in any way. But that's a rarity, though I expect the logic of community participation social media has made and is making possible will force a change in that. Kravtiz' instance is an interesting case, and it's not by any means unique.

For if the historical corporation "owned" your time and implicitly all you did, and therefore all your representations, at least as long as you were employed by them (and for whatever period after you agreed to), the modern corporation must now also deal not only with your multiple engagements, via social media but also, arguably, what you did prior to your employment. (It's Calvinism/Puritanism yet again.) The company can simply decree that no blogs, no Tweets, no other equivalent public communication is permitted without authorization. That will naturally dampen enthusiasm, but the company that decrees that sort of policy also clearly does not really see any value gained by enthusiastic speech. Or, the company can articulate a nuanced approach, and some speech is the employees and other is not. How do--or should--shareholders then view the private rantings of a senior executive? Of course, such an executive is probably a fool for ranting publicly in the first place, modern technology or not; but move it down a notch and the question remains as a fact. Shareholder value is frequently determined by the actions and speech of the company decision makers and producers, and evaluating speech extra-mural speech makes the overall valuation of the company more difficult. It's not unlike the situation of the late 90s, when a company's worth was determined by how many page hits--eyeballs--it received, even if revenue was hardly commensurate with popularity. The belief was that at some future date, the page hit would translate to hard cash. A blog post or Tweet is quite different, but it still suggests a dimension of valuation that is must be appreciated on its own terms and which cannot easily be converted--metrically or any other way--to coins. (This is not an argument *for* privacy as such; it's rather an observation that community today is a manifold unsettling traditional, fixed and bounded corporate modes of valuation. And that this new modality of creating value--the community way--implies virtues that potentially exceed the traditional.)

‘Developing Latin America’: Open Data Projects · Global Voices

2011-12-29T10:39:00.000-05:00

‘Developing Latin America’: Open Data Projects · Global Voices

Perhaps because I was born in Mexico and lived there (DF) for many years, and perhaps because so much of my family anchors there--or perhaps because Latin America--not just Brazil--is so immensely important to this century's present and future, that I find this article, and the concerted efforts to realize the potentials of open source, open data, open access so very affirming.

Open Source - Generic Tools - COSI 'Open' Government

2011-12-24T00:08:00.000-05:00

Open Source - Generic Tools - COSI 'Open' Government

COSI is an important endeavour, and this list it has posted may be both a little dated and hardly complete but it is nevertheless very useful. But let's consider the future. All at some point will be tablet or dumb terminal related; the beefy desktop installed into our lives by IBM and MSFT 30 years ago will dissipate in the glare of the future. Open standards and open data will be of paramount importance, else the apps that run on the tablets and terminals won't be able to communicate with each other and we'll be babbling, at some cost, too. Open source builds the implementations that express the data and allow it be manipulated. And some things will be open source but not all. It will depend upon circumstance, market interest, and everything else that makes for risk in the real world of commodities and communities.

Query: Where are the risk models for open source products? Let's say that I devise such a model; it need not be open source, of course, as I could charge people its use..... I think it would prove very popular. And so I wonder if there are not already such in circulation at VC firms.

Productivity Suite: Email / Calendar Solution

2011-12-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

Productivity Suite: Email / Calendar Solution

Compelling reading, in particular for the key points itemized.

NVDA

2011-12-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

NVDA

I had heard about NVDA at an accessibility conference a short while ago but had not had the chance to test it. It's open source, and free (as in cost), and supposedly only so far works with Windows(TM), and that's a shame. Given the range of projects to work on, and given the satisfaction to be gained, as well as the market value--well, I should think that porting it to Linux, or Mac OS X would make sense.

Or even, to extend the idea, having a Web-based service that does this. I'm ignorant here, and as I type, am not doing the needed research. But does a screen reader exist for, say, Google Apps? For iCloud? The scenario I envisage is that a person has a tablet; she or he may not even have a visual disability but could, say, be dyslexic or not even particularly fluent in reading. The tablet does not support Windows (digression: are there apps that do screen reading on a sophisticated level for Android, iOS? There must be....beyond what is already in iOS, with which I'm most familiar), nor iOS but does Android or an equivalent Linux-based system, such as Meego.

How is this person to navigate the Web using the tablet? And suppose she is not even dyslexic but simply aged, and so cannot read very well because no matter what the font, it's too small and blurry. Would we (those who live in society: all of us, minus the outliers currently running--certainly not standing--for the Republic nomination in the US) really want to consign this very large population to having to buy licensed software? Wouldn't the cost to society, or even just to the affected persons be extraordinary?

Think about it: The baby boom generation's oldest have breached 65, and despite their best efforts, their bodies are falling apart and that process will accelerate as they get older. Many are now already using computers and many more will start using tablets, as they will shortly prove to be consistently cheaper and even, for most uses, easier to work with.

It's a large and so far mostly untapped market; but it's a market that can only come into being if some things are made freely available, like paving roads so that people can then go to the shopping malls.

ACTA Adopted By EU Governments, Now in EU Parliament's Hands | La Quadrature du Net

2011-12-14T10:01:00.000-05:00

ACTA Adopted By EU Governments, Now in EU Parliament's Hands | La Quadrature du Net

Acta is not insignificant and does affect regular consumers and producers of just about anything that can be commodified and traded over the Internet, as well as other media. Read the synopses on the page, and express yourself.

HP's webOS is going Open Source. Now what? | ZDNet

2011-12-12T12:05:00.000-05:00

HP's webOS is going Open Source. Now what? | ZDNet

I tend to side with Jason that Apache would make a fine home for webOS. But who will actually develop the code? Coding for substantial projects actually requires substantial investment, however distributed. Volunteers--those who will devote time and energy without pay now or ever--can only do so much and it is not likely that an enterprise, say, would welcome the idea of depending on a volunteer group to sustain an OS it may come to depend upon. So, to develop something that may become pivotal to enterprise usage of the Cloud, say, requires companies and developers to recognise that it makes business sense, not just gives pleasure, to develop (code and all the project engagement implied) something as seemingly belated as webOS. Belated, for the market for tablets and smartthings is already dominated by iOS and Android, and the peripheries by such meritorious OSes as Meego, for instance, and other Linux-based systems. To be sure, webOS has some rather unique and even compelling features--Jason itemises these--but is that enough?

I'd be interested to learn what HP plans. I am sure I'm not alone. I should hope that it recognises that webOS if properly managed would bridge the huge gulf that's so very apparent to all who simply look: Tablets, dominated by iOS and its wannabes, are consumer commodities, still. Their UI is unforgiving to most enterprise use, and that includes education use.

But tablets are the only real option for future computer use. Everything else larger than a phone is too costly in the aggregate: Uses too many resources to make, distribute, maintain, whereas a tablet linked to mesh network (or even cloud, but I prefer p2p meshes) requires far fewer resources in the making and use (less energy to use, for instance). Numerous other benefits are obvious, not least of which is that the tablet is likely to last longer. But we are not there yet. At present, there are something like 1 billion computer users, and most I'd guess use fairly old desktop machines. These will be replaced with better, more efficient devices (most of the old ones will doubtless do their bit to add to global pollution, landfill, heavy-metal poisoning, and so on), but there will also be another two or even three billion coming to the table in the next decade, if not sooner. Plus: more children than ever before and fewer teachers with fewer classrooms with fewer educational resources all married to a changing social structure that, for environmental as well as social reasons is marginalising traditional livelihoods and teaching methods make for a reliance on modern technologies. These include distance learning and, yes, tablets.

Or at least modified tablets, those that can be worked on and are not designed as consumer objects. And webOS fits that bill. It is quintessentially an OS for productivity, not for entertainment. Coupled to a device that supports the usual means of input ("keyboard" or equivalent), and modified to include an ODF editor, webOS could quickly come to dominate the new market--the Real Politik--for real productivity tools for all.

7 Free Office Tools to Save Non-Profits Money

2011-12-08T00:34:00.000-05:00

7 Free Office Tools to Save Non-Profits Money

It's always striking to see how the press (aka media) normally only thinks of open source and the American consumer/business in the context of poverty: as if, If you cannot afford the good stuff, settle for this, the free junk.

Elsewhere that is not always the story. The narrative is as often about "freedom" (remember that?) and what that implies: being able to do things (innovate, again, remember?) that are not proscribed and prescribed. Open source, and in particular something like OOo, gives users the freedom to do things that are out of bounds.

Put another way, for open source, consumer freedom (not having to pay) is coupled with developer freedom. To be sure, in many regions of the world, especially in those where markets are tight and where the luxury of being able to choose freely is rare, the primary mode of engaging open source is using it without the fear or cost of (un)licensed software. And where there is the wealth to engage in the market as a free agent, alone or as part of an organisation, then there is the freedom to do that can be acted upon. I envision that as government sees the benefits of strategic investment, we'll see more and more developer groups. Sustainability, of this sort, more than saves money: innovation makes money.

Open Document Format updated to fix spreadsheets • The Register

2011-10-03T17:07:00.000-04:00

Open Document Format updated to fix spreadsheets • The Register:

'via Blog this'

... and a lot more to come with ODF next---1.3, that is.

Inside the World's Largest Embassy | Mother Jones

2011-10-01T19:53:00.000-04:00

Inside the World's Largest Embassy | Mother Jones:

'via Blog this'

it's a witty article, and it highlights the problem those of us wanting more accountability and transparency in the public sector see: tax monies vanishing into the mystery of exigency.

Gamers succeed where scientists fail: Molecular structure of retrovirus enzyme solved, doors open to new AIDS drug design

2011-09-19T10:54:00.000-04:00

Gamers succeed where scientists fail: Molecular structure of retrovirus enzyme solved, doors open to new AIDS drug design

.... as in: crowdsourcing, even where the result is quite sophisticated, works. Of course, one needs experts to determine the value of the results, but the point of crowdsourcing is precisely that it has little to do with the content (with what the information does), only the form, how it works and works with other like elements.

A brilliant novel that explores this, in politics, computer technology, and neurolinguistics, is Dreams of Glass, alas the only novel published by the author. The heroine solves fiendishly difficult problems purely on the basis of form; content is not just beside the point, but hostile to the solution: makes for distractions. Intelligence, artificial or not, is all about form, in this vision. The thing is, that's probably so, but the content of form is infinite for the human mind (or as close to infinite as I can gather), meaning it generates formal categories ad hoc, depending on the intelligence required.

Open Wonderland supports drag-and-drop docs – Hypergrid Business

2011-09-12T16:31:00.000-04:00

Open Wonderland supports drag-and-drop docs – Hypergrid Business

Quite interesting....

As well, I was looking at and playing with the OS X app, Bean, which saves in ODF (ODT).

http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

Doors of Perception weblog: Open Season on Dutch Cultural Innovation

2011-09-09T16:29:00.000-04:00

Doors of Perception weblog: Open Season on Dutch Cultural Innovation:

The point: cuts by the NL gov't Arts Minister dumps into the abyss important efforts to reconceive and then implement inclusive design notions (accessibility) and environments that do not encourage mobility.

Given that these are really globally important topics and of benefit if realized to the entire world, and that Dutch innovators stand to profit handsomely, it seems not just short sighted to cut the seed funding but downright dumb.

Should Adobe Embrace Open Source? | ZDNet

2011-09-08T16:51:00.000-04:00

Should Adobe Embrace Open Source? | ZDNet:

Adobe already does embrace Foss. The issue really seems to be, Should Adobe open source key products? And the answer is: unless it has a specific reason to, and a good plan on how, and the funds to implement it, no.

It's not hard to come up with good reasons. One being that the open source community of developers and users is an excellent complement to traditional marketing, especially when the market long dominated by the vendor is under pressure from more modern technologies. In this scenario, by open sourcing, say, Flash, or whatever, Adobe keeps itself relevant to those opting now for alternative technologies, including those promoted by Apple.

But the problem of open sourcing proprietary technology lies less in the mechanics of license than in staying ahead of competitors. What would be gained, in terms of sales, revenue, profit, by open sourcing Flash? Is an uncertain expansion of the market sufficiently compensatory? Would it--could it--lead to proprietary licensing revenue? That would imply that any open sourcing of X makes sense only if there is proprietary X' in the wings for those willing to pay for it or if there is a license condition triggered by commercial but not personal usage.

I tend to think that this argument, or nest of them, is not sufficient. I'd rather propose the development of technologies that can take advantage of the evolving forms. Right now, it's not entirely clear what technologies will come out on top, and it's by no means clear that Adobe should position itself as the leader.

Look to Apple, in this case, for a model. It refrained from leaping into the smartphone jungle (and earlier, into the mp3 one) until the trend of technology was clear. Then it entered with style. And consumers then only had to choose among style options--not technology options. (That is, it was not a choice among incompatibilities, as mp3 plays everywhere, but among the style of devices, with the quality adding a frisson of goodness but in and of itself determinative. Indeed, Apple's earbuds infamously suck, and it's not unusual to find oneself having bought a device whose glass shatters, whose phone capability is woeful, and so on: quality takes a second seat to style, and oddly becomes relevant as a testament only when it is good; when it is bad, its not there at all.)

So, I'd suggest to continue with the status quo while meanwhile developing open technologies that can leapfrog over the morass of the present to keep Adobe relevant for future users, where "future" simply means, "next year or 2013." (Once, the future was the year 2000, but that now is so last century, and there is no future left to replace what we've lost, there's only the inevitability of what we know will happen.)

50 Open Source Replacements for Popular Financial Software - Datamation

2011-09-05T22:21:00.000-04:00

50 Open Source Replacements for Popular Financial Software - Datamation:

Was perusing the options for financial modelling.....

Cable: US pressured EU to approve Oracle-Sun merger - Software - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au

2011-09-03T00:31:00.000-04:00

Cable: US pressured EU to approve Oracle-Sun merger - Software - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au:

Fascinating.

Defence bolsters search for open source software - Software - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au

2011-09-03T00:06:00.000-04:00

Defence bolsters search for open source software - Software - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au:

I probably already posted on this but I was going over the political situation in Australia (problematic) and considering the likelihood of what I consider both simply pragmatic and also progressive governmental efforts, like this. It's pragmatic for the reasons that opting for ODF always is: flexibility, cost, ease of implementation. And it's progressive in the classic sense: increases participatory democracy. So for these reasons, my pessimism finds itself in conflict with my general optimism and belief that things really are getting better, though they'll probably find a way first of getting a lot worse.

Defence conducts OpenOffice.org trial | Delimiter

2011-08-31T00:25:00.000-04:00

Defence conducts OpenOffice.org trial | Delimiter:

No doubt all have seen this......

Major OpenOffice.org Deployments - OpenOffice.org Wiki

2011-08-04T08:56:00.000-04:00

Major OpenOffice.org Deployments - OpenOffice.org Wiki

I was looking at this lately and realized--not hard--how out of date it is. If anyone has more current information, that'd be great. I'd also like to have a category docketing ODF installations, irrespective of actual implementation but identifying them. A good database for that, probably.

IBM crams Lotus Symphony back into OpenOffice • The Register

2011-07-14T16:55:00.000-04:00

IBM crams Lotus Symphony back into OpenOffice • The Register

Yay.

To be honest, I've long worked with Rob and Don and others, and I'm delighted to see the strong contribution... and to continue working with them, on ODF, and now increasingly on OpenOffice....

Time to join.

Microsoft open sources code to calm wifi snooping fears- The Inquirer

2011-07-13T16:58:00.000-04:00

Microsoft open sources code to calm wifi snooping fears- The Inquirer

Open source leads, it would seem for MSFT, not only to the appearance, but quite plausibly to the reality of demonstrable security (if not necessarily superior).

Working With An Opendocument Format Odt File Video Tutorial | Web Dev World | Independent Archive

2011-07-13T13:20:00.000-04:00

Working With An Opendocument Format Odt File Video Tutorial | Web Dev World | Independent Archive

This looks interesting. Haven't seen it before, and would be curious to learn how people like the video and site.

AT: Department of Justice's migration to OpenOffice a success story —

2011-07-04T17:47:00.000-04:00

AT: Department of Justice's migration to OpenOffice a success story —

Also of great interest--and also a really excellent candidate for a case study.

PT: Consensus among political parties on open source and open standards in the Public Administration —

2011-07-04T17:43:00.000-04:00

PT: Consensus among political parties on open source and open standards in the Public Administration —

This is immensely encouraging. I've worked--or tried to--with and in Portugal for many years trying to move the public administration to open standards (ODF) and also OOo, as the best implementation of the ODF.

That there is finally traction is great; but I wait to see the actual results before I get really jubilant.

Like in Mexico, Parliaments Must Reject ACTA | La Quadrature du Net

2011-06-23T12:32:00.000-04:00

Like in Mexico, Parliaments Must Reject ACTA | La Quadrature du Net

The vote by Mexico's Senate is quite interesting. I will look into who voted, as well as what effect it would have. My guess is that it's a "safe" vote, meaning it will have minimal effect. But it really ought to: ACTA has hidden and even obvious problems, and its likely effect is not to promote culture and cultural discourse--dont' we want those things?--but its opposite.

And yet, now is the time, now more than ever, to have as much discourse and all that comes from it, like entrepreneurs wanting to make money out of ideas whose cleverness can only become manifest in discussion. And it's not not just about software. Never before, it seems to me, have we--people--been faced with such challenges and also possessed of such tools to deal with them; and yet given the fire of Prometheus, we wish to douse it, precisely because it is valuable.

A Microsoft Horror Story: Newspaper Chain Is Switching 8,500 Employees To Google Apps

2011-06-20T19:55:00.000-04:00

A Microsoft Horror Story: Newspaper Chain Is Switching 8,500 Employees To Google Apps

Not surprising.

And now, the McClatchy news team will be able, if they want, I suppose, to save to ODF.

And then save even more money and time and future sweat by opting to use OpenOffice.org.

IBM Press room - 2011-06-01 IBM to Contribute to New, Proposed OpenOffice.org Project - United States

2011-06-02T09:52:00.000-04:00

IBM Press room - 2011-06-01 IBM to Contribute to New, Proposed OpenOffice.org Project - United States

This is the official IBM statement regarding the proposed inclusion of OOo into Apache.

Statements on OpenOffice.org Contribution to Apache

2011-06-01T13:29:00.000-04:00

Statements on OpenOffice.org Contribution to Apache

Oracle just announced--in classic oracular fashion--its proposal to contribute OOo code to Apache. Lots of questions, such as: who owns the code and trademark? What about the core developers--the ones who happen to live in Hamburg?--and what will be the ongoing status of the existing OpenOffice.org community? It's not small, it is large, it's not inactive, it is doing things. And it now also has lots of really important questions.

So, I invite Jim Jagielski, of Apache, and the proposed polling mentor for OOo during its mentoring process, to engage with us, the OpenOffice.org community. And I also want to lay a simple ground rule: Enough of secrecy.

Watch Now - Al Jazeera English

2011-05-20T00:47:00.001-04:00

Watch Now - Al Jazeera English

The programme is @AJStream, and it was exciting to see people I know--Biella Coleman--being interviewed, as well as to listen to an animated discussion on subjects near and dear.

Inside Views: Brazil’s Copyright Reform: Schizophrenia? | Intellectual Property Watch

2011-05-19T09:25:00.000-04:00

Inside Views: Brazil’s Copyright Reform: Schizophrenia? | Intellectual Property Watch

Immensely useful context regarding the shift in posture from Lula to his hand-picked successor, Dima Rousseff. When I saw her inaugural speech, I was cheered by her declaration, loud, clear, and welcomed by all there, that the future lay in, and that the government would promote ICT development. Given the history of the Lula regime's advocacy of open source, via Gilberto Gil's expansive vision and actions, I had the notion that this meant more not less endorsement of open source.

I was wrong. It seems really to have meant: Let's bring back neoliberalism and make our country a yet better market for big multinationals operating without real concern for local markets; and lets close the door to open knowledge, open technologies, open source.

Brazil’s Copyright Reform: Are We All Josef K.? | Intellectual Property Watch

2011-05-19T09:19:00.000-04:00

Brazil’s Copyright Reform: Are We All Josef K.? | Intellectual Property Watch

How this affects OOo is not necessarily obvious. But a simple account is that if under Lula there was an open door, and even an invitation to open source and to the communities enabling and supporting them, under his successor and more to the point, under the new Minister of Culture, the approach has quite changed. Gilberto Gil, the former minister, understood the benefits--cultural, social, economic--of open source; if Juca Ferreira does, that is not evident at all, at least not in any positive way.

The result is--or could be, absent actual and effective protests by those most affected by the shift in posture, is that the resistance to open source is that much stronger, and the resurgence of neoliberalism shamelessly enabled.

But what about the Novell effort on the office suite?

2011-05-18T16:54:00.001-04:00

Attachmate's Brauckmann takes control of SUSE Linux • The Register

It's unclear: is Attachmate eliminating the effort or not? How crucial is it, as a revenue generator?

Microsoft welcomes CentOS Linux onto virtualized Windows • The Register

2011-05-18T09:57:00.000-04:00

Microsoft welcomes CentOS Linux onto virtualized Windows • The Register

A fairly good analysis of the strategy MSFT is engaging in here with Linux. The interesting things is that CentOS is a community effort, not a corporate synthetic, a departure for MSFT, as Gavin points out. By supporting CentOS, MSFT secures its market, coming and going.

But how to persuade away from the MSFT lure? it' snot just about open source. It's about, now, the usual: business, to be sure, but also, and this is rather important, establishing a network able to work with a variety of vendor environments, and to consider, seriously, subsequent developments. For instance, what formats, what apps, what other opportunities will be wanted and developed?

Open source .NET mimic rises from Novell ashes • The Register

2011-05-17T09:06:00.000-04:00

Open source .NET mimic rises from Novell ashes • The Register

Hard not to consider this development interesting. And I'm also curious about Microsoft investment in Xamarian, the new de Icaza gig. This is not an area of indignation or FUD. It's curiosity about business politics. I'm intrigued by the map of proxies we see developing. Proxies have always added gravitational surprises to any otherwise predictable field, as they tend to operate with a funded agenda that affects markets. So, it's worth knowing about them.

All that said, I do wish Miguel and his fine team the best of luck and good fortune!

Free Software & law related links 30. IV. 2011 - 06. V. 2011 | Hook's Humble Homepage

2011-05-09T02:41:00.000-04:00

Free Software & law related links 30. IV. 2011 - 06. V. 2011 | Hook's Humble Homepage

I have been following this blog's contents for some time, but this last week has proven particularly interesting, so I post Matija's excellent links here. I'll start making it a regular thing, to post "Hook's Humble Homepage," or the blog of FSFE Deputy Legal Coordinator Matija Šuklje.

.NET Android and iOS clones stripped by Attachmate • The Register

2011-05-04T11:01:00.000-04:00

.NET Android and iOS clones stripped by Attachmate • The Register

This does not come as a surprise. What is interesting now, is to wonder what will happen to Novell's longtime effort to parallel OpenOffice.org code. (LibreOffice is, as far as I can tell, Novell's version, and Ubuntu has, for a long time, distributed Novell's vesion; it now does the same with LibreOffice.) Should Novell effectively withdraw--which I expect--then what will happen to LO and Ubuntu's distribution? Users will not benefit. Even though the critique of LibreOffice (and prior to that, Novell's version) has always been related to its QA (something we at OOo do particularly well, if with some overzealous vigour), still, I hardly want to see the consumer base suffer, for it affects us all in the open source world, when disruptions like this unsettle consumer expectations.

Indeed, it's been my grief that the division enacted by The Document Foundation adn LO has precisely fed into the narrative long held and maintained by those enemies of Foss that it is unpredictable, uncertain, and ultimately uneconomical: a bad decision, suitable at best for the Ivory Tower crowd or those crazy freetards in California.

Bill Blackbeard, Champion of Comic Strips, Dies at 84 - NYTimes.com

2011-05-01T17:49:00.001-04:00

Bill Blackbeard, Champion of Comic Strips, Dies at 84 - NYTimes.com

Without Blackbeard's obsession, the rich history of comic book narrative would likely be lost, at best converted to microfilm, which is not in colour and detestable to study, let alone read for pleasure.

Preserving the originals preserves, to a degree, the original pleasure and beauty of the form. And the technology today allows us to capture the colour of the original panes. But what format do we choose to save these in? One of the virtues of the analogue ink on paper format is that it does not demand special technology to perceive. The mix of chemicals producing the effect may be proprietary but that only affects the producer, not the consumer. Not so modern edocument technology.

So we need, in order to preserve our cultural history and moment, an open technology and open standard that does not discriminate but that makes available to any artist, any person, the archive. Otherwise, we bankrupt our culture.

Bill Blackbeard, Champion of Comic Strips, Dies at 84 - NYTimes.com

2011-05-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

Bill Blackbeard, Champion of Comic Strips, Dies at 84 - NYTimes.com

Microsoft gets Novell's Patents rights but must share them with Open-Source Software | ZDNet

2011-04-21T18:33:00.000-04:00

Microsoft gets Novell's Patents rights but must share them with Open-Source Software | ZDNet:

This analysis--more a summary, I suppose--is useful. What will happen a) to Novell post Attachmate (and thus to Novell's work on, for instance, OOo, now LibreOffice), is worth wondering about. With the agreement signed by Novell and MIcrosoft signed back in 2006, Novell's work on OOo and its release of the same, became little more, as far as I can tell, than a proxy for MSFT, a way for MSFT both to expand its base and secure its customers. Why did it have to do this? Because the ODF and OOo were gaining significant share not only of the productivity suite market but the one to come, and that latter one is far larger than the current.

I'm not dismissing or disparaging the efforts of the developers working on the code or providing their contributions in the LO camp; they are good people and hardly consider themselves, I dare say, agents or proxies for MSFT or anyone--that's one reason they formed LO, I understand. But in the calculus of divide and conquer, who wins?

I'd like to make sure that divisions do not lead to conquest, and that those that exist are, as much as is possible, reconciled. Too much is at stake. Over the last ten plus years, we've moved from being "the alternative" to something innovative and new. We've created a new market, the ODF market, which does not depend on any one vendor.

CeBIT Open Source Forum 2011 - Linux Magazine Online

2011-04-17T21:49:00.000-04:00

CeBIT Open Source Forum 2011 - Linux Magazine Online

More particularly, a video of my talk is at:

http://www.techcast.com/events/cebit11/di10

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register

2011-04-14T11:43:00.000-04:00

More from the article. What is crucial here, for me, as an ODF advocate, and as a realist, is policies mandating open standards (and those that can actually be implemented by a range of vendors). Thus, Silber:

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register: "At a recent Cabinet Office forum for system integrators, there were some striking examples of open source being used in the public sector, according to Silber. Bristol City Council, for example, has achieved 50 per cent cost savings by using open source, and the National Digital Resource Bank reported an IT spend reduction of 98 per cent.

The Cabinet Office is in the middle of an informal consultation on open standards in IT. Asked what she’d like to see come out of the process, Silber has no hesitation, especially in the light of Bristol City Council having to re-install Windows because of compatibility issues.

“Some really strong statements of support for requirements to support open standards should be included,” she says. “Compliance really ought to be mandated. The government seems to have a good understanding of open source software’s potential. It is time we saw this turn into action.”"

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register

2011-04-14T11:41:00.000-04:00

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register

Jane Silber of Canonical makes the key point, one that is true in many, many places around the world:

But it doesn’t seem to work that way. Jane Silber, chief executive of Ubuntu’s commercial champion Canonical, has a feeling that open source is used as a negotiating tool but that its benefits are not always taken into account.

“I’d like to think open source has a value other than as a negotiating tool,” she says. “There has been some good progress in getting it considered. The government is doing some things with procurement laws to encourage system integrators to include open source in proposals.

“But it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. The system integrators can’t offer it if the public sector isn’t asking for it, and the public sector can’t buy it if it isn’t on the tender.”

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog » Blog Archive » What do you think about Norway’s new open data license?

2011-04-13T10:13:00.000-04:00

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog » Blog Archive » What do you think about Norway’s new open data license?

I follow the Open Knowledge Foundation and its blogs... and also keenly interested in the categories related to open access, knowledge, source and the tools by which these can be made meaningfully open: accessible and usable by all.

It's not meaningful to claim that information must be free. It is meaningful to say that to be free you must have information.

SmartGov Live 2011 - Open Government

2011-04-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

SmartGov Live 2011 - Open Government

JAPANESE RED CROSS SOCIETY｜Japan／Earthquake　Donation

2011-03-16T09:21:00.000-04:00

JAPANESE RED CROSS SOCIETY｜Japan／Earthquake　Donation

I, along with many of the OpenOffice.org and ODF communities have friends in Japan. News of their well-being is trickling in. But thousands lost their lives, and many, many more lost their homes, possessions, their ways of life. The 9.0 earthquake and the continuing nuclear catastrophe has global dimensions, and Japan should be lauded for accepting international support.

Please help. Everything is needed. The best and easiest way for those of us remote to help those on the ground is via the Red Cross, and I've put a link for donations at the top here.

Donate, please.

Temblor

2011-03-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

Iwoke this morning to the horror of learning of the huge temblor that hit Honshu 14:46 local. That nothing can prepare for such a massive release of energy goes without saying. That the Japanese have yet done more than any other people to anticipate is to their credit! But so far likely hundreds have died, ad no doubt thousands injured, and millions horribly affected.

Among them I dread to think are my--our--friends from OOo. We, the Community working on OOo, are deeply concerned. Over the last ten years, the dedication and commitment shown by the Japanese OOo community has never flagged and always inspired.

However the rest of the global OOo community can help, let us know.

Authoring Interoperable ODF Documents

2011-03-11T14:05:00.000-05:00

Authoring Interoperable ODF Documents

I work with Rob Weir on two Oasis TCs, the Adoption and OIC, and his comments, insight--writing--are invaluable. His latest post merits review.

Open-source software is actually more secure for health care IT, study suggests

2011-03-10T22:49:00.000-05:00

Open-source software is actually more secure for health care IT, study suggests

Not new but yet more evidence.

WebODF

2011-03-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

WebODF

So, I learned about this at CeBIT--more on that later--and think it's worth inquiry.

I invite the developer--or in the plural, developers--to consider collaborating with us, and with others to make the ODF mobile and actually relevant to this year and century.

Manila Standard Today -- Schools take the open road -- 2011/march/8

2011-03-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

Manila Standard Today -- Schools take the open road -- 2011/march/8

This is great news. But it is, as with so many good news items coming from the Philippines, coming to me by accident. There is no formal apparatus--that is, reliable--for notifying us of significant OOo or ODF usage. When we do learn of things like this, we try to itemize them on our "Major OpenOffice.org Deployments," and I invite the schools in the Philippines to do that: it's a wiki.

I have long advocated and promoted the idea of regional groups which would, among other things, inform the rest of the OOo communities of actions like this. Why is this important? Because public and private sector organizations generally shy from taking bold actions until they learn of others' having done pretty much what they want, first. In short, they need case studies.

As well, the ecosystems developed by government deployments--schools, for instance--develop a new market that enables more companies' actions; risk, clearly, is diminished.

India Steps Forward as Africa Seeks Academic Aid - NYTimes.com

2011-02-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

India Steps Forward as Africa Seeks Academic Aid - NYTimes.com

Never before have there been so many children and never before have so many needed the kind of education found in schoolhouses. The move from farm to city has introduced problems that go far beyond crowds of children housed in decrepit rooms with primitive tools and technology, outdated books, overworked (and poorly trained or worse) teachers. There may be no schoolroom at all, no book, no tools, no computer, no teacher. And producing the rooms, the tools, the teacher costs a lot of money. What is more, it is no longer just the Three Rs (Reading, 'Riiting, 'Rithmetic); it's also now using computer technology, whatever that may mean--but it's important. If the 3Rs give the recipient the sufficient ability to engage in the urban economy as a productive agent, they fall short too often when part of becoming productive now means being able to work with if not on a computer, to programme it, say, or even more simply, to understand what it can do, as a tool of production, not simply as a vehicle for more consumption.

The solution here is not simply provided by pointing to OpenOffice.org and the OpenDocument Format (ODF). That is a start. Proprietary solutions as such are not acceptable for so many. And if this demands a recalculation of what is in the public's interest, what is the Res Publica, and what is not, then that is a conversation that must be held.

About Global Public Inclusive Infrastructures (GPIIs) | gpii.org

2011-02-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

About Global Public Inclusive Infrastructures (GPIIs) | gpii.org

I've long urged more attention to accessibility issues and technology, especially for Foss. Indeed, the current logic of adding, post hoc, accessibility features, is wrong. It ought to be something done at the outset, as a basic principal upon which all other things are built. That's because "accessibility" really ought to be reconsidered as "universal design" or the design of things (not just technology) that can be used by all.

This is a crucial point. The billions coming to modern technology--telephone's and TV's and the (very hostile) typewriter's progeny--should not be forced into the shape conceived of at the end of the 19th century and designed more as a means of disciplining the young, healthy, body.

The ODF, as the chief open standard for documents, is leading the front here, and OOo, as the leading open source office suite, is profoundly important to the point.

Updates

2011-02-10T15:50:00.000-05:00

I have some news: I've left Oracle. But I have not left OpenOffice.org and so remain deeply involved in the project and in the promotion of the OpenDocument Format, or ODF. In fact, my focus, my efforts are strengthened by my newfound independence.

And the timing for this is good—for me, for the community, for the Project, for the ODF campaign. Decisions rolling tens of millions of dollars (and every other national currency you can count) into the future stand poised as the latest release, OpenOffice.org 3.3, is evaluated not just for what it can do now to replace the alternative (laugh) but how it will work with future technologies—like mobile devices, most obviously, but also in other sectors I invite the community to imagine and suggest.

We need to drive our vision of openness—open code, open standards—into a future that can be realized sooner than later. The ODF is not just about office documents, I've long held. (And what even really counts as an "office document"? Is a video embedded in a presentation a movie, a cartoon, or an over-the-top business presentation given by a marketing executive? There are no boundaries, only conventions.) The ODF is about standardizing the expression of data so that implementations from this or that vendor can work with the file. It's about, as we have long repeated, no vendor lock in. And that is a statement that defies time's passage, for an open standard is not owned by one company but maintained by a consortium. It is open to all, the future included.

Not all the work I want can be done on OpenOffice.org; not all is suitable for the Project and not all ought to be there. Focus is important, else nothing gets done. OpenOffice.org is about, well, OpenOffice.org and the technology that makes up the suite, which can, of course, always be extended. But, that immensely useful suite is but one, if key, implementation of the ODF. Many others support or fully implement it. More to the point, there is also, for the development of ODF support per se is done, the ODF Toolkit Union, or, if that is also not suitable, I have no doubt that some other host can be found that is. At this point in our maturity, there is no difficulty finding the right host.

I own an iPad and when my MacBook Pro crashed *twice* last year (logic board failure then total HD death and actual data loss; Apple was magnificent, btw, in recompensing me as much as it could), my iPad became my primary computer, and it did great. But I had real difficulty working with ODF files on it. In fact, I couldn't easily do it. I could use a virtualization app, but it was uselessly slow for writing and reading ODF files. Another app, FileApp Pro, was better for viewing files, but it also needed serious improvement.

So, last month, I contacted the company making FileApp Pro—I do this sort of thing all the time, contact companies working on ODF or OOo technology (another one I contacted, much to my delight, it turns out, was the Norwegian Open Framework Systems, as, or OFS.no, which has a quite brilliant Web app that expresses by default data in ODF; they have since joined Oasis, which maintains the ODF, and will participate in the upcoming 5th ODF plugfest to be held in Maidenhead, UK, not far outside of London, this 24-25 Feb.). After some busy pauses, Vic, of DigiDNA, got back to me and explained the problems his lead engineer faces in creating an editor for ODF on the iOS. (An ODF editor for Android is also under development, and I've previously blogged on it. I invited the developers to the ODF plugfest, but they have not replied yet. Let's hope they do and can in fact make it. Certainly, they ought to. As well, at last year's Budapest OOoCon, where we held another plugfest, Nokia demonstrated an ODF editor for the N900. Do you have one of them? Does anyone? I don't, but if someone wants me to examine it, and write shill-worthy praise, I can supply my postal address.)

I'll shortly be sending the note DigiDNA sent me on to developers--even posting it to this blog will be a start, I'd imagine. But here's the issue: DigiDNA does not have the resources and is not the right company to make such an app. Its focus is on rendering file formats, and it does that very well. (FileApp Pro is worth the money.) But editing is another thing altogether. I'm not suggesting plunking OOo on the device. You don't need to. I am saying that one can have a minimal editor of ODF files that could be saved in ODF or even in .txt. OOo (or any other suitable implementation) can do the rest.

Who would use this app? Let's start with schools. And let's go beyond that. As more and more government offices migrate to ODF, or think about it, they also think about how mobile devices will work with their plans. Everyone knows that the future—the now plus one day, really—is mobile. Desktops will stay, of course, just as the TV is still around, despite the Internet. Mobile devices will complement desktops; they already are (see my own story above). But I'd guess that many government buyers are thinking, when they consider the ODF, "Where's the mobile solution?"

I think we some collaborative effort we can give a good answer---to this, and to other such questions. Some of the work will fit within the OOo project, other won't. But it and all the related work answering the future needs to be done, and I am eager to get to it.

European Parliament starts free software user group —

2011-02-07T11:02:00.000-05:00

European Parliament starts free software user group —

This item is quite interesting. I would surely like to see the focus be as much on open standards as on free/open source software.

Cuba sets to migrate to free, open-source software

2011-01-04T00:02:00.000-05:00

Cuba sets to migrate to free, open-source software

This is quite cool... But it's regrettable it's taken so long. Two years ago, in Malága, I spoke with a representative from Cuba about migrating to OOo and ODF, and learned that the rhetoric then was not commensurate with the reality, in part simply b/c there seemed to be less reliance on computer technology. But Cuba suffers from the same complex problem nearly every country is now experiencing: accelerating urbanisation (in no small part because of the continuing demolition of economically valuable environments), the unprecedented rise in children needing teaching (but lacking teachers, books, classrooms, etc.), and the devastating lack of jobs for those newly urbanised adults and growing children.

Only ICT can begin to satisfy this complex of needs, through distance learning, through open source, through the establishment of new commons and new ecosystems that will not only communicate knowledge and information but also set the scene for the establishment of markets providing for jobs, careers, taxes. And not just social and real death.

Quebec's public sector eyes free software

2010-12-13T18:27:00.000-05:00

Quebec's public sector eyes free software

"Quebec's public sector will favour free computer software, like the Linux operating system and the OpenOffice suite of applications, over commercial software, like Microsoft Corp.'s Windows and Office applications."

One would hope--if not actually expect--that the relevant ministers would contact us at OpenOffice.org... or that when I was in Montreal recently, they'd made an effort to reach out. Certainly, I tried reaching out to them.

And I still do. So, if there are public sector representatives reading this (if anyone reads this), let's work together on migrating Québec to OpenOffice.org!

FileApp Pro for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

2010-12-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

FileApp Pro for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

The app comes in both free and paid versions, the latter supposedly worth the 4.99 USD. It reads "OpenOffice" documents, which is to say, some OpenDocument Format (ODF) documents.....

I have not checked it out much but would be interested to learn more.

OpenOffice Document Reader free download for Android

2010-12-12T23:14:00.000-05:00

OpenOffice Document Reader free download for Android

This is quite cool.

Haven't tried it but would be interested in learning of others' experience with it.

Judge orders federal government to make websites accessible to the blind - thestar.com

2010-11-29T22:39:00.000-05:00

And Ottawa is not alone.

Judge orders federal government to make websites accessible to the blind - thestar.com

Introducing students to the world of open source: Day 1 | opensource.com

2010-11-06T16:19:00.000-04:00

Introducing students to the world of open source: Day 1 | opensource.com

Fairly interesting. Of course, one of my goals is to expand education efforts predicated on Foss collaborative techniques and building Foss technology within, ultimately, Foss projects.

Apple's Java and OOo 3....

2010-10-30T03:53:00.001-04:00

The latest update (3) to Apple's Java causes problems with the Mac OS X version of OOo 3.x. A patch to be included in newer versions of the OOo app fixes things but in the meanwhile, you can download and install the libraries. The developers in Hamburg have put up wonderfully clear instructions and the link to the patch.

Here it is:

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/w/index.php?title=Documentation/FAQ/Platform/Mac_OS_X_10.6&oldid=187272

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper - Qatar

2010-10-23T23:44:00.000-04:00

Qatar is of real interest to me, as its investment in modern technology and in particular in Foss, is exciting and enormously promising. I met at Oscon last summer a representative of the government (a US citizen, actually, working in Qatar) who found the possibilities of OpenOffice.org quite interesting.... And I've been since trying to follow up.

Oman is also driving to use Foss and OpenOffice.org. And Egyptian polities have expressed real interest.

The desire is to unite the interests, focus on Arabic versions (OOo is in Arabic), and get local groups, part of the local polity, engaged in promoting the product and community and in developing local community engagement to make the effort sustainable.

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper - Qatar

Having One's Cake....

2010-10-15T11:38:00.001-04:00

October 13 saw our birthday. Ten years is a long time and even longer when you think about it. Each day—pff. A long moment of waking, eating, exercising, loving, talking, eating, sleeping, and then again. Pause and the weekend passes with all you haven't done and look forward to the new week to come. Repeat? Hardly, each week, month, quarter differs, marked by forgotten memories recalled at odd moments, marked by the wonderful persistence of others, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, met at conferences and domestic places.

And code: evolutionary, progressing, slowly catching up with the notions of the future born of too much science fiction—but getting there, now, ten years in.

In my birthday message I couldn't describe what a profound personal and cultural and even political change we, the OOo community, have really made. Prior to our intervention on this global stage there was no cry for open standards in edocuments that had gotten any traction; there was only the acceptance of "just like a standard" because it was universally (!!) used. There was, in short, massive misunderstanding and the acceptance that the opaque status quo, where you can only accept the commodity because there is no choice.

There was no or little sense that the decisions to adopt, which is to say, buy, this or that software for desktops (numbering in the tens of millions) was anything like a political decision, and thus subject to public scrutiny and standards of accountability. Now there is. I first raised this logic sometime in 2003, 2004, at conferences, where I urged people to understand that their tax dollars were at stake when software was bought for government use, and that there were quite reasonable alternatives, both to the application and to the format.

It was a kind of "political" argument but of such a nature as irreducible to any political agenda, unless one should foolishly argue that patronage, corruption, and opacity constitute a kind of political stance. They don't. They constitute a phase in civilization that we strive to emerge from, however imperfectly, however much we slide back.

But OOo gives us the tools to step more boldly into the light. It's not a matter of insisting that one use X over Y. It's a matter of insisting that the purchasing actions be accountable, that they be defensible according to the terms we accept.

Those terms include:

Wise use of public money:
Spend tax revenue (and associated interest income) on tools that do the job not on brands that cost more and do more than is needed.
Ensure that there is room for growth, both with the application and with the format used. This is another way of saying,
NO VENDOR LOCK IN
Comment: Vendor lockin means that it's really hard, if not financially and technologically impossible, to move away from a vendor's system, as millions of documents, and the applications required to work with them, cannot be easily transferred or ported over to another system. It's a catastrophe, and it has configured much of our software universe. But not only that. We see it with the internal combustion engine, we see it with structures of power distribution, we see it in many places: what we did long ago has consequences today—global warming comes to mind—and changing things to a more desired way is immensely, immensely difficult. But not impossible. We, modern civilization, got rid of the utterly needless lead in gasoline. We got rid of asbestos in many places. And so on. When the need is clear, the concerted effort is possible, the result achievable. I see this now with software. There has seldom been a time in human culture when the informational drama has been so stark.
That's because there has never been a time when there were so many children needing schooling, when there were so many adults needing re-training (because their traditional ways of life have been demolished by, say, climate change), when so many are moving to cities and thus away from rural areas, and in cities, they need not just to know how to read and write but how to do that on a computer.
And they need to be able to exchange their ideas, their readings, writings; and do the other things that demand knowledge of and access to software enabling these communications.
And that software has to be free software, or at least based on it. Else, what are we asking of the world? That they pay a private tax to do what has, since the modern period (post Renaissance) a nearly free activity? (Paper costs money, as do pencils; but very little, and one can always find a means of writing for free. It is in a nation's interest to have a literate population: they earn more money, make for a commercial urban world, and enrich the overall nation.)
Free software enabling the capture of thoughts and their communication is requisite for a future that is a future and not a dreary dive into the past. It is needed so that children can be taught, so that adults can communicate without cost and fear, so that new things designed to address the dramatic spectacles of our present and future lives can come into being.
And OpenOffice.org is the key to that. Whether as we see it now, as an integrated application, or as a set of useful tools drawn from the "Cloud" is beside the point. It's the free technology unbounded by platform, license, imagination that is key, and that uses an open standard, the ODF, that frees you to choose what works for you—not for the vendor.

So, happy birthday, OpenOffice.org, and thanks to all for the support, contributions and community. We really have changed the world, we really are changing it. This first decade—Well, it was our childhood. We are reaching now, in the second decade, the next phase, and it's a phase we all look forward to. I'm proud to be a part of OpenOffice.org, to be part of the global community and to have had a small part in changing the world for the better. How many can say the same? But isn't that the point? Join us and make the difference needed.

But did they spell our name right?

2010-10-15T08:53:00.001-04:00

Seems to me that rather than spending all this money on foolishness, why not just contribute the cash to a worthwhile enterprise effort?

OOo's put the willies up Microsoft • The Register

Scandaloso

2010-10-07T10:23:00.001-04:00

So, I was prepared to speak at this huge conference. It's a significant one, or has been, in the past. But it just got canceled. That, after so many of us have bought our tickets and made our hotel arrangements. Huge amounts of money will be lost, along with even more important opportunities.

What a scandal, what a shambles, what an embarrassment.

Andalusia regional government on the lookout for alternatives to 6th Open Source World Conference | Open Source World Conference 2010

2010-09-15T09:21:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-15T09:17:00.003-04:00

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.....

2010-09-14T12:53:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-13T00:02:00.001-04:00

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 —

2010-09-12T22:59:00.000-04:00

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....

2010-09-12T15:30:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-08T23:35:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-08T23:35:00.000-04:00

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

Accessibility is important....

2010-08-09T16:26:00.001-04:00

And the list of apps here for mobile devices is both fascinating and wonderful.

Accessibility is Crucial: Updates to OOo in Braille Extension

2010-08-05T09:11:00.001-04:00

odt2braille - Home

Accessibility determines a lot of adoption by public enterprises, as well as mandated private ones. And OOo is the leader there, with ODF accessibility features, extensions coming thick and fast.

A crucial change, a valuable map from the Shuttleworth Foundation

2010-08-04T22:50:00.001-04:00

MAP OF THE DAY: Check Out The New Cable System Revolutionizing Africa That Could Cost Companies Millions

Infrastructure for ICT endeavours has plagued Africa—and nearly all "emerging" economies. The map from the Shuttleworth Foundation linked to by SAI is invaluable. It shows that the tide is changing and fast. And I hope not just for the super-elite.

Very cool news about GPL victory in court

2010-08-04T21:49:00.001-04:00

GPL scores historic court compliance victory • The Register

Thousands of NHS staff stripped of Microsoft Office | Enterprise | News | PC Pro

2010-07-28T18:01:00.000-04:00

Thousands of NHS staff stripped of Microsoft Office | Enterprise | News | PC Pro

Licensing issues at heart, here. And the problem is not simply one of binding license, though that is crucial, but of a confusion over the very notion of many licensed goods and what you can do with them. Hint: they are not yours. But not all licenses are the same. The sliver lining here: OpenOffice.org.

Peter Korn's Weblog

2010-07-28T09:10:00.000-04:00

Peter Korn's Weblog

Peter is Oracle's accessibility principal (OT, I so prefer the French term, "responsable") and the Aegis conference---the first international one--to be held 6-9 October in Sevilla, is important. Accessibility issues shape the ways in which public (and many private) enterprises can and do purchase software, among other things. Designing things "inclusively," so that *all* may use them, especially the aged, is of fundamental importance. And it is something that OOo clearly recognizes, as does the Oasis ODF group.

ODF 1.2 Interop Demo: Budapest

2010-07-15T18:45:00.002-04:00

From Carol Geyer, Senior Director of Communications and Development
and the Oasis representative helping us put the interop demo on:

What: OASIS ODF 1.2 Interoperability Demonstration

Where: OpenOffice.org Conference 2010

Central European University

Budapest, Hungary

When: 2 September 2010

Six independent implementations of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) will be

orchestrated in a real-world scenario to demonstrate the value of an

independent, open document file format. Hosted by OASIS, the international

open standards consortium, the ODF 1.2 Interop will showcase applications

processing ODF documents on the desktop, in the cloud and on mobile devices.

A variety of open source and commercial software will be featured, including

IBM Lotus Symphony, KOffice, lpOD (ODF Python Library), Oracle ODF Toolkit

for Java, OpenOffice, and Novell Go-OO.

Real documents from the Louvre Labst will be used in the demonstration,

ranging from simple internal service messages and notes to master thesis and

complex spreadsheets with diagrams displaying scientific data.

Free press passes will be available. For details, contact Carol Geyer

(carol.geyer@oasis-open.org)

ODF 1.2 Begins Final 60-day Public Review

2010-07-15T17:00:00.000-04:00

ODF 1.2 Begins Final 60-day Public Review

Rob's summary is characteristically excellent. But I'd like to add: ODF 1.2 marks a milestone, to be sure, but also point of departure. What comes next? Meanwhile, at OOoCon, on 2 September, in Budapest, we'll be conducting a demonstration of ODF 1.2. The idea is to have a narrative that scopes the power and flexibility of the format and that lift it from being only an office suite. As I've long argued and insisted, even, the tools of production, like OOo, give users remarkable power to do things that exceed the narrow imagination constituting the "office". But acting on our imagination and making sure that others (including ourselves, later) can act on our acts is hardly trivial. It never has been.

PT: "Nearly all school children getting familiar with open source' —

2010-07-14T12:34:00.000-04:00

PT: "Nearly all school children getting familiar with open source' —

In 2008 I visited Portugal for a conference in Lisbon and to advocate the use and development of OOo there. I met with government ministers, including those involved in education and culture. The issue was that the Magellan system that was to be installed in education netbooks boot either into Windows or Linux, and OOo was only being put on the Linux partition. This, I thought, was worse than crazy: it effectively placed one of the most valuable tools a student would have--OpenOffice.org, in Portuguese--in a domain that he or she would very likely access only seldom if at all.

I insisted that OOo be included in the Windows partition, too, alongside what was already to be put there, MSFT's Office. Of course, nothing was done. But no surprise: The logic of what gets installed has nothing to with what is best for the country, citizen, people. It has to do with money and appearance. So, in this case, I have no doubt that in exchange for this installation, the responsible politicians and technocrats received generous investments in their area. Not a bribe, but, honestly, what's the difference?

Call it systemic corruption. Laws are put in place to enable the legal promotion of "special interests," and in a situation or context like this, one does not need at all any kind of under the table arrangement. One need only to exploit the laws and situation in place.

OpenOffice gets Ubuntu-media friendly • The Register

2010-07-05T00:04:00.000-04:00

OpenOffice gets Ubuntu-media friendly • The Register

Of course, I think this is quite cool and even important.

And so should you.

ACTA restricts developing economies, India tells WTO • The Register

2010-06-15T09:33:00.000-04:00

ACTA restricts developing economies, India tells WTO • The Register

The effects of ACTA are not limited to developed countries; indeed, the point of something like the WTO and thus of ACTA is precisely to put into play an encompassing map for developing countries now and in the future. And this affects not just the generics (meds) described in the Reg article but all things having to do with local circumstances.

Ec comes out for open source - The Inquirer

2010-06-11T11:02:00.000-04:00

Ec comes out for open source - The Inquirer

Kroes: "I am still a big fan of open standards. I believe in openness, and I believe in practising what one preaches," she said. "Some observers think 'open standards' is a tainted term that should not to be used in the absence of a generally recognised definition. Whatever the labels, what matters is the substance. I would urge all stakeholders to focus on the content of the package rather than the wrapping."

The question is: why is not Canada or other North American polities voicing similar positions?

Malta: Open source preferred - The H Open Source: News and Features

2010-06-08T16:32:00.000-04:00

Malta: Open source preferred - The H Open Source: News and Features

The state of Foss in Malta has always been interesting and often progressive, and OOo numbers among its staunchest supporters Maltese activists. We owe them a thanks, to be sure, and I also look forward to seeing what more can be done.

CBC News - Technology & Science - Quebec broke law in buying Microsoft software

2010-06-04T23:10:00.000-04:00

CBC News - Technology & Science - Quebec broke law in buying Microsoft software

The question is not really, Why is Québec in the lead here? The socio-political-economic dynamic that is Québec mandates an independence that other Canadian provinces seem unable to adopt. I think of Ontario, which has, as far as I can tell, dithered about Foss and OpenOffice.org and has, repeatedly, introduced points that are simply immaterial and at best distracting.

Meanwhile, the provinces suffer the heavy penalty exacted by their systematic refusal to consider Foss; and the residents suffer even more. All this at a time when the economics should demand economic sense and foresight, not legacy nonsense.

OpenOffice 3.2.1 fixes bugs, updates logo - The H Open Source: News and Features

2010-06-04T11:14:00.000-04:00

OpenOffice 3.2.1 fixes bugs, updates logo - The H Open Source: News and Features

Of course this is a rather recondite way for me to inform the interested of the latest stable release.... but I also like H-Online. In my own case, I run OOo 3.3 (yes, that's right) on Mac OS X. Latest build courtesy of Nakata-san and Good-Day hosting, is M79. And I then lard the meat with lots of extensions. I confess I love downloading extensions and playing with them---same with my Firefox, Thunderbird, Chrome, and look forward, of course, for Safari's adoption of the model.

One thing I'm involved in is the ODF: I'm a member of the two public advocacy TCs there, the Adoption and OIC (interoperability) committees, and strive there to promote ODF among developers. The interesting there is cultivating such a developer cadre: the group so interested would not be quite the same as a classic developer. What's more, it's position within the Foss firmament is shaded, even more so than the usual. But the technology is not difficult and the payoff, especially now, as OOo gains tens of millions of users monthly (we have more than 350M downloads, at the least), there is more of an apparent market.

Indeed, the market for ODF implementations is huge. ODF is a file format, by the way; it cannot really exist as anything useful independent of the implementation which makes it usable and thus useful. OOo is an implementation, and in fact it is the best one.

Others are to a degree based on the OOo technology. But their degree of departure from the basic code does affect their fluid usage of extensions and the like.

BBC News - Open source marks a new era for African independence

2010-05-31T16:01:00.000-04:00

BBC News - Open source marks a new era for African independence

OpenOffice.org was invited to present at IDLELO, and I very much regret that we could not make it, as the African situation is both interesting and pressing. However, the funding arrangements were difficult to come by--it's expensive to go there and put on a show--and the organizers were unable to subsidize our presence there. But the opportunities are limitless, especially as governments in Africa turn to Foss and see the possibilities. Right now, of course, we have the South African government offices quite interested in OOo and its proprietary version. But Africa is large, very large, and only Foss can offer what its people need today and tomorrow. Africa has a future and it is the Africans' to write, using OOo as the pen, ink, paper.

Vodacom unveils low-cost Linux netbook | TechCentral

2010-05-27T23:06:00.000-04:00

Vodacom unveils low-cost Linux netbook | TechCentral

This is great news, and I wish the effort described here the best! It indicates a *regional* and local strength and desire for Foss and OOo in particular. We see this, too, in Brazil, Spain, and throughout other European polities.

OOo is strong because local communities have taken upon themselves the tasks of localization, porting, distribution: engaging in the acts constituting Free and Open Source Software production. They are producers, that is, not simply consumers. Our community and strength grows as these add to the composite community making up OpenOffice.org.

And meanwhile, the application matures. Our monolithic architecture (always being refactored) makes it difficult for casual contribution to the core--all the code would necessarily have to be checked for unintended consequences, to give a hint--but our focus on developing the extensions architecture makes it indeed quite possible and even fun for such casual additions. So, just like Firefox, OOo can be expanded, new features added, capability extended through extensions. These are immensely popular, and their popularity is increasing as more millions download and use OOo in all languages.

Even Hungarian. This year, with pride and excitement, we hold our annual conference in Budapest. Why there? Because the Hungarian team submitted the bid that received the most votes and it received those because it was the best. So for this 10th anniversary of the Project, for this significant year, we find ourselves deeply honoured by the dedication of the Hungarian community: Thanks.

OOoCon begins 31 August and lasts several days. We invite you all to join us there.

See http://conference.services.openoffice.org/index.php/ooocon/2010

TR: Ministry of Justice and law courts consider open source desktop —

2010-05-27T22:51:00.000-04:00

TR: Ministry of Justice and law courts consider open source desktop —: "'We are already using OpenOffice on all of the desktops. We began using OpenOffice in 2007 and it has helped us to save billions.'"

Cool. But OOo also has professional support, services. Oh, btw, we all probably need to thank Turkish Language Lead Görkem Çetin for his tireless work in leading the localization effort to Turkish. I had the great pleasure (literally) of spending several days in Istanbul several years ago, at a conference. I, like many, came to love Istanbul and rank it as one of the most wonderful cities I've ever had the great good fortune of visiting, and I owe the great portion of my fond memories to Görkem's unrelenting and unstinting hospitality and generosity. My thanks.

Hancom to lose government office monopoly

2010-05-25T08:36:00.000-04:00

This is important news. The crucial paragraph:

"The National Assembly Research Service (NARS), a parliamentary unit that provides policy research and analysis for legislators, now claims that government organizations should be required to use software products that support open standards. The idea is to eventually allow government documents to be created, read and edited by a wider variety of office applications run on any type of computer operating system, NARS said."

But let's continue:

"``It's critical that government documents are preserved and available for access for a long period of time, and it's dangerous for this to solely hang on Hancom's existence as a business,'' said a NARS official.

``The closed nature of HWP also brings inconvenience when collaborating with people in other countries and producing documents. The government has been virtually mandating the use of HWP, and this has hurt market competition as well as technology neutrality.''

"NARS soon plans to release an official report to suggest all electronic government documents, including word processed documents, spreadsheets, charts and presentations, be represented by software designed in open document format (ODF), the global industry standard for open file styles."

Supposedly, according to an Hancom spokesperson, "``ODF is supported on Hancom Office 2010, which was released last year." But I do wonder what "supported" means here; as well, as the article points out,

"It wasn't until last year that Hancom started supporting ODF for its office applications, and much of the software used at government offices are older versions of HWP, making it harder for search engines to detect the content."

Support is not enough; full implementation is required, as is an interoperability path. These are lacking, it seems.

Open Source Action (and more)

Stop American Censorship — a campaign from Fight for the Future

Le logiciel libre propose un potentiel d'économie incroyable | Francis A-Trudel | Économie

'German cities following Munich's open source example' | Joinup

City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader - Technology - NewsObserver.com

App Shopper: CloudOn (Productivity)

Mozilla Public License, version 2.0

Apache OpenOffice (Incubating)

H.P.’s TouchPad, Some Say, Was Built on Flawed Software - NYTimes.com

BBC News - Man sued for keeping company Twitter followers

‘Developing Latin America’: Open Data Projects · Global Voices

Open Source - Generic Tools - COSI 'Open' Government

Productivity Suite: Email / Calendar Solution

NVDA

ACTA Adopted By EU Governments, Now in EU Parliament's Hands | La Quadrature du Net

HP's webOS is going Open Source. Now what? | ZDNet

7 Free Office Tools to Save Non-Profits Money

Open Document Format updated to fix spreadsheets • The Register

Inside the World's Largest Embassy | Mother Jones

Gamers succeed where scientists fail: Molecular structure of retrovirus enzyme solved, doors open to new AIDS drug design

Open Wonderland supports drag-and-drop docs – Hypergrid Business

Doors of Perception weblog: Open Season on Dutch Cultural Innovation

Should Adobe Embrace Open Source? | ZDNet

50 Open Source Replacements for Popular Financial Software - Datamation

Cable: US pressured EU to approve Oracle-Sun merger - Software - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au

Defence bolsters search for open source software - Software - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au

Defence conducts OpenOffice.org trial | Delimiter

Major OpenOffice.org Deployments - OpenOffice.org Wiki

IBM crams Lotus Symphony back into OpenOffice • The Register

Microsoft open sources code to calm wifi snooping fears- The Inquirer

Working With An Opendocument Format Odt File Video Tutorial | Web Dev World | Independent Archive

AT: Department of Justice's migration to OpenOffice a success story —

PT: Consensus among political parties on open source and open standards in the Public Administration —

Like in Mexico, Parliaments Must Reject ACTA | La Quadrature du Net

A Microsoft Horror Story: Newspaper Chain Is Switching 8,500 Employees To Google Apps

IBM Press room - 2011-06-01 IBM to Contribute to New, Proposed OpenOffice.org Project - United States

Statements on OpenOffice.org Contribution to Apache

Watch Now - Al Jazeera English

Inside Views: Brazil’s Copyright Reform: Schizophrenia? | Intellectual Property Watch

Brazil’s Copyright Reform: Are We All Josef K.? | Intellectual Property Watch

But what about the Novell effort on the office suite?

Microsoft welcomes CentOS Linux onto virtualized Windows • The Register

Open source .NET mimic rises from Novell ashes • The Register

Free Software & law related links 30. IV. 2011 - 06. V. 2011 | Hook's Humble Homepage

.NET Android and iOS clones stripped by Attachmate • The Register

Bill Blackbeard, Champion of Comic Strips, Dies at 84 - NYTimes.com

Bill Blackbeard, Champion of Comic Strips, Dies at 84 - NYTimes.com

Microsoft gets Novell's Patents rights but must share them with Open-Source Software | ZDNet

CeBIT Open Source Forum 2011 - Linux Magazine Online

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog » Blog Archive » What do you think about Norway’s new open data license?

SmartGov Live 2011 - Open Government

JAPANESE RED CROSS SOCIETY｜Japan／Earthquake Donation

Temblor

Authoring Interoperable ODF Documents

Open-source software is actually more secure for health care IT, study suggests

WebODF

Manila Standard Today -- Schools take the open road -- 2011/march/8

India Steps Forward as Africa Seeks Academic Aid - NYTimes.com

About Global Public Inclusive Infrastructures (GPIIs) | gpii.org

Updates

European Parliament starts free software user group —

Cuba sets to migrate to free, open-source software

Quebec's public sector eyes free software

FileApp Pro for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

OpenOffice Document Reader free download for Android

Judge orders federal government to make websites accessible to the blind - thestar.com

Introducing students to the world of open source: Day 1 | opensource.com

Apple's Java and OOo 3....

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper - Qatar

Having One's Cake....

But did they spell our name right?

Scandaloso

OOo Hackfest

Geist: Significant new costs.....

Piracy and its discontents

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

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

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

JAPANESE RED CROSS SOCIETY｜Japan／Earthquake　Donation