free software

  • Italy’s Emilia Romagna prefers open source for smart city projects

    Steve WoodsBristol, Open Source

    Emilia Romagna flagI was recently invited to take part in some smart city sessions organised in Bristol by Knowle West Media Centre, so I was most interested to learn of recent smart cities developments in part of Italy.

    According to the EU’s Joinup open source news site, open source software is a key element in many of the Smart City projects developed by a group of IT specialists and researchers for Italy’s Emilia Romagna region. Lucia Mazzoni, an IT project manager involved the region’s smart city projects said: “We prefer to use open source modules. This type of software allows scalable and easy to configure combinations.”

    The group is building applications to monitor atmospheric conditions and air quality and collect and present data on surface waters. They are also working on IT solutions to increase energy efficiency and are building software to monitors the condition of cultural monuments and help preserve them.

    Mazzoni gave a presentation on Emilia Romagna’s smart city research projects at the Smart City Exhibition held in Bologna between 29th and 31th October last.

    One application presented was ‘Smart Catcher’, a location-aware Android phone application which allows users to locate useful urban objects, such as bookshops, filling stations, hospitals, restaurants and hotels.

    The smart city developers are also involved in building middleware software for use in vehicle to vehicle communication. The idea is to create smart vehicles that can use the information to plan their routes more efficiently. Other projects are working on using smart sensors, video cameras and personal sensors.

    NB: This is an edited version of a post originally appearing on the Bristol Wireless site.

  • 2nd LibreOffice Hackfest coming soon

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Tech

    The second LibreOffice Hackfest 2012 will take place from November 23-25 in Munich, Bavaria.

    The event is being supported by Munich City Council’s LiMux project, which is migrating the council’s IT from proprietary systems to free and open source alternatives.

    LibreOffice Hackfest logo

    The hackfest is being jointly organised with the Debian community’s Munich Bug Squashing Party (posts passim).

    For full details such as venues, agenda and travel, consult the event’s page on the LibreOffice wiki.

  • Debian bug squashing parties announced

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    Debian logoDebian is a great Linux distribution. Indeed, besides being a distribution in its own right, it acts as the foundation for the very popular Ubuntu distro, as well as my favourite, Mepis, and countless others.

    The Debian Project is now in the final stages of preparing for its next release – codenamed Wheezy – and has just announced that Bug Squashing Parties (“BSPs”) will take place in several countries in the next few weeks. The main focus of a Bug Squashing Party is to triage and fix bugs, but it is also an opportunity for users less familiar with the Debian bug tracking system to make other contributions to the Debian project, such as translating package descriptions or improving the wiki. Debian developers will be present to help contributors understand how the project works and to help get fixes into Debian.

    A list of confirmed Bug Squashing Parties follows, even though the project advises checking the events page to see if any more are being planned.

    • November 10-11, Banja Luka, Republika Srpska: a BSP will be held at the University Computer Centre. More information here.
    • November 14, Helsinki, Finland: a mini BSP will be held in Kamppi. See the mail announcement for information.
    • November 23-25, Essen, Germany: a BSP will be held at the Linuxhotel. More information.
    • November 23-25, Munich, Germany: a BSP will be held at the LiMux Office, together with the LibreOffice Hackfest. More information is available on the wiki page.
    • November 24-25, Paris, France: a BSP will take place during the second Paris Mini-DebConf. More information can be found on the event page.
    • November 24, Tokyo, Japan: a BSP will be held at the Plat’Home Office. Further information here.
    • December 15-16, Mechelen, Belgium: a BSP will be held at the NixSys Office. More information on the event’s wiki page.

    If you want to organise a BSP, potential organisers can find all the necessary information on the wiki. The Debian Project invites all users and contributors to attend these events and make Wheezy ready for release sooner.

  • LibreOffice 3.6.3 now available

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    the LibreOffice logoThe Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 3.6.3, the latest version of the leading free and open source office suite.

    This maintenance release fixes some 90 bugs, including fixes for layout problems, overflowing margins, a regression in chart complex category placements and problems in importing and exporting ODF documents. Several problems that caused crashes when, for example, deleting the last cell in a table, importing tables from .docx files or following an incomplete print have likewise been corrected.

    Versions of LibreOffice 3.6.3 for Linux, Windows and Mac platforms are available from the LibreOffice download page, as is the source code.

    If anyone readers need convincing to try LibreOffice, do this simple test. How much lighter will getting an office suite leave your bank balance?

    Furthermore, LibreOffice’s functionality can be enhanced by means of extensions, such as MultiSave (posts passim).

  • Today’s special offer from CodeWeavers

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    CodeWeavers, Inc., the developers of CrossOver, which enables users to run Windows software on Linux and Mac, is having a giveaway today, 31st October 2012.

    For one day only, CodeWeavers is giving away CrossOver with 12 months’ free support and product upgrades.

    If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, point your browser at http://flock.codeweavers.com/, register and download!

    For more details about the rationale behind this offer read the press release.

    This post originally appeared on Bristol Wireless.

  • Unlicensed software costs company nearly £100k

    Steve WoodsTech

    ComputerWeekly.com reports that safety specialist First Choice Facilities has been fined £18,000 by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) – the proprietary software industry’s licensing police – for unlicensed software following completion of an acquisition.

    First Choice Facilities will now also have to pay an additional £81,000 to buy sufficient software licences to cover the unlicensed Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft and Symantec products they used.

    Of course, First Choice Facilities could have avoided all this hassle in the first place in 2 ways – 1 expensive and 1 cheap. The expensive way is the route down which they’ve gone; the cheap way would have been to have used only free and open source software.

    Hat tip: Alan Lord, the Open Sourcerer

  • GNU’s trick-or-treat at Windows 8 launch

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    Last Friday saw the launch of Windows 8, the latest “best Windows ever” release from the Beast of Redmond.

    However, the launch was not without its problems for MS, as reported by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The FSF crashed the Windows 8 launch event in New York City. A cheerful GNU and her team handed out DVDs loaded with Trisquel GNU/Linux (a Linux distribution that meets the FSF’s very strict definition of free. Ed.), FSF stickers and information about the FSF’s new pledge, which asks Windows users to upgrade not to Windows 8, but to GNU/Linux.

    The FSF crew at NYC Windows 8 launch
    The FSF crew at NYC Windows 8 launch
    A friendly gnu handing out FSF stickers
    Have a FSF sticker!

    I must concur with the FSF’s conclusion: Windows 8 is a downgrade, not an upgrade since it compromises users’ freedom, security and privacy. Some of the ‘features’ of Windows 8 identified by the FSF that Microsoft won’t tell potential users about are:

    • Restricts freedom: Windows 8 is proprietary software. At its core, it’s designed to control you as a user. You can’t modify Windows 8 or see how it is built, meaning Microsoft can use its operating system to exploit users and benefit special interests.
    • Invades privacy: Windows 8 includes software that inspects the contents of your hard drive and Microsoft claims the right to do this without warning. These programs have misleading names like “Windows Genuine Advantage.”
    • Exposes personal data: Windows 8 has a contacts cache that experts fear may store sensitive personal data and make users vulnerable to identity theft.

  • Amazon integration – the last thing I want from Ubuntu

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    Ubuntu logoThe Inquirer yesterday carried a report in which Canonical, purveyors of Ubuntu Linux, claim that Amazon integration is what users want in Ubuntu.

    Canonical released Ubuntu 12.10 on Thursday. This new release introduced tighter integration with Amazon in system search results – a move which has provoked criticism from the Ubuntu community. Canonical asserts that Amazon integration in Dash is something users expect and it will integrate other online services in future Ubuntu releases.

    The move was defended by Steve George, Canonical’s Vice-President of communications and products, who told The Inquirer that: “Users increasingly expect to search. It is driven by two things, firstly the fact that online they search, so naturally they think about searching and the other thing is the total amount of content. […] The Dash has previously been restricted to only the things that were on your desktop, so where we are taking the Dash so we are trying to pull it so that everything – your personal cloud – all of your online and offline, everything you have in your universe around you, the Dash will be able to search that and find those things for you.”

    Thanks for that Steve. I’ve been using Ubuntu happily on my laptop for two and a half years now, but if you’re going to clamber into bed with the likes of Amazon, I’m putting Debian on that machine when the long term support on my present Ubuntu install runs out.

    Update 21/10/12: Bruno Girin has been in touch since I wrote this post and informed me there are 2 options for disabling the Amazon search – turning it off in the system settings and removing the package respectively – as follows:

    1. Option 1: system settings -> privacy -> include online search results = off
    2. Option 2: sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

  • Language and open source

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Linux, Open Source, Tech

    I’m intrigued by the way we advocates of free and open source software (FOSS) are viewed and described by the world outside our circle. Frequently, the terms are very loaded, e.g. ‘zealot’.

    A report today in The Register Channel on Scottish NHS IT procurement and a decision to waste millions on Microsoft Windows 7 is no exception. Mark Taylor, CEO of Sirius, a major UK open source supplier, is quoted and referred to as a ‘firebrand’.

    According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, firebrand‘s first recorded use was in the 13th century, when it was originally “a piece of burning wood“. Its meaning was extended to over subsequent centuries to include “one that creates unrest or strife“.

    Synonyms for firebrand are: demagogue, exciter, agitator, fomenter, incendiary, inciter, instigator, kindler, provocateur, rabble-rouser.

    I’ve met and spoken to Mark on a number occasions and the last thing one can describe him as is a firebrand or any of its above synonyms. Admittedly, he has a business to run, but he’s also concerned that the UK spending on ICT amounts to an eye-watering £20 billion per year. That’s three times more than is spent on the army. Most of that £20 billion is spent on proprietary software and its suppliers, in the course of which vast amounts of taxpayers’ money are exported to MS’ coffers in Redmond, USA.

    Both Mark and I feel that FOSS would be a better alternative and there’d then be more money for the NHS to spend on patient care – a far better use of resources. If that makes us ‘firebrands’, then we’ll wear the label with pride.

  • Linux Kernel 3.7 Will Support All ARM Platforms

    Steve WoodsLinux, Tech

    Tux - the Linux kernel mascot
    Tux – the Linux kernel mascot
    It was recently announced that when it is released in some 6 months’ time, the forthcoming Linux 3.7 kernel will incorporate support for multiple ARM System on Chips (SoCs) platforms, Softpedia reports.

    Having all ARM platforms supported by a single kernel package is a good news for everyone from end users to hardware manufacturers who base their kit on ARM chips and the Android operating system.

    “This is a pretty significant branch. It’s the introduction of the first multiplatform support on ARM”, said kernel developer Olof Johansson on the Linux kernel Git commit page. “And with this (and the later branch) merged, it is now possible to build one kernel that contains support for highbank, vexpress, mvebu, socfpga, and picoxcell”.

    When Linux kernel 3.7 is released (the latest Linux kernel release at the time of writing is 3.6. Ed.), it will initially provide support the following ARM platforms: VExpress, Highbank, SoC FPGA, Picoxcell and Mvebu, although support for more ARM platforms will be added to subsequent kernel releases.

    Hat tip: Roy Schestowitz

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