Blog

Along with the Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting, the Open Source Business Conference was one of the two best conferences I’ve been to recently (I generally hate conferences). I got my geek on at: FOSDEM and actually enjoyed and learned from the technical sessions. Where OSBC is at the other end of the…

In email to a third party, copied to me, Linux activist and long-time friend Rick Moen comments on the acronym FLOSS (usually explanded “Free, Libré, and Open Source”. I continue to find it difficult to take seriously anyone who adopts an excruciatingly bad, hopelessly obscure acronym associated with dental hygiene aids. We learned in the…

Peter Hansteen of Bergen Norway reports that the Norwegian Police Force has disclosed two large-scale information security incidents. He explains that: Apparently large parts of the bureaucracy that is responsible for the confidential and correct processing of criminal matters and all sorts of sensitive personal information associated with the crimes runs essential services on Microsoft…

I just saw the news that Finland has made the decision to use open source software where possible for public administration. The order is written in Finnish, but thanks to the magic of Google Translate, the English version can be read here: Well, here, actually. Reading the salient details, it appears that (1) Google Translate…

A new voice is rising from the great democracy of India, and that voice is proclaiming that the only responsible choice for public sector software is software that is first and foremost available to the public-to read and understand, to modify and improve, and to share and redistribute. The campaign Public Software for Public Sector…

When Eric Raymond posted the first of the Halloween Documents in 1998, it marked the end of the beginning for open source. That is to say those documents demonstrated that the logical superiority of the open source development model had penetrated the most headstrong corporate skull in the proprietary software universe: Microsoft. The fact that…

CNN reports Laptops bring lessons, maybe even peace. It’s good to see the One Laptop Per Child project back on track. To me, the most exciting thing about the One Laptop Per Child project is that it dared to challenge educational and capitalistic orthodoxy, offering an authentic platform for true experiential learning. The concept of…

Please lend your support to Carl Malamud’s effort to be appointed as the Government Printer, called YesWeScan. He has a history of breaking out closed (or difficult to get) government information. I’ve known him for over 17 years, and I trust that as the printer of government documents, he will make sure that these documents…

In December of 2008 it was discovered that Bernie Madoff may have perpetrated a scheme that defrauded investors of as much as $50B USD. With a fraud so large, the scandal cut across a wide range of social classes, from the financial aristocracy to the merely comfortable. One of the many questions asked was “how…

The latest news from Harrison Consoles (a company that pioneered the use of Linux in high-end audio applications) announces that Universal Studios has upgraded their massive theatrical mixing console with Harrison’s latest Linux automation system. The long and rather steep decline in real estate values and equities has been headline news for months. Less frequent,…