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Government

Submission + - 1,000 Russian schools using Linux (www.osor.eu)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Linux has been installed in over one thousand schools in Russia, and is part of a much larger over-all deployment of Linux in the Russian military and other government institutions, according to one IBM official speaking at the Latvian Open Technology Conference in Riga on 12 November:

'The Russian military has been working on its own version of GNU/Linux, parts of which have recently been declassified by the All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Control Automation in the Non-Industrial Sphere (Vniins). According to Guriev, many specialised version of GNU/Linux distributions are produced, often in response to requests by local governments. In three Russian regions, most of the PCs in use in about a thousand schools have been switched over to GNU/Linux.'

"
Microsoft

Submission + - M$ Shakes Down Old Folks and Charities. (news.com.au)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "From the bait and switch dept.

MICROSOFT will charge the Australian Aged Care Industry IT Council $70 million over the next 18 months as it forces users to pay full commercial rates for previously discounted software. Is this M$'s way to make up for falling traditional software sales?

Aged care providers are shocked by Microsoft's decision to revoke their not-for-profit status, which gave them access to its products at a heavily discounted rate.

A Microsoft spokesman said a recent review had uncovered "a number of ineligible entities, including a range of commercial organisations, that were using Academic Volume Licensing programs" under the belief they qualified.

At least three projects were put on hold by Aged Care. Never trust important business to a software license that may be revoked at any time."
Upgrades

Submission + - HP Brings Ubuntu Netbooks to Local Stores (crunchgear.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "As promised and for obvious reasons, HP is bringing a GNU/Linux Netbook to market in defiance of the failing M$ Monopoly and it's using Ubuntu. From the Forbes article:

the signal the product sends that HP doesnt need Microsoft quite so much anymore. ... The HP mini laptops customized look and feel is the labor of the Experience team in HPs Personal Systems Group, which is working to make its products feel simpler and more intuitive than the industry-standard Windows-based PCs.

Crunchgear coos over that interface:

The specs are only half the story as the OS is where it gets interesting. ... This Mobile Internet Experience streamlines most common uses into a custom built homescreen that screams of HPs Touchsmart interface — thats a good thing. ... take note at HPs netbooks, but dont copy em. Instead, hire a design firm and actually produce something that is innovative instead of another EEE clone.

Things will really get interesting when $100 MIPS and ARM netbooks hit the market.

Updates, if any, will be in my journal."
Patents

Submission + - 24-Sept is World Day against Software Patents

Submitted by
pieterh
pieterh writes: "Veteran European anti-software campaigners have launched World Day against Software Patents on StopSoftwarePatents.org, writing: "The issue of software patents is a global one, and several governments and patent offices around the world continue to grant software & business method patents on a daily basis; they are pushing for legal codification of the practice, such as currently in New Zealand and India, and via the misappropriation of Free Trade Agreement instruments. We declare the 24 September as the World Day Against Software Patents, in commemoration of the European Parliament First Reading in 2003 with amendments stopping the harmful patenting of software, guaranteeing that software programmers and businesses can safely benefit from the fruits of their work under copyright law.""
Patents

British Government Considers Tenfold Increase To Copyright Penalty 154

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bigger-stick dept.
Out-Law is reporting that the British government is planning to increase the maximum fine that can be awarded for online copyright infringement tenfold. "The Government and the Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) are consulting on the plans, which would allow Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales to issue summary fines of £50,000 for online copyright infringement. The larger fine is proposed for commercial scale infringements, where the person involved profits from the infringement. The plan would implement another of the recommendations of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, the 2006 report by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers which has been the foundation of intellectual property policy since its publication."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Year of Linux on the Desktop - in one small town? (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Linux advocates have been touting the year of Linux on the desktop every year for several years running. But now a group of GNU and Linux enthusiasts are holding a publicity stunt to move one small town, Felton, California, to Linux on the desktop, according to this story in the San Jose Mercury News. According to the group's website, the group will start holding town meetings on July 13 to convince just this one small town of 1,051 people near Silicon Valley to experiment with conducting their daily business using only Free Open Source Software on the desktop, for one week starting Monday, July 28, 2008, and running through Sunday, August 3, 2008. The group is calling themselves "Lindependence 2008", in a play of words on the US Independence Day holiday weekend, which commences on July fourth."
Government

Submission + - Canada's Libraries favor ODF, Net Neutrality (www.cla.ca)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "A consortium of Canada's public and university libraries, called the Canadian Library Association/Association canadienne des bibliothèques )(CLA/ACB), has passed a formal resolution in favor of ODF over OOXML, and a second resolution in favor of Internet Neutrality, in a vote of the group's 63rd Annual meeting on May 24, 2008, in Vancouver. The Net Neutrality resolution urges the Canadian government to:

're-examine the Telecommunications Act in order to clearly legislate in favour of a neutral Internet, requiring ISPs to comply with common carriage provisions and conduct business in a manner that is open, transparent, and accountable'
The open format resoltuion states that ODF is more well-suited to allowing libraries to 'fulfill their role of preserving and providing access to information', in contrast to OOXML, which the CLA/ACB find is 'not sufficiently open, interoperable, or vendor-neutral' to assist libraries in their role of disseminating information."
Linux Business

Submission + - Dell is satisfied with sales of Linux machines (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "According to ComputerWorld magazine on-line, Dell is pleased with its sales of notebook and desktop computers preloaded with Ubuntu Linux. As a result, the number two computer manufacturer is continuing to expand the pre-loaded Linux program to new computer models and markets. 'A [sales] number is not going to validate it as much as our actions to date,' which include adding new models and configurations, said Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden. Dell's decision to offer pre-loaded Linux was the result of suggestions by more than 100,000 people who posted to Dell's IdeaStorm website in February, 2007. Ten weeks later, in May last year, Dell announced that it would begin selling Linux-loaded machines to consumers and businesses."
Government

Submission + - Microsoft's View of Standards as Tools of War (boycottnovell.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Tech media maven Roy Schestowitz and Pamela Jones of Groklaw have unearthed 1997 documents from the Iowa anti-trust case of 'Comes v. Microsoft,' in which Microsoft Technical Evangelist James Plamondon talks about the importance of stacking seemingly 'neutral' panels to assure that Microsoft platforms are adopted as de facto standards. In a 'Highly Confidential' document entitled 'Evangelism is War', Plamondon justifies his step-by-step strategy for stacking 'neutral' panels as a necessary act of 'war.' He suggests ways to enhance the apparent popularity of Microsoft platforms as standards for the purpose of convincing 'enemies' that adoption of the Microsoft platform as a standard is inevitable, and 'surrender' is the only option. Groklaw's Pamela Jones draws a parallel to the current-day work of Technical Evangelist Rick Jelliffe, who says that he has been hired by Microsoft to act as a 'Devil's Advocate' for the National Board of Australia in Microsoft's upcoming bid to have Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) accepted as a second international electronic document format ISO standard. Recent efforts by Microsoft to change the composition of the ISO national panels have resulted in some controversy and have spawned a new EU probe into potential anti-trust claims based on the way that Microsoft influenced the composition of some of the national boards to vote in the upcoming ISO ballot."
Government

Submission + - Microsoft standing firm on OOXML ISO vote (fanaticattack.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Microsoft has responded via the industry trade goup ECMA to some of the thousands of criticisms of its submission of Office Open XML (OOXML) as an ISO standard. Open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver takes a look at those responses to see if Microsoft has made significant changes in either the substance of OOXML or the manner in which the OOXML specification will be maintained going forward. Ossendryver concludes that Microsoft's position has not siginficantly changed, but only hardened in place in advance of the Ballot Resolution Meeting which is to occur from February 25 through 29 in Geneva, Switzerland. While no one can say for certain whether Microsoft will succeed in having its OOXML specification win the nod from the international community, Ossendryer thinks that Microsoft's firm stance will actually backfire."
Microsoft

Submission + - HP's CEO declares: "Vista never had its moment (cio.com)

Submitted by
mjasay
mjasay writes: "In a troubling sign for Microsoft, HP's CEO reported on yesterday's earnings call that HP never saw a "Vista moment at any time over the past year," finding its 30% boost in personal systems group earnings in developing markets like China and India that don't have a historical bias toward Microsoft's Windows operating system. This is clearly bad news for Microsoft: a PC world that it no longer controls. HP says that revenue from Brazil, Russia, India and China increased 37 percent; it's now nearing 10 percent of HP's $104.3 billion in sales. As this trend continues for HP, Dell, Sony, and other PC vendors, will Microsoft's stranglehold on the industry finally slip?"

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