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GNU is Not Unix Software

Nordic Countries to Promote Open Source 203

Posted by michael from the pining-for-the-fjords dept.
Nordic Avenger writes "The Nordic countries have launched a website to promote open source software to consumers and small businesses. People can submit open source software links as well as exchange information in the forums section. As the website states: 'Nordicos.org is a project of the Nordic Ministerial Council, and addresses the need for a comprehensive overview of open source software available for consumers'. Now, anybody eager to make good suggestions about software that normal people could find useful and live happily ever after in the open source world?"
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Nordic Countries to Promote Open Source More

Nordic Countries to Promote Open Source

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  • Providing it doesn't get slashdotted into oblivion, their forums don't require registration. d'oh. Don't pee on a pristine Nordic landscape.

    -jim

    • Don't pee on a pristine Nordic landscape.


      Yeah it might freeze...

  • Beautiful (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:20AM (#6836592)
    Another step in the right direction for humankind.

    Open source does not have enough a coordinated information (and marketing) websites that have enough clout. This effort, as long it is kept up and improved with time, would be a precious resource for the average citizen and consumer.

  • It's all there! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gartogg ( 317481 ) <DavidsFullNameNO@SPAMgoogle.email> on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:24AM (#6836606) Homepage Journal
    Having finally installed Mandrake over my windows partition on my computer, I have to say; What Software?

    I mean, Under M$ WIndows, I had to find:
    An Office Suite (replaced by Open-office)
    A Programming Environment (Replaced by QT Designer)
    and about 30 small shareware/freeware managers for Zipfiles, PDF files, MP3's, Instant Messaging, IRC, Decent FTP Client, and A News reader.

    Everything was Included in the ISO's for Mandrake I burned. The only problem people switching over will have is trying to understand that whatever it is they need, it's (Usually) already installed!

    • Re:It's all there! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rectum2003 ( 686009 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:49AM (#6836694)
      You're right, and I'd like to add something to it. I installed WindozeXP last week, and I noticed that fully patched with SP1 and Norton antivirus, the thing had a whoppin' 3.5 Gb. I tought: 3.5Gb and I just got media player and wordpad... When I install Linux on my box I usually do full install, for ~2.5Gb and I get an insane amount of software, anything I could think of 3 time each: 3 web browsers, 3 spreadsheets, tons of games, around 10 graphical environments... Where does all that space goes in windows??
      • Goes on bloat. And stollen patents. And spyware. And EULA, which is now about 258 pages long. Oh yes, don't forget that awesome default wallpaper. Isn't XP the prettiest?

        But seriously, this is another move in the right direction, especially considering the current environment produced by latest worm rounds. More opportunity people get to find about alternatives to MS - the better. I have no doubt that there is more and more demand after each virus breakout.

      • You're kidding me. That's "interesting"? More like "Score: -1, Stereotype".
      • I don't have WinXP, I use Windows 2000. It currently takes about 1Gb. Here is a picture of the contents made using Sequoia [win.tue.nl].

        http://www.lut.fi/~medvedev/misc/winnt.jpg [www.lut.fi]

        As you can see, most of it is code in system DLLs. Of course, it has been shown in the past that MS code is bloat. We can safely assume that 90-95% of the typical DLL is never used. Some useless resources, uncompressed bitmaps and crap like that. A lot of space is occupied by dll cache, a completely stupid feature made to solve a completely

    • Re:It's all there! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by eggstasy ( 458692 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:49AM (#6836695) Journal
      >An Office Suite (replaced by Open-office)
      wordpad, calc and outlook express =P
      i dont have an office suite installed and i dont need it. im not an accountant, i dont use spreadsheets and wordpad or even write are more than i'll ever need in terms of text formatting.

      >A Programming Environment (Replaced by QT Designer)
      notepad :D

      >Zipfiles
      builtin to windows xp

      >PDF files
      isnt the acrobat reader plugin instamagically downloaded when you first browse to a pdf?

      >MP3's
      WMplayer

      >Instant Messaging
      MSN messenger

      >IRC
      telnet =P

      >Decent FTP Client
      ftp.exe IS a decent ftp client. i thought we linux freaks enjoyed working with the console?

      >and A News reader.
      Outlook express?

      I know what you mean but you went about it the wrong way. With mandrake, i slap on the cd, press a couple buttons and it Just Works.
      With windows, I need to either rummage through my thousands of CDs in a vain attempt to locate my drivers, or download them from a working puter.
      Why on earth arent most drivers included with windows anyway? All builtin windows drivers are always really old and crappy. Unless you have a severely outdated computer, windows will be a 16 color, soundless, webless hell upon first boot. Except for XP which finally seems to get that no one sane uses 16 colors anymore, or even 640x480.
      I was using 1024x768 at 256 colors 10 years ago on my 486 under windows 3.1!
      With Linux, you instantly get sound and pretty true colour graphics, unless you have some really weird incompatible hardware.

      • Re:It's all there! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dmaxwell ( 43234 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:59AM (#6836720)
        Why on earth arent most drivers included with windows anyway? All builtin windows drivers are always really old and crappy. Unless you have a severely outdated computer, windows will be a 16 color, soundless, webless hell upon first boot. Except for XP which finally seems to get that no one sane uses 16 colors anymore, or even 640x480.

        When a major MS release debuts, it is like that. When 98 first came out, chances were there would be a driver for every device in a then current PC. After about 6 months, it starts getting time to trawl through vendor websites for drivers. Pretty much the same thing happened when 2000 then XP came out.

        Remember, most people just go with OEM installs on their new PCs which will have all the drivers. Its the likes of us that set up systems with full install CDs and the latest drivers from the vendors. MS doesn't really have to cater self-installers on their full install media. Anyone using it probably has enough clue to go find drivers.

        Linux distros on the other hand attempt to provide you with everything you need. However, the trick there is to use a current distro CD. The same thing happens with distro CDs that happens with new major MS releases. They just occur more frequently.
      • [everything works]...unless you have some really weird incompatible hardware

        Like one of those very uncommon and not ordinarily encountered CD-RW drives.

      • Why on earth arent most drivers included with windows anyway?

        They aren't? I guess I'd better go and find some drivers then, because when I installed Windows 2000 I just accepted the drivers Windows already had.

        Now, Windows does have the minor problem of not coming with drivers for hardware which hasn't been released yet; but I think you'll find the same problem with any operating system. (And with Windows, you can usually download drivers from Windows Update -- no need to search through piles of CDs.)
        • Windows could have drivers for future hardware if it wrote them more generally. Linux has a single driver for tulip ethernet controllers. There are hundreds of them, each with it's own driver on windows, most of which don't ship with it.

          I can understand that most people are intimidated by such a naming scheme, but if they'd just offer the generics and incorporate them into plug-and-play, it would future-proof a lot better.

          Of course, then people wouldn't need to upgrade as much.

      • Re:It's all there! (Score:2, Informative)

        by Russ Steffen ( 263 )
        ftp.exe IS a decent ftp client

        I do hope you're kidding. FTP.EXE (still) does not support passive mode. The rest of the world's had that since before Windows had a TCP/IP stack.

      • wordpad, calc and outlook express =P i dont have an office suite installed and i dont need it. im not an accountant, i dont use spreadsheets and wordpad or even write are more than i'll ever need in terms of text formatting.

        Is this the same outlook that gets targeted by dozens of viruses, that takes someones list and sends out copies of the same virus?

        >Zipfiles builtin to windows xp

        I wonder does zip have better compression then say bzip, or gzip? Last I checked I saved more space using bzip than windows zip.

        >PDF files isnt the acrobat reader plugin instamagically downloaded when you first browse to a pdf?

        Good old Adobe PDF. I love the way it jacks up my processor in Windows, I guess this could be your reason to like it too, I mean who the hell needs free ram space?

        >MP3's WMplayer

        Oh man oh man, I loooove WMplayer spyware. I like the way it decides to just check up on album information when I'm playing it. I mean its not like the server that it's connecting to is snooping my information. Checking what I'm listening to maybe even putting together a massive list for the RIAA that says "Hey look at user foo, he's listened to 10,000 albums this month.

        >Instant Messaging MSN messenger

        How did you know another one of my favorites. I love getting a zillion 'Stop this Pop-up' ads from MSN. Yay "MS: Who do you want to spam today?"

        >IRC telnet =P

        Oh boy you're the best I mean why not use telnet and let everyone using a sniffer see my information coming down the pipes. Can I have your rocket science knowledge?

        >Decent FTP Client ftp.exe IS a decent ftp client. i thought we linux freaks enjoyed working with the console?

        FTP on any OS is rather dumb nowadays considering sftp is freely available under both OS'.

        >and A News reader. Outlook express?

        See above.

        • >> IRC telnet =P
          > Oh boy you're the best I mean why not use telnet and let everyone using a sniffer see my
          > information coming down the pipes. Can I have your rocket science knowledge?

          Ah, I think I also need some of that rocket science knowledge to understand how using telnet to connect to an IRC server would somehow be more sniffable than using a real IRC client.

          Does Windows' telnet.exe send a copy of all transmitted data to Microsoft, or do you just have a problem seeing the difference betw
        • I wonder does zip have better compression then say . . . gzip?

          Probably not, given that zip and gzip use the exact same compression algorithm. In fact, the code used for gzip and the .zip support of the shareware program WinZip are both derivatives of the same source code, which was written for the Info-Zip program, a pkzip clone.
    • Somewhat ironic that Linux is now being praised for bundling everything out of the box--exactly what got MS in trouble (IE, WMP, MSN, etc).

      Yes, I know the situation isn't exactly analagous, but it still seems rather hypocritical to me.
      • Does EVERYONE remember this wrong, or is it just me?

        Microsoft did NOT get in trouble for simply bundling software. The specific issue was IE vs NETSCAPE. Netscape was at an unfair disadvantage not simply because IE came with Windows, but because it was INSEPARABLE from Windows. Parts of IE buried in the OS code meant that you were loading most of IE every time you booted, and then to use Netscape you were using up tons of memory on top of that. This made Netscape far less convenient to use, even i
      • Somewhat ironic that Linux is now being praised for bundling everything out of the box--exactly what got MS in trouble (IE, WMP, MSN, etc).
        Except that RedHat bundles KDE along with Gnome, MySQL along with Postgresql, and I'm sure a bunch more.
        Now if Microsoft bundled Netscape along with IE, AOL along with MSN, etc., you'd have a point about hypocrisy.

  • Isn't Linus a Nord ? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ignis Flatus ( 689403 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:25AM (#6836609)
    I suppose it's true that prophets are always recognized last in their hometowns.

    • Re: A Finn. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by E_elven ( 600520 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:28AM (#6836625) Journal
      You're of course inferring the extensive governmental support for open source in, say, the US?

      • Re: A Finn. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @03:00AM (#6836861) Journal
        Would you be referring to the DARPA support (some of the BSD projects have had DARPA support for instance, linux too--in case you didn't know, Rob Watson, core FreeBSD member and on Fbsd Foudation board of directors is a DARPA Principal Investigator ), NSA funding, or something else?
    • I just can't wait until the Swedish Chef releases all his recipes to the public domain! Mort, mort, mort!
    • I believe he is what is known as a 'finlandssvensk', that is to say, he may live in Finland, but his native (first) language will be Swedish. The western half of Finland, from Helsinki to Turku on the coast, is where the 'finlandssvenskar' live - street signs et al. in both languages.

      Linux was honoured some years past by the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm - I believe he received an honorary doctorate, but I might be wrong. It was at any rate the same body that gave GATES that doctor's hat the year
      • Linux was honoured some years past by the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm - I believe he received an honorary doctorate, but I might be wrong. It was at any rate the same body that gave GATES that doctor's hat the year after.

        Yup, Linus and Bill has honorary doctorates at KTH. So does Richard M. Stallman. Quite a crew, huh? I hope they get together once in a while and discuss important matters!

  • Title, people, title! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:27AM (#6836623)
    One of the first thing these guys need, like som many other sites is a descriptive title! "Welcome to nordicos.org" is *not* a good title - when are people gonna learn that?

    "Nordicos.org - Nordic open source software", or if you have to, "Welcome to Nordicos.org - Nordic open source software" is the title to have. Why? Well, not only because it makes for much better tabs, and better bookmarks, but because this is what you see in a search engine.

    And search engines also pay quite some attention to the title, especially when it comes to comparing to content and meta tags. Consistency.

    Please, ffs, do the world a favour and use informative titles! How hard can it be... sigh.

  • Won't change anything (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rectum2003 ( 686009 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:30AM (#6836635)
    "Normal" people don't give a sh*t about sites like that. What they need is cd's a la AOL filled with OpenOffice.Org, Mozilla Firebird&Thunderbird, a win32 port of Xine (Now THAT would be cool), ect... That and more exposure from mainstream media. I'm sorry but this is the only way OSS will really take off.

  • Props to the North... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blcamp ( 211756 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:32AM (#6836642) Homepage
    As an American who studied for a year in Sweden, I can say first-hand that the Nordic have always been at or near the cutting edge where software and technological issues are involved.

    Sweden in particular is one of the most wired nations on the planet, and has been actively involved in open-source... anyone ever heard of MySQL?

    Skal till Norden!

    - Barry

  • BSDs anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not a single BSD?
    Why?
    • I'm guessing nobody mentioned the *BSDs because they're too busy camparing the installs of WindowsXP and Mandrake... My advice for the Nordics would be to go straight for OpenBSD.. it takes a little longer to get used to and I can honestly say I still havent fully figured it out yet.. but nothing beats the satisfation of running a stable and secure NAT, DNS, FTP, HTTP, IRC Server, Mutt thru Emails and IPv6ing and BNCing my way thru anonymity. Porting most Linux apps is a snap so youre not missing much there

    • Re:BSDs anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Malcontent ( 40834 )
      Cos it's dying? :)

      Seriously though..

      I have noticed that most people who run freebsd came from linux. For some reason or another they got pissed off at linux and switched to BSD. I don't know anybody who started with BSD.

      Maybe that's because there is not a comprehensive BSD distro like RedHat or Mandrake. One where you put in a CD and it autodetects everything, sets up your video and sound and gives you a slick desktop.

      Lets face it BSD is not for newbies.
      • You have been registered. 1

      • Re:BSDs anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zakezuke ( 229119 )
        I was running BSD for a short period of time way back in the later half of the 1990s. Basicly solaris was slowaris on my sparc and it was a legit option so hey. So technicaly I started with SunOS.

        Near as I can remember, the last BSD distro for the PC I tried was probally Freebsd, which has exactly what you described, nice hardware detection and somewhat slick desktop. It even detected my Linksys netcard where redhat failed (circa 2000).

        The only thing I really miss from FreeBSD is the ftp client has a n
    • Well, for most users, there is very little difference in stability between Linux and xxxBSD - whatever difference there is will only be noticeable in a server farm setting, and perhaps not even there.

      And then, today, most Unix apps are being written for Linux. Of course, it's quite easy to port them or run them in a Linux compatibility environment, but if 90% of the visible apps you run are for Linux to begin with, then why run anything else? This is btw a reason I don't understand the excitement about Win
      • i know a guy who started in FreeBSD way years before now, he's in linux now. i did it the other way around. here's why:

        compared to redhat7, neat quick startup, bsd style, other linux distros have it too, i know.

        small neat system, excellent and stable for kde / x, unlike redhat, no scary process like rpcThis and nfsThat. (slackware's good too)

        not really THAT difficult, if you can manage linux, it's not going to show you anything you can't handle, wusss,

        but above all else, the _kernel_compilation_worked_.
        • This is an excellent illustration of what I was saying. "Neater" startup, doesn't enable rpc or nfs by default (could be seen as a drawback for shops using those features). Kernel compilation procedural differences - something that will be done by one user in a hundred? Thousand? And of those doing their own kernel compile, how many will happen to stumble on Linux kernel compilation but not BSD? How many will experience the opposite problem?

          This is the point. You bring up a few "sort-of-nice and besides, m

  • The Windows Toolbox is similar (Score:5, Informative)

    by thegoldenear ( 323630 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @01:55AM (#6836709) Homepage
    We provide a similar site to what these people offer (tho nowhere near as polished, and only for Windows) in the form of the Windows Toolbox [thegoldenear.org], distribution of predominantly Free software for Windows, and especially its list of software [thegoldenear.org]
  • Nice site, admirable idea, but it remains to be seen if they'll be relevant.

  • From the site (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Famous Brett Wat ( 12688 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @02:08AM (#6836745) Homepage Journal
    Mur shmeer de heer de heef de leenooks.

    Finally, a site that will pronounce "Linux" the way it was intended.

  • WARNING OFFTOPIC (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kramer2718 ( 598033 )
    So when I first read this headline, I thought it was another government country X decides to convert such and such systems to OSS.

    This seems to be more and more common. And why not? It's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying M$ liscenses (as long as you aren't stupid enought to pay SCO).

    Anyway, I started thinking, why doesn't the US do this? We have a $4.5 * 10^11 deficit; M$ liscense payments can't help that. Well, there are many reasons the US gub'ment doesn't go Open Source, but foremost is a pow
    • Now there is a nice one: "Be patriotic! Reduce the deficit! Avoid costly software licensing and use OSS!

      • Outsourcing and open source == EVIL (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "Be patriotic! Reduce the deficit! Avoid costly software licensing and use OSS!

        "Be unpatriotic. Increase unemployment! Avoid all-American software and use OSS!"

    • The following trolls completely miss the point:

      The main cost of software is SUPPORT.

      Linux will require support.

      The money simply would not go to Redmond, but would be spread far and wide across the US.

      As it is for the US government, offshore support would be a no no... Strictly home grown support staff would be mandatory.

      If you buy the BS that "Linux costs MORE to support" from Redmond, even better to help support the economy, right?

      (Everyone knows that's BS, but stay with me)

      I use Linux, have used Ne
  • - A standard way to add drivers for : Audio, Network, Video, videocapture. Ok, so video usually works. Now the rest please.
    - A Mediaplayer that runs it all.
    - Video Capture and recording software that just blows away the freebies from Pinnacle, hauppage like winttv etc. That should be easy. /Dread
    • I guess you haven't tried mplayer or don't how do install codecs. Check their hp. There are lots of codecs. The only problem with mplayer is the gui which really suck.

      /Phre4k
  • Yesterday as I was restocking my kitchen, I thought, "hey, I want the kind of software that supermarkets use" (possibly without the RDIF tags, though whenever my cousin visits, bottles of gin mysteriously vanish, so even those might be a good idea).

    Then, why not a serious financial management package for my money (the $232 that I've managed to save since the dot-com boom, and which has not yet been converted into gin)?

    The list goes on. Even "huge" packages like SAP are basically just dumb data-entry applications with lots, lots, and lots of options. It used to be that the entry point for building something like this was huge. You needed:

    - serious hardware
    - licenses for the OS, for tools,...
    - Oracle or something similar
    - dozens of developers
    - huge management structures

    I know, I've worked in many companies that produced this kind of software.

    Now, today, almost all of these costs have been eliminated, even the huge management structures, as developers have learned how to use tools like CVS, wiki, and even simple email.

    It's now feasible (and has been for several years) to foresee a possible next step for OSS, namely to provide domestic/personal/small-business versions of software applications that until today have been considered only "big business".

    I'm thinking of stuff like accounting systems, stock-control systems, ERP systems, financial planning systems, currency management, and so on. I'm sure you can add your own favourites: content management.

    I'm not quite sure whether I want my fridge to be equipped with a "supply chain management system", but that might be the best tool for the job.

    OK, I _know_ that one day, maybe ten years from now, Siebel Systems, or SAP, or PeopleSoft will decide to donate their source code to OSS, much as Sun donated StarOffice. Maybe it's simplest to wait.

    But this seems to me to be one of the greatest gaps in today's OSS offering, and one that it should be relatively easy to fill, given modest state support.

    • I'm thinking of stuff like accounting systems, stock-control systems, ERP systems, financial planning systems, currency management, and so on.

      Compiere [sourceforge.net]? It's not native and it still needs Orrible, I think, but it's getting somewhere.

      • Yes, stuff like this.

        But needs lots and lots of work. I would guess that the only way a decent OSS ERP system will come into being is if it is (a) subsidised by the state and (b) actively used by many businesses. If I had the political power I'd definitely find this a good investment of money. Damn, it's a great idea: how much would a small country like Belgium or Sweden save per year if they could find a workable alternative to SAP, for instance? The mind boggles... Perhaps one day we will see govern

        • Damn, it's a great idea: how much would a small country like Belgium or Sweden save per year if they could find a workable alternative to SAP, for instance?

          Having been there and done that, I can attest that the major cost is not the software licensing, it's:

          a) Hardware (acquisition + maintenance)
          b) Training
          c) Support

          None of these would really disappear under an OSS solution since you'd anyway have to pay $$$ to some consultant to set it up, train your employees and handle support when things go wro

          • a great idea for yet another EU boondoggle

            Yes indeed. I was thinking that a few thousand blockading farmers are enough to leverage France into forcing the EU to keep spending something like 50% of its budget on agricultural support.

            What would happen in several thousand IT'ers went on strike...? Hehe. We don't need to drive tractors onto the motorways, simply refuse to answer our emails for a week.

            Hang on... we'd all be sacked and replaced within 3 hours. OK, silly idea. But certainly IT staff withi

  • OSS and small languages (Score:3, Informative)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @05:12AM (#6837151) Journal

    Open-source programmes for small language areas have the advantage over license-based programmes that the users are allowed to adapt the source code. This means that the programmes can be translated and play an important role in the struggle by small countries to maintain their linguistic and national identities.

    And boy do we need that up here in Ultima Thule. Lets count shall we? On the surface, we have swedish, danish, norwegian, icelandic and finnish to take into account - thats five major launguages (allthought norwegians, danes and swedes can understand eachother - we just choose not to).
    However....
    In sweden, sami is an offical second language. In Norway, we have bokmal (mainstream 'wegian), nynorsk ('new norwegian', based on the dialects) and sami as official launguages. In Finland, you have both finnish and 'finlandssvenska' (finlandswedish) to cope with. The danes and icelanders are easily the best off, with just one launguge each. So that gives us a total of nine launguage-variants that the writer of software ought to cater for... in a region with just over 25 million inhabitants. Can we seriously expect the big corps to cater to this marked? Not really, and that makes OSS the best alternative in order to make sure we get software in our own language.

  • Just what the hell is a Nordic country? (Score:5, Informative)

    by LeoDV ( 653216 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @06:08AM (#6837304) Journal
    The Nordic countries? So what are they? The three Scandinavian countries? The three Scandinavian countries and Denmark? The three Scandinavian countries and Iceland? Two Scandinavian countries and Denmark but not Iceland?

    Apparently according to their page, it's the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Iceland and Groenland. So that's okay. But please mention it, because I'm European and I only just found out about this Nordic Council of Ministers.

    It's really irritating when people use mindlessly generic terms like that. "Other countries like Europe--" GRR!

    • Re:Just what the hell is a Nordic country? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Scandinavia is DK, SE and NO.
      Nordic is scandinavia + Fin, Ice and Groenland.

    • Not a generic term (Score:3, Informative)

      by Earlybird ( 56426 )
      Although both Random House Webster's Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary both list "Nordic" as being synonymous with "Scandinavian", on this side of the Atlantic the phrase "Nordic countries" ("norden" in most Scandinavian languages) specifically denotes the Western-Europe countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, which the Nordic Council of Ministers describes [slashdot.org] as consisting "of five sovereign states and three autonomous territories: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, along with the Faroe
    • The Nordic Ministrial Council, and the Nordic coopeation between the Nordic vountries have existed for quite some time, including cooperation on crime prevention, fishing, expot control and a pasport union, much like the Schenegen union within the EU.

      This raises some interresting problems and questions, as Sweden, Denmark and Finland are all members of EU/Schengen, and Norway is not, but all of them are members of the Nordic Cooperation, so norweigians are allowed to move to the other of these counttries f
    • Please mod the parent down - it is wrong and therefore not informative.

      Scandinavia is Denmark, Sweden and Norway and sometimes Iceland (the ancient lands of the Norsemen), while the Nordic countries are Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland.

      See here [lysator.liu.se] for more info.
  • The Dutch government has started a similar initiative some time ago, providing governmental agencies and other interested parties with information about Open Source and Open Standards. The site: OSOSS.nl [ososs.nl]
  • to say Nordic rather than Scandinavian.

    Germans are also considered "Nordic", so this is probably a misnomer. Scandinavian indicates non-German Nordic peoples who speak northern/western germanic languages with the exception of the Brittish Isles.

    Yet another example of sacrificing accuracy for the sake of brevity.

    Now the Italians will want to be called Romans.

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