Free Software Linux

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So ISO has decided it wants to be irrelevant: The two ISO and IEC technical boards have given the go-ahead to publish ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML formats, as an ISO/IEC International Standard after appeals by four national standards bodies against the approval of the document failed to garner sufficient support.Oh, and why would that be?

Thanks to Groklaw's Steve Martin, we have Brazil's appeal against the approval of OOXML as an ISO standard, as text. It begins on page 11 of the ISO document [PDF] Groklaw published Wednesday, the recommendation memo to the TMB to toss the four appeals in the garbage. The memo lists Alan Bryden, Secretary-General and CEO, ISO, and Aharon Amit, General Secretary and CEO, IEC, as the authors.

Now that there have been at least three official appeals filed against OOXML, by South Africa, Brazil and India, as well as a letter of protest from a participant entity at the BRM over the way matters were handled in Denmark, I thought this might be an excellent time to take a moment and remind ISO of its published Code of Ethics [PDF]. read more

3 nations (at least) are already confirmed to have appealed against ISO's decision

Slashdot seems to suggest that Brazil filed an appeal against OOXML (ISO's decision on it) after all.

South Africa was the first, but not the last. Now Brazil has sent a letter protesting the adoption of OOXML as an ISO standard also, and Andy Updegrove says he has heard there will be more...

Brazil was about to file an appeal today (joining South Africa), but guess which company blocked it?

One of the perennial debates about the GNU/Linux desktop is how much it should resemble Windows. Usually, the debate is framed in terms of whether the desktop should look familiar to new users, or be developed in whatever way seems most logical.

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"...Please consider how you can contribute to our movement. You can visit http://fsfeurope.org/contribute for suggestions of ways to get involved... 1. FTF workshop leads to broad agreement on European licensing infrastructure 2. Lack of quality in standardisation a serious problem 3. Licensing as a strategic imperative, speech at FISL 4. Fellowship Group at Ubuntu Release Party in Berlin read more

"...Science, technology and social and economic interests are profoundly intertwined today, interacting and mutually influencing one another. Many movements that are struggling for changes now recognize that, unless these issues are taken up by many and various groups of citizens, it will not be possible to deal with the challenges of our times. read more

Last month, President "Lula" da Silva appointed open source veteran Marcos Mazoni as the new head of the federal committee for free software implementation. This interview gets more detail from Mazoni about his experiences managing free software migrations at some of Brazil's biggest IT companies.

Ever wonder why Brazil and other BRIC countries are so hot on open source, including Linux? Gustavo Duarte gives several reasons, not the least of which is the punitive pricing that Microsoft inflicts on these developing markets.

"On April 17, Marcos Mazoni, the current director of Brazil’s Federal Data Processing firm (SERPRO) was appointed to head an arcane bureaucratic body: the Technical Committee for the Implementation of Free Software (CISL). Mazoni replaces Renato Martini, the current president of Brazil’s National Technology Institute (ITI, a small office within the executive branch). read more

"Brazilian minister of culture Gilberto Gil Moreira speaks on the transformative power of digital technologies..."