Software Free

The pernicious "three strikes and you're out" idea is still about, and the Open Rights Group has news that an attempt may be made to enshrine it in European law:

Could Europe be drafting a new law to disconnect suspected filesharers from the internet? MEPs have already signalled their condemnation of this approach. But last-minute amendments to telecommunications legislation could bring the so-called “3 strikes” approach in by the backdoor. If you want your MEP to stick to their guns on 3 strikes, write to them today to voice your concerns.

Act now, before it's too late....

This spinelessness is just sickening in the extreme:

The United States and the European Union are nearing completion of an agreement allowing law enforcement and security agencies to obtain private information — like credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits — about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The potential agreement, as outlined in an internal report obtained by The New York Times, would represent a diplomatic breakthrough for American counterterrorism officials, who have clashed with the European Union over demands for personal data. Europe generally has more stringent laws restricting how governments and businesses can collect and transfer such information.

Yesterday we wrote about Microsoft’s attempt to ‘consume’ ODF. Joining the skepticism now is the man behind the open source definition and a vocal critic of Novell’s deal with Microsoft. Bruce Perens does not trust Microsoft, either. He explains why.

If you thought that software patents in Europe had been seen off, think again. The ever-alert Digital Majority has spotted the following:

Simon Gentry is back in software patents lobbying. Now his role is to push for legalisation of software patents via the creation of central patent court in Europe.

Mr Gentry is speaking this week at the expensive conference IPBusinessCongress in Amsterdam, which is gathering many members of the patent community

The conference has a number of tell-tale topics:

Defining the Chief IP Office

which is a bit like defining a Chief Extortions Officer

IP in the age of open source and open innovation

Increasing levels of evidence that ODF gives Microsoft a run for the money, a run from the law (and a runaway from EU fines).

Microsoft's lobbying levels seems to be rising as attempts to contaminate the EU with mathenmatical patents trigger some alarms

The public domain - that strange, no man's land "owned" by no one - doesn't really get the respect it deserves, partly because there's nobody fighting for it. So this new project to study the public domain in Europe is welcome, particular because of insightful comments like these:

A rich public domain has the potential to stimulate the further development of the information society. The development of the World Wide Web and the ability to digitise almost all text, image, sound and audio-visual material knowledge has resulted in an explosion of the citizen’s ability to store, and more importantly, share access to that information and knowledge. Public domain material has a considerable potential for re-use – both by citizens for information, education and entertainment, and for new creative expressions that build on Europe’ s rich culture.

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Source: open...

The signatories of this petition, representing a Community for Freedom of Choice and Market in the European Union, draw the attention of the Members of the European Parliament to the current situation where the institution’s ICT systems are locked into the products of one vendor, warns about the implications of this for participative democracy and for fair competition, and calls for action to promote Open Standards and Interoperability.

read more

Oh goody!

Becta are once again proving to be a particularly spiky thorn in the side of Microshaft.

You may recall that they reported the evil empire to our OFT (Office of Fair Trading) back in October last year. We’ll today they have announced the following further development:

Following discussions with the OFT, Becta has now referred its interoperability complaint and related evidence to the European Commission in support of the Commission’s wider investigation. At a recent meeting with the Commission Becta set out its key areas of concern and their impact on the UK education system.

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Source: The Open Sourcerer

Microsoft is seeking clarity about its most recent fine. What's not clear about dollars and cents? The exchange rate?

Should global navigation satellite systems be in public domain like Internet? I hope Galileo data & services will be available for the free software community!!

The undeclared war between the Microsoft and the European Union has been relatively quiet for the past few months; we haven't heard much from either party since the EU fined Microsoft $1.36 billion. The scarcely settled cauldron between the two organizations, however, is about to receive a good stirring, due to the actions of EU Parliment representative and Green Party member, Heide Rühle.

A few days ago we wrote about European nations that rejected OOXML. We later showed how Microsoft/CompTIA lobbyist Jan van den Beld made implicit threats against governments that ‘dare’ to refuse and ignore OOXML.

Well, maybe one day:

The European Parliament's IT department is testing the use of GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Firefox and other Open Source applications, the British MEP James Nicholson explained last week in a letter to Italian MEP Marco Cappato.

According to Nicholson the tests show this Open Source configuration meets the Parliament's office requirements. It does not mean that Ubuntu will immediate replace the currently used system, he added. "This depends on long-term developments and needs and functional requirements of the Parliament. The stability of our IT systems is crucial."

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Source: open...

On Open Enterprise blog.