Monthly Archives: July 2013

LibreOffice 4.1 Arrives!

Today saw the announcement of the latest major LibreOffice release. LibreOffice 4.1 is heralded as “a landmark for interoperability” in The Document Foundation’s announcement. They’re keen to emphasise compatibility related improvements and features such as the upgrades to Microsoft OOXML import and export filters and the newly enabled font embedding. Whilst compatibility with proprietary file formats is certainly one of LibreOffice’s key advantages, the new release is not short on improvements and new features in other areas too. In all, the release marks a significant stride forward for LibreOffice, maintaining it’s impressive form.

For those involved with the LibreOffice community, the annual gathering is happening in September in Milan. The call for papers is still accepting submissions until the 4th of August, so get yours in now!

Download Services Best Practice

Some open source software has turned to software installers as a potential monetisation point. Famously Oracles Java, which attempts to install a toolbar with every download, but they’re not alone. Potentially, taking money for the promotion of other, proprietary software at the point of download could be an acceptable way to monetise projects. This will only be true though in cases which carefully follow some best practice guidelines. Continue reading →

GitHub, Black Duck, and the lower burden of OSS compliance

Earlier this week we saw the debut of GitHub’s new microsite choosealicense.com. At the same time, source code analysis specialist Black Duck revealed their analysis of GitHub projects. The analysis claims that 77% of GitHub projects have no declared license. A little digging needs to be done to properly understand this number though.  Continue reading →

GitHub and Open Source Licenses

As Simon wrote last November, although GitHub is self-described as the “world’s largest open source community,” a significant number of the projects hosted there come with no rights whatsoever for you to use their code in an open source project. That’s because so many don’t include an OSI-approved open source license.  It seems as though someone at GitHub agrees with the view he put forward; yesterday they made a number of moves to rectify the situation. Continue reading →

OSCON 2013 Coming Up Fast!

OSCON 2013 is coming up fast! Running from July 22nd to 26th in Portland Oregon it’s the “epicentre of all things open source”. With over 300 speakers and 18 different tracks there’s something for absolutely everyone with an interest in open source.

On the Tuesday morning Simon will be chairing the Community Foundations 101 tutorial which is now filling up. The tutorial will be presented by a selection of non-profit foundation leaders and cover a wide range of issues faced by those considering starting a non-profit organisation for their own community. Registering now using the discount code “OSI” will not only get you a 20% discount but also get a free credit for a local attendee.

LibreOffice Conference Call For Papers

The LibreOffice Conference will be held in Milan on September 25-27 this year. The Conference has already made it’s call for papers, so if you have something interesting to say, now’s your chance to submit a proposal. The Document Foundation blog makes it clear that all are welcome, so whether you’re a member or a volunteer, a user or a developer, take a look over the list of topics for this year. If there’s something there which you need to have your say on or which simply catches your interest, now’s your chance to make your voice heard. Submit a proposal before August 4th to have it considered for LibreOffice Conference 2013.

Open Source Track at TDC 2013: São Paulo

“The Developer’s Conference” is a 5 day event for all things software development, which opens its doors in São Paulo this week on Wednesday 10th. Simon will be there running an Open Source Track along with fellow OSI director Bruno Souza. The track runs on the Wednesday, with presentations and seminars from a range of speakers, covering topics from “decentralising the web” to “contributing to open source projects” and “A developer response to software patents”. If you’re attending TDC or are in São Paulo for any other reason, get along to the open source track!

A Change in License for Berkeley DB

Perhaps you didn’t spot it, but last month in their new Berkeley DB release Oracle changed the license associated with the software. Many will see this as a betrayal of trust, despite the fact that the new license (the AGPL) is also strongly copyleft, published by the FSF and approved by the Open Source Initiative. Of course, Oracle are completely within their rights to change the license as they see fit, but for Web developers using Berkeley DB for local storage, the seemingly small change from one strong copyleft license to another may well be seen as cynical and manipulative.

Why would that be? Continue reading →

Internet Hall of Fame Inducts New Members

The Internet Hall of Fame was started last year by the Internet Society as an annual awards program to celebrate those who have made a significant contribution towards the internet’s development and advancement. This year a further 32 names have been announced as new additions to the hall of fame.

Congratulations to all of those who are being inducted into the hall of fame this year and our thanks as well for enabling the internet to become what it has.

A number of names on the list stand out as being of particular note to those of us concerned with digital and intellectual property rights. Continue reading →