Make a stand against censorship!

Open Rights GroupDavid Cameron’s web filtering agenda is particularly unhelpful. There are a raft of reasons why “default on” filtering is a bad idea. Filters don’t effectively block explicit material and lots of helpful, wanted material gets caught up in the same blockages (including this site!). Even if there was some practical way to avoid problems of this nature (which there isn’t) there’s another, deeper problem involved concerning censorship.

As ORG’s campaign “David Cameron: Stop Sleepwalking the UK into Censorship” points out, “adult filtering amounts to censoring legal content”. No other modern, democratic country is behaving this way. By pushing this agenda David Cameron sets a dangerous precedent for the administration of any country which is seeking to justify the suppression of information to its people.

Signing ORG’s petition is one way that you can have your say on the matter. By adding your voice to those calling on the prime minister to drop his proposals you can make a valuable stand against censorship. So take a look at the campaign and if it’s something you agree with, make your voice heard! If you’re still unconvinced that “default on” filtering is a bad move, ORG’s page on censorship goes over some of the issues in more detail. This is an issue which is cropping up more and more, in parliament and in the news and a lot of the coverage has a clear and ill considered bias. Get informed and don’t let the UK get “sleepwalked into censorship”.

Is Ubuntu Edge Worth the Money?

UbuntuTo say that Canonical’s $32 million crowd funding effort on Indiegogo is ambitious is an understatement. If they reach their target it will blow previous crowd funding records out of the water and as it is they’ve already surpassed many of the sites previous funding records. The money is intended for the production of the “Ubuntu Edge”, an experimental phone running Ubuntu Linux as its operating system and with the capability of running as a full desktop computer when docked with an HDMI monitor.

The smashing of records like “fastest project to raise $1m” reveals something of the projects popular backing, but Canonical still have a long way to go before they reach the target they’ve set. Nay-sayers would have us turn away from the project, insisting that the money should come from more traditional sources, like the mobile carriers. As Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth explained in a short interview at OSCON last week, this view ignores one of Edge’s key guiding principles. The crowd funding of the project allows it to take big strides forward in innovation that conservative phone companies are currently unwilling to enter into due to the fact that the technologies are not yet proved to be popular. If the crowd funding succeeds, that in itself will be a massive validation of the technology and will help enable similar future technologies to break into the mobile market much sooner than they would have otherwise.

Ubuntu Edge is an exciting project, pushing the boundaries of technology and committed to putting open source software into the mainstream. Read Simon’s reasons for backing the project and more in this weeks InfoWorld article.

FLOSS Weekly Features OSCON

Perhaps you spotted Simon at OSCON last week? There was a lot going on and a great atmosphere. In the midst of it all Simon found a little time to carry out a series of interviews with an eclectic collection of interesting, key attendees. The interviews form the heart of this weeks FLOSS episode and cover a diverse selection of topics including Ubuntu phone, applied neuroscience, open source online video platform “Kaltura” and the need for hosting providers to be a part of the open source community.

 

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.

Tesla Coil Music at FISL

While at FISL in Porto Alegre last week, attendees were treated to a musical interlude – performed by a Tesla coil!

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.