DisplayCast is a screencast and sharing application designed for intranets. It is developed by FXPAL (FX Palo Alto Laboratory). DisplayCast includes a Streamer (the source component that can either share the entire screen or a portion of it); a Player (the real time receiver); and an Archiver (this captures a stream into an H.264 movie). The official description says that […]

Elation does not come close to describing what I am feeling right now. Euphoria does not even do it justice. Every cell in my being is in a state of extreme, joyful excitement as I speak (or write). The source or cause of the joy is none other than the announcement from HP that webOS will be, in their own […]

On 7 March 2011, the National Archives launched the newest version of Digital Record Object Identification (DROID), an open source, file-identification and digital data management tool for the public and private sectors, and for individuals to download and use. DROID can scan millions of files at a time and correctly identify hundreds of different file formats, including most document, audio […]

The Dutch could save one to four billion Euro per year, if their public administrations would move to open source software, according to calculations done by the ministry of the Interior. The ministry deemed the report ‘unsound’ and wanted to keep it under wraps, but members of the Parliament demanded access to the report. “I knew that enhancing competition would […]

Globally the sale of health care information systems is a multibillion dollar industry. The vast costs, frequent failed systems, and inability of systems to talk to each other regularly attract media comment. However policy makers still shy away from a class of software, Open Source, that could address many of these problems, because of worries about the safety and security […]

The Musical Studies Department (MSD) of the Ionian University in Corfu has recently taken the initiative to become the first ever Public Organization and educational Institution in Greece that officially embraces Free and Open Source Software in its infrastructure. The project of migration of the MSD to open software applications was run after a decision of the Department’s General Assembly […]

Spain’s public administrations are an important driver for the advance of open source software on desktop computers. That is one of the conclusions of a desktop migration guide published by the IT department of the city of Zaragoza. Many Spanish public administrations have already adopted a free and open source desktop system, the report notes, listing implementations done by the […]

Public administrations in Slovenia are to increase their use of free and open source software on their desktop computers. Around 2015, 80 percent of the government’s offices should be using this type of desktop software, according to a plan published by the Ministry of Public Administration in January. The open source software stack to be implemented includes open source office […]

The Estonian ministry of the Environment has save millions of Euro over the past ten years by using the open source suite of office application, OpenOffice, says Meelis Merilo, the head of the IT department at the ministry. Using the open source cost the ministry no more than 64.000 Euro over the past ten years, being simply the annual budget […]

Community development in open source software is not just for geeks in sandals nor for niche Linux companies any more. It’s mainstream and it’s here to stay. The recent analysis of companies contributing code to the Linux kernel shows that large companies including Novell, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Texas Instruments are getting serious about engaging in community development. Organisations such […]

The Italian region Puglia will make the use of open source software and open standards mandatory for its public administrations. A law, adopted on 2 December by the regional administration, instructs regional and local public administrations to use open formats for the electronic disseminations of documents, and wherever possible use free and open source software. According to the law, public […]

The Relevance of IT for Humanitarian Response The humanitarian response domain aims to help save lives and alleviate human suffering in responding to: i) rapid-onset natural disasters, such as tsunamis, earthquakes, and pandemics; ii) slow-onset natural disasters, such as global warming, droughts, and famine; and iii) human-instigated disasters, such as civil wars. The humanitarian response domain consists of an ecosystem […]

Public administrations in Norway are increasingly turning to open source, says Martin Bekkelund, business developer at Friprog, the country’s open source competence centre. This year, all ninenteen county administrations are using open source in some form, compared to 76 percent in 2005. Uses varies from server operating systems , content management systems to OpenOffice. A recent example is procurement of […]

The open source database management system (DBMS) Postgresql is the new engine for France’s Caisse Nationale d’Allocations Familiales (CNAF). The organisation, responsible in 2009 for some 69 billion Euro in benefits distributed to 11 million claimants, earlier this year replaced its proprietary DBMS with the open source alternative. According to a statement published in September by IT company Bull, assisting […]

By ST-Ericcson: Open source has become an important driving force in the smartphone industry and a particularly key area of focus for ST-Ericsson. We believe that open innovation is critical to face the increasing demand on features and the broadening scope of the mobile market.  From hardware performance to software platforms and enabling the hundreds of thousands of apps & […]

By Ari Rauch, Linaro board member: Today more than ever before, our industry views open source software (OSS) as fundamental to success in the mobile and consumer electronics (CE) markets. I see this echoed in my work as the software and system engineering manager for TI’s wireless OMAPTM processors, and as a board member of the Linaro Organization. Industry innovators […]