June 11th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Heise Online reports “Governing coalition to push for the adoption of open IT standards” in which they cover a Linux Tag presentation where “Dr. Uwe Küster, the party whip of the parliamentary group of the Social Democrats (SPD) in the Bundestag, the lower chamber of Germany’s federal parliament, said that the governing coalition would within the next two weeks submit a motion that would make open formats mandatory for the information technology of the federal authorities of the Federal Republic. This, Mr. Küster declared, would boost competition on the software market and strengthen the position of small and medium-sized enterprises.
“The focus would be on office software, where with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) an ISO standard had been created that would foster competition between office applications, he declared. During the discussion, which was organized by the team of the Open Source Annual, Dr. Küster compared the step about to be taken to the regulatory measures adopted with regard to the telecommunications market, which, he said, had improved the competitive chances of small suppliers vis-à-vis the “hegemony of the major players.”
Germany, the most populous country in the EU, seems poised to move its government office standard to ODF–this is a huge step forward for open standards, ODF, and marketplace competition. It also could be a boon for OpenOffice.org (as well as KOffice, AbiWord, and all the other ODF-compliant applications).
Europe is rapidly becoming ODF territory! The more countries adopt it around the world, the better our case for it here in the USA too (admittedly, this didn’t work with the metric system, but I remain hopeful).
We may have lost this round of open file format legislation in the US states where it was proposed, but when a country with a population of 82 million picks it up instead, that more than outweighs those temporary setbacks.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | 1 Comment »
June 8th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
While Microsoft fiercely resists each and every state’s attempt to adopt free and open data formats, that doesn’t stop lawmakers from making efforts to do the right thing. Most recently, Infoworld reports on New York State’s open data formats bill in New York becomes latest state to ponder ODF.
“New York State Bill A08961, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, proposes the state study how government documents are created, exchanged, and preserved and how these documents can be used in a way that “encourages appropriate government control, access, choice, interoperability, and vendor neutrality,” according to the text of the bill.”
While it’s exciting to see states start this process, simply introducing the bill is a long way from successful implementation. Other states that have trod this path haven’t completed the journey yet:
“Bills that would have required state agencies to use freely available document formats in Texas, Connecticut, Florida, and Oregon were shot down mainly due to the pro-Microsoft lobby, while a bill in Minnesota was passed only to study the possibility of using open document formats, not to actually mandate them…
“So far, Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that has officially adopted an open documents policy that will include ODF support, though governments in other countries such as Belgium, Denmark, and France are ahead of the U.S. in mandating their agencies use open document formats.“
Nevertheless, this is an important step in the nation’s third most-populous state.
While Microsoft chases back and forth across the country trying to stamp out these grassroots efforts, they’ll have that much less attention to focus on other countries moving to ODF, schools and corporations adopting ODF, new software applications implementing ODF, and on and on. Pretty soon the dam will burst and ODF will become as ubiquitous as HTML, with all the benefits a single, open standard can bring to a (soon to be) competitive marketplace!
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | 1 Comment »
June 7th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Democracy Player 0.9.6 has been released, the last version before the name change to Miro will take place.
Nicholas Reville writes, “We have just released version 0.9.6 of Democracy Player. It is a *big* update, with lots of new features, bug fixes, and improvements. It’s also the last version ever of Democracy Player. The next release from us will be under our new name, Miro.”
I’m looking forward to its new auto-update capability on OS X, among many other new features, and I’m also excited to have found it included in my Ubuntu package repositories for easy access on my Linux boxes (though it isn’t the latest version yet).
Boing Boing first introduced me to Democracy Player sometime last year, and they cover this most recent developmental release too.
In addition, Edward A Robinson blogs about the release from a Linux user’s perspective, and I’m sure there is plenty more blog coverage out there–it’s a great program and platform that deserves a lot of attention!
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Democracy Player Updated, to be Renamed Miro
May 18th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Free Software Foundation is launching a new campaign to promote the OGG free media format (especially for Mac and Windows users).
The FSF suggests using VLC for Mac and Windows users to playback OGG on their machines. I would actually suggest Democracy Player, which incorporates VLC code, so it can play back all the same files, but adds some great additional features on top of it. (These include tools for subscribing to and managing video podcasts, managing your local library of video files, and both finding and sharing media content across the net. It’s also a BitTorrent client, and a YouTube browsing and downloading tool.)
OGG’s importance lies in its freedom from patent and license fee encumbrances. FSF explains:
“The use of MP3 is restricted by patents, while OGG is not. Unlike MP3, there are never any licensing costs for using OGG, and you do not have to worry about anyone suing you for using it without a license. You might have heard about Microsoft’s recent loss in a $1.5 billion suit over their use of MP3.
“These patent lawsuits might never affect you directly, but they create a culture where creative and skilled individuals cannot develop multimedia software without fear of being legally attacked. Using OGG is one way to support them in their efforts and to encourage a better culture.”
To help spread the message, you can download or link to campaign buttons, which look like this:
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on FSF on OGG
May 15th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Another forward-thinking country is moving toward mandatory government use of the open format ODF: Norway!
The Standards Blog has the full report here.
“Norway is the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use…
“The Norwegian recommendation was revealed by Minister of Renewal Heidi Grande Roys, on behalf of the Cabinet-appointed Norwegian Standards Council. If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on ODF for Norway
May 9th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
This post is the first in a new series of “Wikis at Work,” in which I will highlight the real-world usage of wikis for community-building and project management websites.
The Digital Tipping Point is a documentary film project run by Christian Einfeldt. He is investigating the Tipping Point phenomenon (per Malcolm Gladwell) in the context of the ongoing shift from proprietary software and operating systems to open source software and operating systems.
The project makes heavy use of MediaWiki for online collaboration, including transcription, translation, video editing, and more. It is, to my knowledge, the first film made from a wiki.
Christian’s been working on this project for a few years now, putting in a lot of hours and much travel along the way. His hard work and spirit are the kind of traits that really make the open source community the success it is today.
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source, Wiki | 2 Comments »
May 8th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Morgan Collett, an Ubuntu specialist from South Africa, has posted his impressions of the OLPC XO, which he helped to demo at South Africa’s Digital Freedom Expo.
The hardware design must have been very well received, as Collett was asked whether it had been made by Apple! The videocamera really impressed the crowd (as it has impressed those students around the world who are currently testing units), and the software part of the user interface also seems to be very good.
Collett covers a few points regarding user interface innovations in the XO:
- There are no menus. Functionality is generally implied pictorially by icons. The icons are culture-neutral to some extent – for example the camera is denoted by an eye, rather than a lens or picture of a camera.
- There is no “save.” Work is saved on the fly, and can be accessed by a Journal activity. This means there is no worry about “where” you saved something or whether you remembered to save it at all. Tagging is implemented in the Journal to aid categorizing and finding things.
- There is no “open.” You can resume an activity from the Journal, which acts like a type of version control, so you can go back in time and resume earlier versions of whatever you are working on.
- While Internet is not assumed, the mesh network is always in operation. Most activities can be shared with the child’s group of friends, classmates, or others in the area. Most content, such as pictures, audio or video can be shared.
Posted in Free Culture, OLPC, Open Source | Comments Off on OLPC at South Africa’s Digital Freedom Expo
May 3rd, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Kairosnews, an education blog, posts a critique of the use of the .doc format in education.
To summarize, forcing students to use a closed format and an expensive software program they don’t strictly need, is poor educational practice. Even more importantly, use of any word processor, regardless of the brand, is frequently unnecessary and restricts the creativity and future problem-solving (lateral thinking) ability of the students who are taught this unquestioning attitude.
“Many of us teach cultural analysis and critical thinking in our writing classes. Our first year readers are full of cultural commentary, and we use these texts to teach our students to question the status quo and understand more deeply the implications of the choices they make in this consumer culture.
“Do writing teachers do the same when they tell students to submit their documents as .doc files or tell them they need to buy Word from the campus store? Have teachers questioned the assumptions behind their personal use of MS Word?
“Writing teachers have an obligation to explore the assumptions regarding the one tool we can’t do without in the teaching of writing, the word processor. The following will explore some of the common reasons I believe people continue to use and promote MS Office and its file formats, and I will challenge some of the assumptions behind those reasons and the consequences.”
The author discusses and counters the two primary arguments used by educators who continue to rely on Microsoft Word. The “lemming”-like perception that you must use it because “everyone else does,” and their familiarity with its featureset and user interface are dispelled as weaker arguments against its disadvantages of high cost, forced upgrades, barriers to competitors, and the lack of innovation inherent to monopolies.
His conclusion:
“Weigh the pedagogical benefits of using Word now against how you taught writing then [ten years ago] and the problems with using Word outlined here and others you can think of. Make an informed decision. Be willing to inform your students about the implications of using Word and .doc.
“If you decide to continue using Word, understand that people may choose not to use .doc for very good reasons. Be willing to install the ODF to MS Word file translator when working with friends and colleagues.
“At the very least, don’t tell students who have WordPerfect or MS Works on their computer that they need Word to create good .doc files in first year writing classes. Suggest that they download and install OpenOffice for free. Ask your institutions to offer OpenOffice in the labs so students can experiment with it and see that it is a viable alternative to Word.”
Posted in Free Culture, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
April 25th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Open Malaysia blog writes a post on Why OpenDocument Format matters to Texans.
It’s based on testimony delivered to the Texas House and Senate by Bob Sutor in March. It’s detailed, it’s thorough, and it is relevant to Texas and any other regional, national, or local government that deals with digital data (thus, all of them around the world).
Sutor considers Microsoft’s monopoly on the current generation of file formats a hidden “tax” that is levied on everyone using it, and even affecting those who do not:
“When you and your citizens are effectively restricted to a single software supplier to access government information, you and they pay what I would consider taxes. Open standards avoid this.
“The first tax is the difference between what you must pay to that supplier vs. the lower cost if multiple suppliers existed and prices had to be competitive. You would also pay an innovation tax. The sole vendor has limited reasons to improve the product. Fresh ideas from new players such as Texan entrepreneurs are kept out of the product category. This is bad.”
It’s a clear argument that should be easy to understand. Competition in the marketplace has proven itself time and again, and software and data file formats are no exception. And open formats are the very essence of what led to the success of the world wide web (HTML, etc). The web is an unbeatable argument in favor of open standards–remember how quickly it overwhelmed the walled gardens of AOL, MSN, and others?
Sutor continues, “EVERYONE can implement a true open standard. This bill is about choice. ODF and open standards for file formats will drive choice of applications, innovative use of information, increased competition, and lower prices. Personally, I think these are good things.
“The world is shifting to non-proprietary open standards based on the amazing success of the World Wide Web, a success that was far more important than any single vendor’s market position or ideas for what was right for the world.”
Unfortunately, I’ve been hearing reports of open format bills being watered down in California, and being blocked by Microsoft lobbyists in Florida. Let’s hope that Texas’ bill avoids such a fate, and that other states (including my own, New York) start to move in the open data format direction as well.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Open Malaysia blog: “Why OpenDocument Format Matters to Texans”
April 19th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The OLPC XO machine is starting to reach more test sites including one in Nepal and another in Brazil.
A team of OLPC volunteers traveled 9 hours by bus to the village of Jiri, Nepal, to demo 4 XOs to a group of school kids there. The demonstration went extremely well:
“For many children the first response was “what is that green box?”. Rather than an explanation, a simple demonstration of how to move the cursor and click on things was all that was needed before the first batch of experts were on their way! It wasn’t long before these kids were then eagerly teaching their friends whilst the OLPC team simply sat and watched in satisfied silence.”
And in Porto Alegre, Brazil, both teachers and students were very interested in working with the XOs:
“Here, in this school, with a library no bigger than the size of a small classroom mostly filled with desks, we found enthusiastic children happy to see us. Now with the laptop and the Internet, children in the school have access to information which would fill their library a hundred times over.”
Both posts, especially the latter, have great photos worth a closer look, so follow up on those links to see the XOs getting used by students in the real world!
Posted in Free Culture, OLPC | Comments Off on XOs in Nepal and Brazil