March 27th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
OpenProj 1.0 has been released, and the software has now passed 350,000 downloads since inception.
It’s a Java-based project management application that works well for my purposes as a simple and occasional project management software user. I’d like to see the UI improved a bit (mostly the top bar of buttons and the menus), and perhaps consider a switch from its “CPAL” open source license (based on the Mozilla Public License, but I am not very familiar with CPAL itself) to LGPL or something less controversial within the open source community.
Another positive development is that OpenProj is being distributed bundled with StarOffice 8.0 in Europe which will provide it with good visibility, and strengthen the featureset available to StarOffice buyers as well.
Posted in Open Source | Comments Off on OpenProj 1.0 Released
March 26th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Northxsouth, a small company of web developers with offices in San Francisco and Sao Paulo, Brazil, represents a new global archetype that has shaped, and been shaped by, the methods of open source software.
In their own words, “Many of us are also involved in open source and free software projects. We were using online collaboration tools as a part of our day-to-day work for open source projects where no two people involved lived in the same city. Being accustomed to secure messaging, voice-over-ip and groupware, we gained a unique edge. Our network of opportunities and trusted talent expanded beyond the Bay Area and we started working on free software projects in Latin America as open source gained momentum there.”
The Northxsouth blog has kept track of interesting developments in the world of Free Software, including a recent survey titled “Free Software Becoming Entrenched in Brazil,” where they report “As time goes on, free software is becoming institutionalized within Latin American businesses, public sector systems, non-profits and NGOs.”
There had been much press a few years ago during the announcements of migration plans to open source, but not a lot of news since. This indicates that much has been happening during this time. (The FOSS adoption survey itself is here.)
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Northxsouth
March 21st, 2008 Benjamin Horst
For the past few years, Malaysia has been on the forefront of the ODF-MSOOXML struggle as well as the OpenOffice.org-Microsoft Office competition. However, bit by bit they have been moving in the direction of the open source camp.
A recent press release informs us that a Malaysian government agency has chosen to migrate to OpenOffice, in “MAMPU Migrates to OpenOffice.org.”
Quoting the entire short press release:
“The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), today officially adopts a policy to migrate to the OpenOffice.org open source productivity suite. This is in line with the Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Master Plan, which calls for government agencies to reduce costs, increase freedom of choice and interoperability.
“From April 1st, MAMPU will start adopting the OpenDocument Format (ODF), standard for all new documents created. ODF, the ISO open standard for electronic documents, is also the default format for OpenOffice.org. The agency will also uninstall all copies of Microsoft Office by the end of 2008.
“To ensure a smooth migration, presently over 80 agency staff have been trained by the Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC). Additional staff will then be trained internally by the IT department, which will also provide support for OpenOffice.org.”
Combined with a strong presence in Singapore and the Philippines, and a recent 20,000-seat government migration in Vietnam, it appears that Southeast Asia is quickly becoming a major stronghold of the OpenDocument Format and OpenOffice.org itself.
Edit: The Open Malaysia blog covers this story with greater detail.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org Adoption in Malaysia
March 20th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Thanks to a recent comment on an earlier post here, and a mention on Erwin Tenhumberg’s blog, I’ve found OOo Ninja’s post of screenshots from OpenOffice.org 3.0 Alpha.
Some great features are due to arrive in this release toward the end of the year. They include an upgraded notes feature (with display in the margin), side-by-side page view options, an improved user interface theme for Calc, native table support in Impress, and the native Mac version!
Erwin also mentions in his blog the download rate of OOo has reached 1 million per week, an astronomical number that even still does not represent the total number of users, since many will get their copy from other repositories, Linux distributions, CDs, or pre-installed with a new computer.
Posted in Mac, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 3 Comments »
March 17th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Swapnil Bhartiya, of the EFY News Network, interviews Matthias Ettrich, the founder of KDE.
Ettrich talks about how he started KDE in 1996 to provide a Free Software answer to Windows 95, and how it has grown until today, when KDE offers a generally superior environment to Microsoft’s: “Try to compare Windows XP with KDE 3: nobody in their right mind would choose Windows over GNU/Linux based on the desktop experience alone.” (Why he specifically mentions the previous version of each desktop environment, I’m not sure.)
He also points out some of the remaining obstacles for Free Software: “Microsoft Office is still a major hurdle; we need more governments and companies to have the bravery to standardise on truly open formats. A proprietary undocumented text format as the de facto standard — and that’s what .doc is — is a shame for all parties involved. It’s like using a special patented ink that can only be read with special patented sun glasses.” (KDE is promoting ODF, as one of its earliest and strongest backers.)
He’s also optimistic about India’s future as an open source powerhouse. “India is a major commercial software development centre, home to some of the world’s largest software companies, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t play a similar role in the Free Software space.”
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, ODF, Open Source | Comments Off on EFYtimes Interviews Matthias Ettrich
March 14th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
OpenOffice.org and Alfresco can be used together for powerful Enterprise Content Management. Erwin Tenhumberg points out a handy new OpenOffice Extension that provides deeper integration between the two applications called the “OpenOffice.org Plugin for Alfresco.”
While rereading parts of Alfresco’s site, I found the latest release of “Alfresco’s Open Source Barometer Survey.” Of particular interest is their findings for office suites (among an admittedly self-selected sample of users): “When it comes to content it comes from Microsoft Office. However, users in Germany and France are twice as likely to use OpenOffice than in the US or UK. Microsoft Office 66%, OpenOffice 24%.”
This is the highest usage share I’ve yet seen for OOo, but it keeps growing everywhere and every time I look.
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice + Alfresco = Crazy Delicious
March 13th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Jim Zemlin interviews Mark Shuttleworth for the Linux Foundation.
It’s a very thorough and valuable interview. A few choice quotes:
Shuttleworth on his decision to start Ubuntu: “I had sort of assumed that Linux would power ahead to become more part of the every day sort of computing experience and when I saw the folks who were driving Linux at the time in 2004 weren’t really interested in taking Linux to the mass market, I thought there was an opportunity to do that… And that then led to the genesis of Ubuntu.”
Shuttleworth also explains what he thinks it takes to create a successful open source community: “If you look at the projects that are successful, that produce inspiring work and that produce it predictably and address issues and manage change well, I think they do two things very well and the first is, obviously, they have very good technical leadership.
“Whether that comes from a company, whether it comes from an individual or whether it comes from a collection of individuals, it’s really important that there be a meritocratic process of letting the best thinker, the best idea, the best work effectively bubble to the top.
“But they also do something else and that is that they manage a very positive social process. I think the best projects recognize that they have to maintain really constructive, positive relationships internally and with other projects if they want to continue to have really good ideas and get really good input.”
Shuttleworth’s Ubuntu project has mastered both sides of the open source coin, and it shows in the quality of Ubuntu releases and the enthusiasm community members and Ubuntu users share for the software.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on Linux Foundation Interviews Mark Shuttleworth
March 12th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Jorge G. Mare writes “Use Drupal to Empower Your OSS Project Community” for Linux.com.
It’s an overview of some of the tools Drupal can provide to support an online community not just of users, but of participants. As an open source application itself, and with such a strong toolbox, Drupal makes a great platform for the online presence of other open source projects.
In fact, Drupal has been used since 2004 to power the Spread Firefox community site, which has been a resounding success for the growth of Firefox and open source overall. It’s also used to power Ubuntu’s website, and many, many more.
Posted in Drupal, Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on “Use Drupal to Empower Your OSS Project Community”
March 11th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The news first arrived last week that OpenOffice.org will adopt LGPLv3 as of OOo 3.0 beta.
This change and some other improvements are described in Simon Phipp’s post linked above.
He explains: “OpenOffice.org’s license will change to LGPLv3 as part of a broader set of changes intended to improve the OpenOffice.org community for everyone. Those changes also include a switch to the latest version of the standard Sun contributor agreement, with an addendum specifically tailored to the needs of the OpenOffice.org community. There’s increased latitude for documentation writers to publish their work on OpenOffice.org. And in future, plugins for OpenOffice.org may host their source code directly on the community site without copyright being shared, helping collaboration within the community.”
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org to Adopt LGPLv3 License
March 10th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
SchoolForge.net has a great collection of Education Case Studies.
The studies are written by the teachers and educational technologists implementing these projects every day, which demonstrates the grassroots nature of the migration, even in the USA, of educational institutions to open source software. It also shows the vast array of possible creative solutions to computing infrastructure, with migrations to Linux on fat clients, thin-client networks, or smaller migrations to open source applications on legacy Windows operating systems all occurring.
SchoolForge itself is a great community, describing itself thus: “SchoolForge’s mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for education. We advocate the use of open texts and lessons, open curricula, free software and open source in education.”
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Case Studies of FOSS in Education