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John Wilbanks, VP of Science Creative Commons, explains in a short interview why, exactly, Free SW and Creative Commons are a success worldwide and why it is much harder to replicate that success in other, material contexts, even when people want to be open

at the FOSS in Academia conference there were discussions about Open Government via FOSS, the bad situation of FOSS desktops in european public administrations and even a proposal for an european anti-software patents law.

During the fOSSa 2010 conference in Grenoble, several speakers talked about how much (FOSS) is important in two fields that are strictly related for the future of our society: education and environmental sustainability. This is a synthesis of the most important points that emerged in those talks

The 2010 edition of the Free/Open Source Software in Academia Conference (fOSSa) was an interesting event, with several talks that are quite relevant for everybody who cares about effective business and human resources management in ANY sector, not just in the software industry.

The organizers of a Linux presentation inside a shopping center asked me to prepare a short list of questions to hand out to all the visitors of that shopping center, that is to people that probably have no interest at all in software as such. Since it may be useful in any other FOSS advocacy event, I have put online an English version of those questions.

I have tried to collect in one page some tips, tricks and links useful to print many OpenDocument files, or to convert them to any format for which OpenOffice (or LibreOffice, for that matter) have an output filter. Suggestions and comments are very welcome!

A few years ago I wrote "(if you think Free Software is about people) Please go in the streets, and ask the first N people you meet, with N as big as you like, if they want it". This is just what will happen next Saturday afternoon in Italy, inside one of the shopping centers of Coop, the largest supermarket chain in Italy

I have just put online a 3-parts tutorial explaining how to generate one print-ready PDF out of a set of plain ASCII files written using the txt2tags markup syntax. Part 1 explains the advantages of working in this way on large texts, Part 2 describes the general flow and Part 3 the central script.

Many non-profit, non government organizations (NGO), use pirated Microsoft software for their activities, because they have no money. Therefore, charging these organizations for software piracy is an effective way to shut down disturbing voices. Microsoft is giving such NGOs free licenses to invalidate such tactics, because it abhors any attempt to leverage intellectual property rights to stifle political advocacy or pursue improper personal gain. Good. Problem is, if NGOs aren't careful, they may end up spending even more money than with licenses or locking into Microsoft software... all the people they try to serve.

James Michael Dupont (Mike) is a software developer that is doing a lot to promote Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) in Kosovo and other Balkan countries. This year, Mike invited a first class team to spend a couple of weeks in the southern Balkans, to explain why and how FOSS can play a great role in the social and economic development of those countries.

The last Open World Forum explored many sides of openness beyond Open Source software. Here are some notes I took while I was there, from women in FOSS ("The day women go to FOSS, it will finally become mainstream.") to Eben Moglen's keynote ("We make software that supports Freedom; then we put that software everywhere; then we turn Freedom on")

An article published last month that explains how to generate OpenDocument spreadsheets directly from DB2 databases also shows how easy it is (with any database, not just DB2) to generate dynamically from a database, for all the visitors of your website, spreadsheets and other office documents in an editable format that is immediately usable by many office suites (including Microsoft Office)

This is unbelievable: after suggesting extra taxes to fix (Windows!!!) computer viruses, now Microsoft says that, in order to prevent the same computers from spamming the whole Internet, governments should establish and enforce "health certificates" for computers as necessary prerequisites for Internet access. Why not just install Linux instead?

"I got by Rony another script for automatic generation of OpenDocument invoices, or any other ODF text with a fixed structure... I'm happy to host it here because he's proving what I thought when I started the ODF scripting section of this website: the OpenDocument format is not only really open, it's also so simple that everybody can save lots of tedious, manual office work thanks to it!

The conference about "Paying Attention: Digital Media Cultures and Generational Responsibility" mainly addressed at sociologists, confirmed to me the urgent need for hackers to talk much more with academics working in social/human studies. For example, I learned that recent neurological research indicates that new digital tools and media can actually rewire the neurological pathways of the brain. From the point of view of a "Free-as-in-freedom" software advocate, you could hardly find better justifications that software interfaces must be as diverse and flexible (as in "modifiable by everybody") as possible. If there were only one operating system and user interface around, all brains would be stimulated by them in one and only one way, which can't possibly be a good thing, could it now?

my first report from the OpenOffice.org 2010 conference in Budapest: Cool extensions, the power of OpenDocument, what Oracle thinks of OpenOffice and what Microsoft thinks of office files standards

The Free Technology Academy (FTA) is an international institution based in Europe, whose goal is to provide online education, at master level, about Free Software. I interviewed FTA director Wouter Tebben to know how the FTA works and what are its plans for the next year.

Some people seem to think that using only Open Source software and Open Standards for data in Public Administration is, if not sufficient, a big part of realizing Open Government. Personally, I am not so sure, and I also wonder if many non-geek citizens are really ready for Open Data and Open Government. Here is a summary of a talk I just gave on this topic. What do you think?

I just came back from an international meeting in Madrid on the reuse of Public Sector Information through open digital standards and open licenses. This is a partial report of the most interesting concepts discussed during the day.

Free/Open Source software is great for Public Administrations, but Free/Open data are even more important. Making public sector information really accessible, that is publishing online raw data in open formats and under open licenses, can both improve transparency in government and foster local economical and cultural activities. I have just started a research project on this topic, for an Italian University. Feedback is welcome!