The Brazilian government wants its public administrations to check an Open Source reference guide before launching new IT projects.
The "Instruction for Contracting IT Services" was published last week by the Secretary of Logistics and IT, part of the Ministry of Planning. The instruction is intended prevent equivalent software solutions from being developed several times.
LiMux, the GNU/Linux desktop developed for the German city of Munich, will adopt the European Union Public Licence (EUPL), announces Florian Schießl, the city's deputy IT project manager.
The city had made it clear at the start of its GNU/Linux desktop migration project in 2003 that it would make its software publicly available using a free software licence, Schießl says. Once this decision was taken, the city administration was free to choose any licence.
The European Parliament recently passed a proposal to treat Internet censorship by repressive regimes as a trade barrier. The proposal, submitted by Jules Maaten of the rightist Dutch VVD party, passed on a 571-38 vote. Maaten describes it as an "unusual, but effective way" to promote freedom of expression on the Internet.
Unter Leitung der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn hat ein aus elf europäischen Universitäten und den Firmen SAP, Boeing, Schneider Electric, Selex sowie der Telecom Italia bestehendes Konsortium die Arbeit am Projekt "Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence" (CONET) aufgenommen. Ziel des auf vier Jahre angelegten und mit vier Millionen Euro aus dem 7. EU-Forschungsrahmenprogramm geförderten Projekts ist die Weiterentwicklung des sogenannten Ubiquitous Computing (UC), also die intelligente Vernetzung von allen möglichen (Alltags-)Gegenständen zu einer "Welt der kooperierenden Dinge".