In praise of Kiwi software
When Simon Blake's mum who worked at Horowhenua Library Trust needed a new catalogue and lending management system, she naturally checked out what was available. When she picked herself up off the floor she called Simon who, with his partner Rachel Hamilton Williams run Katipo for help. The result was Koha - Open Source Integrated Library System [Read more →]
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June 1, 2009 No Comments
Penguin Day S.F. – an open source love-in
A Penguin Day is where non-profit organizations get the opportunity to explore the range of issues and options involved using Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS).
I arrived surprisingly fresh from an overnight flight to San Francisco and settled in for an afternoon of geekiness (to find out how I ended up at this event, you need to read this post).
The afternoon sessions included a 'speed geek'. The 100 or so participants were divided in to nine groups, which then rotated around nine open source projects, on a tightly shepherded 4-minute cycle. Some interesting topics were covered, including; an alternative/extension to the idea of Open ID, a network to assist surfers to hide their ISP, (helpful for people in countries where the authorities are blocking certain sites), plus various website and database tools. [Read more →]
April 27, 2009 No Comments
Pirate Bay convictions have unintended consequences
If ever we needed an indicator of the role of file sharing in the Internet revolution, the decision to imprison the owners of Swedish file sharing site Pirate bay may have given us the answer.
Copyright holders may have won the battle, and opened a whole new war. via Swedes demonstrate in support of Pirate Bay
The convictions and prison sentences handed down to the defendants in The Pirate Bay case have prompted Sweden's youth to action. The Pirate Party reports booming support as demonstrators turn out in force on Saturday.reports booming support as demonstrators turn out in force on Saturday. [Read more →]
April 19, 2009 1 Comment
Free software looks better in tough times
Sean Dodson at the SMH surveys the software scene and concludes that there is a significant shift toweards FOSS applications, with the emphasis on the F part. via A downloading guide for freeloaders
RICHARD Stallman once wrote that the point about free software is it is "free as in freedom, not free as in beer", meaning people should be at liberty to do as they pleased with software, rather than subscribe to its restrictive licences.
As the economic crisis takes hold, the stress may be on the second half of his aphorism. [Read more →]
April 7, 2009 No Comments
Security scanning update – highly variable
In the last few days I have been trying out some of the online security scans and things have, if anything deteriorated since the last time I tried them.
March 24, 2009 3 Comments
