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EU rejects Microsoft's licence
The European Commission has rejected Microsoft’s proposal to comply with the EU anti-trust ruling. Microsoft needs to enable other software providers to interoperate with computers that run the Windows operating system. But the proposed Microsoft server interoperability licence contains a number of serious flaws including unjustifiably high royalty fees and the exclusion of open source […]
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Microsoft excludes free software from EU ruling
The Free Software Foundation Europe says Microsoft is blocking Linux, Samba and other major open source projects from taking part in a protocol licensing scheme mandated by the European Commission’s antitrust ruling. If developers want to build the protocols into their products, they must agree not to distribute that product in source-code form, or to […]
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Update ISOC Bulgaria
EDRI-member ISOC Bulgaria has published an overview of activities in 2004. From a strong focus on free and open source software, they initiated an important project to use FOSS on the municipal level. The project is steered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help municipal governments in South-eastern Europe use the Internet to […]
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Successful access to information claim in Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, proponents of open source and open standards have booked a remarkable legal victory. On 7 December 2004 the Supreme Administrative Court ruled against the minister of state administration, Dimitar Kalchev. Two members of parliament and the foundation ‘Access to Information Program’ had demanded access to the 2002 agreement between Microsoft and the Bulgarian […]
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European geographical data at a very high price?
Advocates of open source tools that use geographical data (GIS) are concerned about a new directive proposed by the European Commission on the use of governmental geospatial data. The INSPIRE Directive, adopted by the Commission in July 2004, aims to establish a spatial information infrastructure in Europe. It covers 30 broad types of data, such […]
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1 million entries in Wikipedia
On 17 September 2004, the experimental free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia reached 1 million (approved) entries. Every internet user can write entries, and suggest improvements for any other entry. This idea has proven extremely viable in the last 4 years. Wikipedia now provides information in 100 languages, 14 of which offer more than 10.000 articles each. […]
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Recommended reading: Open Source
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC put together a rather large chart providing information on the number and type of Open Source (OS) software policies and legislation considered by national, regional or local governments around the world. It looks at whether the policy or legislation mandated the use of OS, […]
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Bulgarian complaint against Microsoft
Bulgarian members of Parliament and Internet Society Bulgaria have filed a case with the Bulgarian Competition Protection Commission against both Microsoft Bulgaria and Microsoft USA. The members of the Bulgarian Parliament Ivan Ivanov and Stoicho Katsarov and the Internet Society Bulgaria signed a letter to the Competition Protection Commission with four points questioning Microsoft practices […]
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Open source software for e-government in Bulgaria
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Internet Society of Bulgaria (ISOC-Bulgaria) have launched a project to stimulate the use of free/open source software for e-government projects. The project aims to help municipal governments in South-eastern Europe to use free/open source software applications to enhance government transparency and people’s access to municipal services. Initially […]
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German ruling against violation of GPL software license
A district court in Munich, Germany granted a preliminary injunction against Sitecom Germany GmbH for violating a GNU General Public License (GPL). Sitecom is offering a wireless access router product based on software developed by the netfilter/iptables project and licensed under GPL. The GPL offers a free license to software, but requires any re-distributor to […]
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EU ruling on Microsoft by the end of March
Antitrust regulators from the all EU member States will discuss a draft European Commission antitrust ruling against Microsoft in Brussels on 15 March. In a second meeting on 22 March the regulators will discuss the measures, including fines, that will be taken against Microsoft. It is expected that the final ruling will become public in […]
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Launch of Irish Free Software Organisation
On 5 January 2004 the Irish Free Software Organisation (IFSO) was launched. Since June 2003, members of a European free software mailing list have been collaborating on issues such as software patents, and the European Copyright Directive. One of the founders, Ciaran O’Riordan, comments: “With Ireland holding the presidency of the EU for the next […]
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