FOSS>News

30.06.2008 The United Kingdom Unix User Group (Ukuug) is appealing the High Court`s initial rejection to review the decision by the British Standards Institution (BSI) to vote in favour of OOXML at a recent ballot at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

23.04.2008 The Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society of Serbia (MTID) announced that, between March 25 and April 9, 2008, over 20,000 copies of localized free software packages were downloaded from its servers by the citizens of Serbia.

22.04.2008 Tavolo Trentino con il Kossovo (TTK) with its offices in Pejë/Pec became the first civil society organization in Kosovo to migrate to Linux operative system, through a training conducted by OneWorld Platform Southeast Europe (owpsee) trainers – Jordanka Petrusevska and Sanjin Buzo (April 14-18).

15.04.2008 The much-debated and disputed open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The result of the voting showed 24 supporting votes by participating national standards bodies allowed to vote, known as “p-members,” versus eight opposing votes.

26.03.2008 On the occasion of Document Freedom day, apc.au (formally c2o / Toy Satellite) releases 10 years of essays, lectures, reports and articles dealing with information communication technologies for cultural development (ICT4CD).

25.03.2008 In the ultimate battle for control over global IT standard for documents - between Microsoft-promoted OXML and Sun and IBM-backed Open Document Format (ODF), India took the side of existing ODF.

08.02.2008 A new foundation was launched on January 16, aiming to stimulate a society in which technology, educational materials, and cultural and scientific works can be freely shared. The organisation receives the support from the Internet Society Netherlands, an association for internet professionals.

17.01.2008 Serbian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society organized the work on localization of several well-known open source packages – Linux operating system, OpenOffice package, Mozilla Firefox web-browser and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client.

17.12.2007 Last Wednesday, at the Točka Cultural Centre in Skopje, the XO Laptop, created by the One Laptop Per Child foundation was presented, aimed to make computer technology available even to poorest countries in the world.

29.11.2007 The second Internet Governance Forum (IGF) concluded on November 15 and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) after the initial assessment of the event made suggestions for moving towards the third forum in New Delhi in 2008.

13.09.2007 On the occasion of the Free Software Day 2007 (the Day is celebrated every third Saturday in September, this year falling on the September 15), the Free Software Macedonia will organize special events in Skopje and Prilep. The Free Software days will also be marked in Bitola, several days later.

22.02.2007 As a result of the training for use of OpenOffice.org, conducted by Metamorphosis Foundation and USAID’s project for successful decentralization - Make Decentralization Work, the Municipality of Makedonska Kamenica started to actively use OpenOffice.org on all computers in the municipal administration.

18.01.2007 Metamorphosis Foundation organises OpenOffice.org training for representatives of local self-government units in Republic of Macedonia. The training is held in Riviera Hotel in Ohrid, from 15 to 20 January, 2007. About 100 employees in 25 Macedonian municipalities will be trained during the six day training.

17.01.2007 Metamorphosis and Free Software non-governmental organizations demand from the Government to enable the citizens to choose, if they want, to be trained in the use of free and open source software, for which there is great interest in the public. According to the two organizations, the FOSS alternatives, such as Open Office, in addition to providing the same services as the proprietary software used by the Government, offer other benefits, important in the current economic situation in the country.

21.11.2006 Second International Conference „e-Society.Mk“ was organised by the Metamorphosis Foundation in Holiday Inn Hotel in Skopje on November 15-17, 2006.

16.11.2006 The Second International Conference e-Society.mk started yesterday, November 15, in Skopje. The conference, which will close on Friday, November 17, 2006, gathers Macedonian and international ICT experts, to facilitate exchange of experiences and create policies based on the latest information related to information society.

27.09.2006 Mass computer education for all citizens from 18 to 60 years regardless their qualifications and introducing informatics as compulsory subject in primary education are just few of the many pre-election promises in then new government program that are related to accelerated development of information society in Macedonia. In VMRO-DPMNE, the new ruling political party, claims that the establishing of ministry of information society is a certain thing. The ministry will be the bearer of the accelerated ICT introducing in Macedonia program. However, for realisation of this idea the ruling party needs support from the opposition.

06.09.2006 The Slobodna kultura (Free Culture) organizations, i.e. Wikimedia Serbia received at the end of August the Letter of Intentions from Creative Commons International, thus becoming official partner of Creative Commons.

31.08.2006 The internodium.org portal reported last week that US NGOs CHF Montenegro (Community, Habitat and Finance), International Relief and Development (IRD) and the Academy for Educational Development announced the implementation of “Montenegro Connect” project for establishment of wireless network on the whole territory of Montenegro.

18.07.2006 Last week, on July 12, the Government of Croatia adopted an official document titled Directions for Development and Use of Open Source Code Computer Programmes in Bodies and Institutions of State Administration. In the document, the Government accepts the responsibility to develop, prepare and procure open-source software solutions in the development of information systems of state administration bodies.