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Open Source Observatory (OSOR) newsletter
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follow us :
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The world has changed
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Pushing open source software nowadays has mainly become an issue of facilitating, implementing and interconnecting. Long gone are the days of the Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TCO) wars between proprietary vendors and open source proponents, the spread of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt and even calling Linux and open source software 'communism' and a 'cancer'. It may take two decades for reality to unwarp, but in the end the laws of economics prevail.
Looking at the latest OSOR news items, we see with satisfaction that a fair amount of the coverage is about clearing legal and practical obstacles from the road, and confirming and intensifying existing principles and policies. Many organisations are already reaping the benefits of open source in the form of sharing, reuse and interoperability.
At the same time, the fact that open source is becoming an important part of our educational and research ecosystem will secure its further growth and cement its long-lasting advantages to our society and institutions.
In the mid-term this will lead to strong growth in local innovation, with high-value businesses and jobs replacing the export of licence fees and limited-value deployments of proprietary systems developed on another continent.
As part of this changing world, the Open Source Observatory is currently being realigned to better support public administrations in the use of open source software. Many thanks to all of you who took the 'Future of OSOR' survey. As a second step, we are organising a workshop on 12 March: you are more than welcome to join us here, to make your opinion part of our new vision and strategy. So, see you there!
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Latest News
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Sharing & Reuse Awards 2019: deadline extended
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Extra extra!
If you are interested in the Sharing & Reuse Awards and haven’t had time to enter the contest, we have good news for you:
The deadline for submitting entries has been extended until 12 March 2019.
Two of the four contest categories are for open source applications. Contribute to open source in public services, and submit your software.
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The Future of the Open Source Observatory (OSOR)
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The European Commission (Directorate-General for Informatics, Interoperability Unit) is conducting a study to define the new vision and strategy of OSOR. To contribute to this study, the European Commission is collecting views and opinions from the Open Source Software community.
As part of this, a workshop is being organised, to present the study's findings and to discus, gather views and opinions on the future vision and strategy of OSOR.
The workshop will take place on 12 March 2019 from 10.30 AM to 1.30 PM at the European Commission’s premises in Rue Montoyer 15, Brussels, Belgium.
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City of Nijmegen reinvigorates OSS policy, forcing interoperability
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Nijmegen, the oldest and 10th largest city of the Netherlands, is reinvigorating its open source policy.
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German municipalities attracted by open source GIS
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The public works department of Bad Oeynhausen (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) is the most recent user of the QGIS geographic information system to have signed up for support at the KRZ municipal data centre Minden-Ravensberg/Lippe.
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Standardisation in progress with INSIDE (Spain)
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Spain publishes the first versions of two of the components of the CSV Suite, included under the INSIDE system umbrella, both under EUPL licence, on the Portal of Electronic Administration (Portal de la Administración Electrónica).
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France education minister rejects calls for more open source in schools
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France’s minister of education declined calls from the national assembly to make the use of free and open source software a priority in schools.
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Open source: making Earth observation data easier to use
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The OpenEO research project aims to make it easy to use Earth observation data from satellites to answer questions on land use, from environment and agriculture to biodiversity and ecology. Open source software plays a crucial role.
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Joinup Licensing Assistant - White paper v1.01
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White paper on the rationale for producing a Licensing Assistant in Joinup. This tool will facilitate licence selection bases on their content, compatibility and support.
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Slovak advocates want parliament to push for open source
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Slovak proponents of the use of free and open source software are rallying for their country’s parliament to approve plans to share the source code of software solutions developed by and for public services.
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New Karlsruhe teaching laboratory focuses on open source
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The Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) in Germany has opened a new laboratory dedicated to open source software.
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Greece robotics competition targets open source software and hardware
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Universities and teachers across Greece are encouraging the country’s young schoolchildren to experiment with open source software and hardware. The Panhellenic Open Robotics Competition also encourages school students and their teachers to work together, and aims to create open educational resources.
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Finland successfully migrates university libraries to free software backend
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The National Library of Finland has announced the successful migration of the University of Jyväskylä to Koha library -system.
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Thüringen launches its first open source award
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The Free State of Thuringia in Germany wants to increase the visibility of free and open source software. It is calling on the state’s companies, organisations and citizens to nominate projects involving open source, open data, open hardware or open access solutions for the Thüringer Open Source Preis (Thuringian open source award).
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Cities agree on minimal interoperability mechanisms
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Over a hundred European cities have agreed on ‘Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms’ defining the communication between software programmes and building blocks to allow co-creation and sharing of services.
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Open source and cloud based procurement services for France’s municipalities
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It’s getting easier for France’s local and regional public services to manage their procurement entirely electronically, thanks to open source software.
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Study: Governments need to coordinate IT vulnerability disclosure policies
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EU Member States should agree on how to disclose software bugs and vulnerabilities in computer hardware, and the best ways to mitigate their risks, a study commissioned by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (Enisa) shows.
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Open source at the heart of Belgium’s development cooperation organisation
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Because it makes it easier to work together, and because it encourages the sharing, reuse, and improvement of ICT solutions, free and open source is a strategic choice for Enabel, the Belgian development cooperation agency.
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Latest Studies
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Taiwanese government standardises on true ODF document format
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The Taiwanese model, in which policies require that documents generated by office productivity tools truly adhere to the ODF standard, can serve as an example to EU governments. It proves the strong relation there is between interoperability, open standards and open-source software.
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'Buy from startups' strategy pays off for City of Antwerp
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A new administrative coalition has forced Digipolis Antwerp to rethink its procurement policy. In 2015 the City of Antwerp reorganised its ICT architecture from silo-based systems dependent on large suppliers to a modular approach, for which the re-usable components are provided by a network of startup companies.
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Latest Software
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open-eid - the Cornerstone of e-Governance
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Open-eid software is a collection of software components offering support for PKI-based functionality, i.e. operations with different cryptographic tokens (e.g. eID cards), handling digitally signed documents, file encryption/decryption and signing and authentication in web environment.
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Tools to manage digital documents on the Catalan public administrations
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A digital repository that allows the management of documents -and electronic files.
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Tools for e-procurement with local authorities in Catalonia
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A set of eProcurement tools for local authorities in Catalonia.
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eSET, a methodology to digitise small Catalan municipalities
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eSET is a service that combines the deployment of a system of labor and management together, standard and optimized for small municipalities with a set of AOC electronic administration solutions. It is currently deployed in 150 Catalan municipalities.
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Upcoming Events
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18/04/2019 - 19/04/2019
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26TH Open Systems Days Croatian Linux Users’ Conference
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DORS/CLUC - Dani otvorenih računarskih sustava / Croatian Linux Users' Conference - is the oldest and biggest regional conference that covers free and open source software, open standards, and the Linux operating system. For the last 26 years, DORS/CLUC has brought together many prominent individuals and companies from the free and open source software community.
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