Archive for the ‘UK’ tag
U.K. government subsidizes Linux PCs for the poor and unwired
The British government has launched a pilot scheme to help citizens who lack Internet access buy refurbished Linux-based PCs for 98 Pounds. Run by a firm called Remploy, the trial is part of the government’s Race Online 2012 program to get all U.K. citizens online.
UK Gov to switch entirely to FOSS ?
British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron has called on civil servants to make suggestions on how the government can save money. The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has published a list of ideas to "help get more for less" in order to "tackle the deficit" as part of the Spending Review. The 8th item on the newly published list suggests that the whole of government, including the NHS and the Education services, migrate from Microsoft products, such as Windows and Office, to Linux and other open source software, specifically mentioning the OpenOffice.org office suite.
UK report: OPEN GOVERNMENT some next steps
The UK Centre for Technology Policy Research (CTPR) has published a report titled: OPEN GOVERNMENT some next steps for the UK. The 53-page report sets out the importance of open government and how this can be implemented in the UK. The report makes reference to a range of initiatives taken forward under the previous UK Government and administration.
How the UK government can follow Obama’s open source revolution
The Obama White House is releasing custom open source code that it developed itself back to the Drupal community. The White House said that by releasing some of its code it will get the benefit of more people reviewing and improving it.
“This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify,” said Dave Cole, senior adviser to the CIO of the Executive Office of the President.
“We’re excited to see how developers across the world put our work to good use in their own applications.”
The Obama administration is releasing a module called Context HTTP Headers, which allows site builders to add new metadata to the content they serve. A second module addresses scalability by allowing integration with the Akamai Content Delivery Network.
GovDelivery is another module that enables the sending of more dynamic emails tailored to users’ preferences, while Node Embed makes sure all video and pictures on the White House site have the appropriate metadata to make them readable by screen reading software.
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How the UK government can follow Obama’s open source revolution
The Obama White House is releasing custom open source code that it developed itself back to the Drupal community.
Read the rest of this entry »
London Government Accused Of Open Source Inaction
Mayor Boris Johnson has faced Green Party criticism of his open source commitment – but activists say the real problem is with central government.
A Green Party representative has accused the London government of failing to fully exploit open source software, but activists say the Greater London Authority (GLA) is doing well… at least compared to central government.
There are political advantages in vendor lock-in
Today Matt Asay urges government buyers to support open source, open data and open standards. Why? Because it’s better. Because it promotes competition. Because it gives government flexibility. But after watching government on every level, in various countries, for over half my lifetime, I can tell you the last thing any government wants is to make a decision its successor can overturn.
Every government knows its time in office is limited. What it needs are stalwart friends and a legacy. Proprietary vendors deliver both, and it is in the nature of open source that these not be provided.
You’re probably thinking this is an attack on American politicians, so let’s go offshore for our example. Let’s go instead to Great Britain and, to make it a little less partisan, to the BBC. (This might be useful to Matt since he’s now COO of a British-based company, Canonical.)
UK: The Open Source, Open Standards and Reuse Strategy
‘Open Source’ has been one of the most significant cultural developments in ICT over the last two decades. Products that provide access to the source code that powers the application enables the wider development community to exploit new and innovative solutions to business requirements. These products are based on open standards and can thus be re-used to solve multiple problems and can be repurposed quickly.
Traditionally, the public sector has relied on Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software or bespoke solutions from global providers. This restricts the ability of the public sector to reuse solutions, reduces flexibility to manage assets efficiently and prevents government organisations from switching suppliers. The Open Source, Open Standards, Reuse strategy provides guides on how to use Open Source alternatives that meet public sector requirements. Government already commits to using only open standards for documentation. The ICT strategy will build capability within the public sector to increase the amount of open source code and software in use and make it available for reuse elsewhere.
UK Government policy update supports open source
The UK government has published an updated policy on open source in government. The new policy takes a more aggressive position on government use of open source than the original policy, published in 2004. That document set out five policy points that allowed open source based solutions to be considered alongside proprietary solutions and tried to avoid lock in to proprietary software. The new policy document notes how the 2004 policy has already had effects, such as 50 per cent use of Apache web server within departmental web sites, and the NHS “Spine” migration to a Linux based infrastructure, which will cover 35 per cent of NHS organisations.
The updated ten point policy is more explicit on how the goals should be reached. For example, where the previous policy would award contracts purely on a “value for money” basis, the new policy says “Where there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open-source products, open source will be selected on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility”.
The policy makes things harder for non-open-source developers. For example, it requires that proprietary software vendors price in the exit cost of stopping using the software up front, and provide an exit route when bidding. Non-open-source vendors will also now be expected to deal with all government departments as a single entity and purchased licenses must be freely transferable between government departments.
A new element of the policy is an emphasis on re-use, with plans to secure full rights to custom software that has been developed for contracts, so it can be reused elsewhere. General purpose software, developed for the government will, “where appropriate”, be released as open source. Another element of the re-use plan is to require suppliers to show they have not previously developed similar systems for the government, and where they have done so, to reflect this in “reduced costs, risks and time scale”.
The new policy is accompanied by a ten point action plan which will, among other things, require procurement documents to “state positively that the Government’s policy is to consider open source solutions on their merits according to total lifetime cost of ownership”, challenge existing suppliers to show their open source abilities, require official support of the Open Document Format alongside “open versions of previously proprietary standards” and see the government actively encouraging open source projects.
Source: Open-Trace
A nyílt wifi vége Nagy-Britanniában?
Egy új szabályozás következményeként valószínűleg kevesebb lesz a nyílt wifi Nagy-Britanniában. A törvénytervezet szerint a szolgáltatók lesznek felelősek, ha hálózatukon a felhasználók illegális tevékenységet folytatnak. Egyetemekkel, könyvtárakkal sem kivételeznek, a kávézók és kisebb üzletek pedig komoly forgalomcsökkenést könyvelhetnek el. Ráfázhatnak Nagy-Britanniában a nyílt wifit szolgáltatók az illegális tartalmakat letöltő felhasználók miatt. Egy új törvény szerint ugyanis a szolgáltatókat veszik elő, ha a netet használók illegális tevékenységet folytatnak.
British Library Launches UK Web Archive
The British Library has launched a web archive designed to preserve pages from UK web domains, much as the library preserves a physical archive of British Books and other publications. The system – which includes the open source Hadoop software – has been built by IBM. The archive, to be launched this evening, will include special sites gathering together web material referring to specific subjects, including the Credit Crunch and Anthony Gormley’s Trafalgar Square “Fourth Plinth” project from summer 2009. A site covering this year’s general election is already planned.
Linux a londoni értéktőzsdén
A 2008 szeptemberi leállás után a londoni értéktőzsde vezetése úgy döntött, hogy az addig Windows alapú rendszerét Linux alapúra cseréli.
Egy óra kiesés itt dollármilliárdokat jelenthet a kiesett kereskedés miatt. Természetesen a rendszert nem csak Linux alkotja, találkozhatunk például a már jól ismert Cisco és Solaris nevekkel is. Az új rendszerrel egy-egy tranzakció az eddigi 2,7 ezredmásodpercről 0,4 ezredmásodpercre csökkenhet. A Linux mellett nemcsak a gyorsabb tranzakció, de az ár is döntött. Sokkal olcsóbb, pláne felső kategóriás kiszolgálókra – állítja a computerworld.com cikkírója.
Source: Terminal
Government promotes open source for public sector
The UK government has published a new policy aimed at promoting the use of open source software in the public sector.
A World class Digitial Economy for Britain
Published jointly by the Department for Business and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Bill aims to support growth in the creative and digital sectors and includes measures aimed at tackling widespread online infringement of creative copyright, such as peer-to-peer file-sharing.
Other key proposals look to strengthen the UK’s communications infrastructure, such as superfast broadband, via the introduction of new Ofcom duties to encourage investment.
The Bill also puts in place measures to protect the creation of a range of engaging public service content, from multiple providers, on multiple platforms. Specifically, it addresses the urgent need for action to secure provision of news in the nations, locally and in the regions.
Lord Mandelson said:
“On current definitions our digital economy accounts for nearly £1 in every £10 that the whole British economy produces each year – so our creative and digital industries are key to Britain’s future economic success. This Bill will give them the framework to develop competitively and make the UK a global creative leader.
“Better protecting our creative communities from the threat of online infringement will ensure existing and emerging talent is rewarded and will bring new choices for online consumers.
“Creating the right conditions for investment in our communications infrastructure will bring benefits for households and businesses in all parts of the country.”
Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw said:
- “Our digital economy is worth around 8 per cent of GDP.
- “Britain’s creative industries have become number one in the world as a proportion of our economy.
- “This Bill is a key part of the Government’s active industrial strategy and will maintain and build on Britain’s leading position. It includes measures to ensure universal broadband, the protection of music, film and other creative content and the future of quality local and regional news. The market will not provide these things, only Government action can.”
Key measures in the Digital Economy Bill
Online infringement of copyright
Take action on unlawful peer-to-peer filesharing by obliging individual ISPs to take action against infringers.
An update to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act so that if, in future, new communications technologies allow creative content to be unlawfully copied in new ways, remedies can be developed and implemented more quickly and flexibly than might otherwise be possible.
Extended Collective Licensing
Modernise the copyright licensing system to make it simpler and quicker for licensing societies to make content available online to consumers and to support innovative commercial services that rely on copyright material.
Orphan works
Unlock large volumes of previously unusable cultural content or ‘orphan works’ where the rights holder cannot be identified or found, for public and commercial use.
Independent and high quality news
Support the plurality of regional and local news, giving Ofcom powers to appoint and fund Independently Funded News Consortia and future proof Channel 3 and Channel 5 licensees, including adjusting requirements of Channel 3 licence holders to produce or broadcast Gaelic programming.
Public Lending Rights
Extend public lending rights to include digital material such as audio and e-books. This will mean producers and artists who have created this content will be rewarded when material is lent out from public libraries.
Digital infrastructure and content
Give Ofcom new duties to promote investment in communications infrastructure where this is needed and to make a formal assessment of the UK’s communications infrastructure every two years. Alongside this a new duty for Ofcom to encourage investment in public service content where this is needed.
Internet domain names
Ensure the efficient allocating and registering of internet domain names in the UK by taking reserve powers.
Digital radio
Update the regulatory framework to prepare for moves to digital switchover for radio by 2015.
Channel 4 Corporation
Update its functions to encompass public service content on all media platforms – online as well as television – to make it fit for the digital age.
Mobile and wireless broadband
Enable development of next generation mobile broadband services by allowing for the charging of periodic payments such as Adminstered Incentive Pricing on auctioned spectrum licences and allowing OFCOM to levy monetary penalties for failure to meet certain licence conditions.
Video games
Protect children by making age ratings compulsory for all boxed games designed for those aged 12 or above.
- The Digital Economy Bill is a joint Bill between the Department of Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It was published today, 20 November 2009. A copy can be found at the Parliament website.
- For YouTube clips, FAQs and other digital media information, visit the Department of Business Innovation and Skills website.
- The Bill is the legislative programme that realises many of the recommendations made in the Government’s Digital Britain White Paper, published on 16 June 2009.
- Department for Business Innovation & Skills press enquiries: 020 7215 6403 and Department for Culture, Media and Sport press enquiries: 020 7211 6267.
Press Enquiries: 020 7211 6052/6277
Out of hours telephone pager no: 07699 751153
Public Enquiries: 020 7211 6200
Egyszerűsített Linuxszal csábítanák a brit nyugdíjasokat az internetre
Egyszerűsített szoftverrel ösztönzik Nagy-Britanniában a 65 év felettiek PC-használatát, akik közül több mint hatmillióan még egyszer sem vették igénybe az internetet.
A SimplicITY, azaz egyszerűség névre keresztelt szoftver a számítógép leggyakrabban használt alkalmazási területeire irányítja a felhasználót. A képernyőn mindössze hat jól látható ikon található, amelyek például a levelezőrendszert, a csevegőprogramot vagy a böngészőt nyitják meg. A gép használatát a rendszerrel telepített 17 oktató videó is segíti.
A nyílt forráskódú Linux operációs rendszeren alapuló számítógépeket postai megrendelés alapján készítik, és két héten belül szállítják. A rendszer lényege, hogy a Windowsnál megszokott bejelentkező képernyők és a különböző rejtett almenük helyett a fontosabb funkciók azonnal, jól elkülönített gombok formájában jelenjenek meg.
A rendszer lelkét jelentő szoftver ingyen letölthető, így a már meglévő Windows vagy Linux alapú számítógépek is átalakíthatók az idősebbek számára. A brit kormány felmérése szerint a világhálóhoz még nem csatlakozott idősek évente több száz fonttól esnek el azzal, hogy nem spórolhatnak internetes vásárlásokkal, és lemaradnak a szolgáltatók, bankok online kedvezményeiről.
http://www.eldy.eu/
Forrás: Index
