Belgium

BE: Political party moving to a complete open source desktop — published on Aug 31, 2010

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Ecolo, a green political party in Belgium, is planning to complete its move to a complete open source desktop system by the end of 2011. On the 220 workstations in its main office, it will gradually replace the underlying operating system to Ubuntu Linux, says Sebastien Bollingh, the party's ICT manager.

EU: University publishes Braille extension for OpenOffice — published on Aug 24, 2010

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The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium published odt2braille, a Braille extension to OpenOffice, a open source suite of office productivity tools, earlier this month.

Groups in eleven EU member states participate in Document Freedom Day — published on Mar 23, 2010

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In at least eleven EU member states, groups promoting the use of open standards and open source software, are preparing for Document Freedom Day, 31 March. With workshops, presentations and demonstrations, they aim to make computer users aware of open formats for electronic documents. Many groups will focus on public administrations and governments.

BE: Minister: "Open source prevents monopolies, increases innovation" — published on Mar 17, 2010

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"Open source prevents monopolies, helps to share knowledge and increases social innovation", says Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgium's minister for the Simplification of the Administration. He expects that public administrations will increasingly turn to this type of software, in part because it helps to cut costs.

BE: Three e-ID projects published as open source — published on Mar 16, 2010

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The Belgian Federal ICT advisory body Fedict published on OSOR three open source software projects related to the country's electronic identity card. The tools are intended to increase usage of this e-ID card, but also to allow other developers to write applications for it.

BE: Walloon government to start using OSOR repository — published on Nov 30, 2009

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The Walloon government wants to use the European Commission's open source software repository and development platform (OSOR Forge), announced Béatrice van Bastelaer, Commissioner of Administration and Simplification Agency of the Walloon Region, at a workshop in the Belgian city of Charleroi on 26 November.

European governments help increase ODF interoperability — published on Nov 17, 2009

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Representatives from three European member states, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, took part in the second Open Document Format (ODF) interoperability workshop held in the Italian town of Orvieto at the beginning of this month.

BE: Walloon government to restrict use of open source web browser — published on Oct 30, 2009

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The administration of the Walloon Region in Belgium is considering banning the use of the open source web browser Firefox, the Belgian IT news magazine Datanews reported earlier.

BE: 'Lack of training impedes open source pilot at Justice ministry' — published on Oct 27, 2009

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Lack of training and coaching for end-users is the main reason for the possible failure of a three-year open source desktop pilot at the Belgian Federal Ministery of Justice, says a federal employee at the court of Justice in Ghent.

BE: OpenOffice boom in Belgium — published on Oct 12, 2009

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The number of public administrations in Belgium that use the open source office productivity suite OpenOffice is rising steadily. And with it the use of the open document format ODF.

More health care organisations adopting open source — published on Aug 28, 2009

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Hospitals and health care institutions in the European Union are increasing their use of open source software.

BE: Flemish Region to educate citizens about open source — published on Jul 29, 2009

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The Flemish regional government wants to educate its citizens about "free software (open source)", it writes in its coalition agreement, published on 10 July.

BE: Government publishes source code for election software — published on Jun 11, 2009

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The Belgian government this week has made available to the public the source code of the applications used for the regional and European elections held on 7 June, Digivote and Jites.

IT: Plonegov Italy officially launched — published on May 15, 2009

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The Italian chapter of Plonegov, an international project to develop open source e-government applications using the Plone open source content management system, was launched officially today at a conference in Sorrento, in southern Italy.

BE: Anderlecht, Charleroi and Vorst move to OpenOffice — published on May 12, 2009

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The administration of the Belgian city of Anderlecht last month completed its move to OpenOffice, which is now installed on all of its 600 desktop PCs. The cities of Charleroi and Vorst are also moving to OpenOffice.

BE: Ubuntu GNU/Linux for desktop PCs public library in city of Boom — published on Apr 30, 2009

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The public administration of the city of Boom is using Ubuntu for ten new publicly accessible desktop PCs in its public library. The Boom library is not the only public library in Belgium using this GNU/Linux distribution.

Belgium and Netherlands join forces on open standards and open source — published on Apr 30, 2009

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The Belgian and the Dutch administrations have agreed to coordinate their policies on open standards and open source. "We will promote open standards and open source internationally", the Dutch minister for Foreign Trade Frank Heemskerk said in a statement.

BE: Open source adoption is often bottom-up, Ph.D study says — published on Dec 16, 2008

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Internal expertise is one of the most important reasons for organisations to adopt open source software, says Kris Ven, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Management Information Systems of the University of Antwerp. "It is often an employee that recognises the potential of open source and suggests it to the organisation."

BE: 'Belgium needs an open source resource centre' — published on Nov 26, 2008

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The Belgian government should start an open source resource centre to help its public administrations increase their use of this type of software, says Jan Verlinden, IT administrator in the city of Schoten.

BE: ICT advisory body joins group to help ODF developers — published on Nov 05, 2008

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The Belgian Federal ICT advisory body Fedict joined other members of standard organisation Oasis in a new committee to assist developers of office software to create applications that conform to the Open Document Format (ODF).