EU and Europe-wide

EU: OSOR user survey part of thesis on governmental open source use — published on Feb 26, 2010

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A survey aimed at public administrators using the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu) will be made part of a larger research into public organisation's use of open source.

Spanish government's adds software development site to OSOR's list — published on Feb 25, 2010

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The Spanish government's Technology Transfer Centre (CTT) is the newest name on the list of federated open source software sites in the European Union.

Encoding tool to speed-up workflow of aid organisations — published on Feb 23, 2010

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A tool intended to make it easier for aid organisation to electronically exchange proposals and reports with the European Union's Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) was published as open source earlier this month at the OSOR, the EU's Open Source Observatory and Repository.

ES: Valencia migrates three open source GIS tools to OSOR — published on Feb 11, 2010

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The ministry of infrastructure and transport in Valencia, one of Spain's autonomous regions, last week began migration of three of its open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications and projects to the European Union's Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR).

Two thousand open source applications for the public sector — published on Feb 03, 2010

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The European Union's Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu) as of today is offering public administrations access to more than two thousand free and open source applications.

ES: Administrations sponsor extension of open source network monitoring tool — published on Feb 01, 2010

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Several public administrations in Spain are sponsoring the development of Zorb, an open source extension to Nagios, an open source network monitoring tool. Zorb allows users to fine-tune the processing of events generated from the monitored instances, hosts and services. Zorb has just been published on the OSOR Forge.

DK: Danish state administrations to use ODF — published on Jan 29, 2010

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The Danish parliament and the Danish minister for Science this morning agreed that the Danish state administrations should use open standards, including the Open Document Format (ODF), starting on 1 April 2011. A formal vote on the agreement is planned for next Tuesday.

Management tools for SMEs published as open source by Spain — published on Jan 29, 2010

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Comerzzia, tools that can help small and medium enterprises to manage their offices and points of sales, has just been released as open source by Centatic, the Spanish government's resource centre on open source and open standards.

German government publishes XML converter on the OSOR Forge — published on Jan 29, 2010

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Genericoder, an open source XML converter, has just been published by Germany's Bundesstelle für Informationstechnik (Federal Office for Information Technology) in Cologne. The application converts lists of csv code into XML files that are compliant to OASIS Genericode Version 1.0, but according to its developers can be adapted to carry out other transformations.

PL: Police considers moving to open source — published on Jan 27, 2010

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The Polish Police force wants to increase its use of free and open source software in order to cut costs, announces Andrzej Trela, Deputy Chief of Police and responsible for logistics, in an interview in the Police force's monthly newsletter, published on 15 January.

EU: Open Universities open source master published first two books — published on Jan 19, 2010

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The first two course books have just been published online for what is intended to become a university master programme on free and open source software and open standards.

Commissioner-designate Digital Agenda: public sector should use open standards — published on Jan 19, 2010

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The Commissioner-designate Neelie Kroes wants the public sector to increase its use of open standards, she said in her appearance before a European Parliament committee on 14 January.

EU: European Parliament restart workgroup on open source software — published on Jan 15, 2010

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A number of members of the European Parliament are about to start an informal cross party working group on 'new media, free and open source software and open information society'. The intergroup is expected to begin in February, with the support of the European People's Party (EPP), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (Alde) and the European Greens.

Public administrations trick procurement rules in IT projects — published on Dec 10, 2009

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Public administrations in Europe are circumventing procurement law when tendering IT solutions, says Mathieu Paapst, who teaches Law and IT at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Leaked EIF draft critisiced by advocacy groups — published on Nov 30, 2009

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European open source advocacy groups are disconcerted by the second draft of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF). At least one European member state has hinted its unease with the new version.

EU: E-procurement and e-invoice management tools published as open source — published on Nov 30, 2009

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Open e-PRIOR (electronic PRocurement, Invoicing and ORdering) has been published as open source by the Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT) of the European Commission. The software is made available at the OSOR Forge, the open source software development platform of the Commission.

'EU health care organisation should look at US open source system' — published on Nov 30, 2009

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European health care organisations should study the use of the US-built Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), says Thomas Karopka, head of eHealth department at the IT Science Center in the German city of Putbus.

Netherlands publishes open source tools to help start EU business — published on Nov 30, 2009

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The Dutch government is about to publish as open source OS Toolbox PSC, a set of software tools that EU member states can use to offer or improve their single point of contact for entrepreneurs that want to start business or offer their services anywhere in the EU. The software will be made available on the OSOR Forge, the open source software repository and development platform of the European Commission.

European ministers favour open specifications and open source — published on Nov 25, 2009

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European ministers responsible for eGovernment policy of the European Union say the open source model could be promoted for use in eGovernment projects, they said in a statement last week in the Swedish city of Malmö.

Students line up for new free software master at open universities — published on Nov 24, 2009

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Two of Europe's open universities, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain and Open Universiteit in the Netherlands, are about to start the first courses of what will become a Master programme on free and open source software and open standards, The Free Technology Academy (FTA). The program could prove popular, the number of early registrations shows.