Review of ECMA OOXML Responses

The New Zealand Open Source Society is participating in the next round of Standard New Zealand's review of the Microsoft/ECMA responses to ISO's NB comments for OOXML. You may recall Standards NZ voted "No - with comments" with regards to the proposed standard earlier in the year.

Standards NZ will be participating in ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting to be held in February next year.

Australian Symposium on ECMA-376 - December 14th

Nice to see our Australian cousins getting up to speed on this one. The Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre is hosting a symposium to which Standards Australia and a number of other luminaries are invited to. I believe one of the invitees represented NZOSS in the New Zealand equivalent event a few months ago. Should be an interesting discussion even though the registration for the ISO BRM will have closed by then...

Pia Waugh is also asking for help to find some documents on her blog. Hopefully someone will be able to provide the information she needs.

Diskless notebooks selling for $599 in NZ

A bit of a writeup about the Asus Eee PC on stuff.co.nz here. Nice little machine. 512Mb ram, 4Gb flashdrive, Wireless, Ethernet, USB, smaller than a bread box, runs Linux and all for a smidge under $600.

Currently available at a DSE store near you... or maybe not as apparently they are selling like hotcakes here and overseas... I have even heard of people asking their NZ friends to purchase and ship as they have sold out in other parts of the world.

Check out the DSE listing here.

Linux wins Nigerian school desktops... maybe.

This one has been knocking around for a week or so now but is starting to take on a distinctly fishy smell. It seems that Mandriva won a bid to provide a customised linux installation on 17,000 Intel Classmate PC's to be supplied to Nigerian schools. Mandriva were then told that this deal had been unhooked and that 'Windows' would be installed instead, but Mandriva would still be paid...

SSC wins open source in government award

Two weeks ago we held the first New Zealand Open Source Awards. It was a huge success, drawing among others Minister David Cunliffe and National MP Maurice Williamson. Winning the Open Source Use in Government Award was the State Services Commission - ITC Branch for both their promotion and use of open source, specifically their use of Plone. YouTube has coverage of the presentation.