The Neo 1973 from OpenMoko is a phone that is not only using Linux as its operating system, but embracing freedom at every level. The development of the phone itself is open to the wider community, with development versions of the phone available now. With GSM, GPRS, GPS, Touch Sensitive screen and WiFi, all open to use by developers this phone platform looks like it has a solid future.

Colin Jackson, who is stepping down as President of InternetNZ, gave an interesting interview on Radio NZ yesterday.

His closing line was: [it's] a great leap backward. It’s selling our children’s cultural birthright to a few companies who are good at lobbying.

His blog notes on the interview are here.

Russell Brown writes:

"Something you may not know: the Council for the Humanities has been quietly working away on the development of a set of Creative Commons licenses for New Zealand. The project has included the creation of a stage-one website for Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand, which looks very nice. Congratulations are due to Brian Opie and all the others involved in the project, which began with a meeting at the National Library exactly a year ago."

https://www.tohatoha.org.nz/

Roll up! Roll up! Get 'em while they're hot!!

I don't have the cash on me but I wonder if someone would like to put this m-net story to the acid test.

Sad, but true apparently... Full Computerworld story here if you want more details. But wait! Lets just see how this stacks up...

The article indicates that "the majority of AA staff have used Open Office, with a small number also using the Microsoft product" and yet "compatibilty... within the organisation and with external parties" is an issue? I struggle to see how, if "the majority" are using OO, compatibility within the organisation is a problem... and even when compared with external parties the solution is very straight forward, you just send them an OO cd or point them at OpenOffice.org.

The NZOSS completed another year with its AGM on Sunday. Minutes of the AGM will be released but other than normal legal society business the main news was that Peter Harrison a founder and long time NZOSS President has stepped down. I am glad to say that Peter will remain on as Vice President and will continue with much of the work he has been leading.

Thanks to all those that turned up online and in person to the AGM. Other changes that took place were that Vik Olliver was seconded to the council. Vik has indicated that he will take on the title of "Events Organiser". Chris Daish, another new council member, has taken on the role of "Government Officer".

The third release of the General Public License was released by the Free Software Foundation today. Jeremy Allison, speaking on behalf of the Samba team, states that they see the new license as “a great improvement on the older GPL,” and that it is “a necessary update to deal with the new threats to free software that have emerged since version 2 of the GPL.”

The New Zealand Open Source Society has chosen Catalyst Director Don Christie as its new President. “The NZOSS took its first steps into a larger world today, with Don taking the reins of President. I am confident Don will be able to take us forward into new opportunities and challenges.” said retiring President and Society founder Peter Harrison.

Red Hat, Ubuntu and Mandriva have all rejected patent agreements with Microsoft. Microsoft has not been able to publicly identify any infringing patents, leading many observers to compare their strategy to that of SCO who also used unspecified intellectual property infringement claims that later proved to be baseless. Microsoft did however offer incentive to distributors such as Novell in a deal that will see Novell on the receiving end of substantial patent royalties.

The New Zealand Herald has a story today about the open source community meeting at Google to discuss the threats that Microsoft has made against the open source community. Meanwhile Microsoft has signed three patent deals in the last few weeks.