Leaks of the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement show that the United States would like to reverse the work done by the NZOSS to exclude software from patentability in New Zealand. The TPPA may also introduce copyright enforcement regimes that would give large companies the right to censor the Internet as currently occurs in the United States under the DMCA.

Many studies of the quality of source code shows that Open Source is better quality than closed source. It is however no gaurantee of quality. While Open Source has allowed companies to leverage a community and common resources it has also meant that many projects have been taken for granted. An example is OpenSSL, which recently was found to have a vulnerability which has been dubbed HeartBleed.

So, you're an open source developer or tech expert and you want to move to New Zealand... what do you need to know? Here're some informal tips from someone who's been there and done that (but is not an immigration lawyer!): I moved to NZ in 1994 from the US and later started a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) development and services company, which I ran for 14 years. Although there's certainly plenty of interesting FOSS stuff going on that I don't know about, I think I have a pretty good understanding of how things work here now.

In last week's third instalment of this series, I looked at ways you can deploy and manage FOSS solutions at an organisational scale, including support for legacy Windows XP applications. A great deal has changed since the heyday of XP - we now have to accommodate a broad range of other devices in addition to the desktop monoculture of yesteryear.

As members of the Fair Deal Coalition (both the homegrown initiative and internationally), we (the NZOSS) want to make sure this attached press release and open letter to NZ's Government representatives and TPPA (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement)  negotiators are distributed widely.

In part 2 of this series I provided several options for organisations wanting to update their current Windows XP environment to a free and open source (FOSS) environment rather than a more recent Microsoft platform when Microsoft officially abandons its venerable Windows XP in April 2014.

On to the next challenge: once you've decided your organisation can be productive with a FOSS environment, you have to work out how to set up and maintain it.

Last week in the first instalment of this series, I introduced the idea that free and open source software (FOSS) market leader in most areas of computing and it's also a viable upgrade path for users of the soon-to-be-orphaned Windows XP. I noted some of the implications of migrating from XP to a FOSS computing environment.

As many in the business, education and government sectors wring their hands over the impending demise of Microsoft's venerable Windows XP operating system, the IT media is offering helpful advice on moving to the more recent MS operating system, Windows 7. Some even boldly suggest moving straight to Windows 8.1.

Today in the NZ Parliament, the Patents Bill (the first update to the current patent legislation, unchanged since 1952!) underwent its Committee Stage (initiated with a rather stirring speech by Clare Curran lauding the NZ software industry as the "forgers and creators of our new economy") and its Third Reading. 

As members of the Fair Deal NZ coalition (led by InternetNZ's Susan Chalmers) and the global Our Fair Deal, also led by the NZ-based coalition, the NZOSS is keen to get this message out. Please alert your friends to this press release highlighting a basic threat to New Zealand's sovereignty - and to the quality of life of every New Zealander.