In the global GIS, spatial data & web mapping arena ESRI plays a similar role as the dominant global player to Microsoft, but as with all analogies, don't treat this as 100% gospel. There are many players out there, in the FOSS arena and others.

The Open Geospatial Consortium is a standards developing body in the spatial software domain, generally supporting/facilitating interoperability.

Pat Pilcher of the NZ Herald writes on software patents

The NZOSS was very pleased to be a part, as a community supporter, of the NZ Open Source Awards which took place this past Wednesday night in Wellington. The event was superbly organised and run by the good folks at Catalyst IT and it was an inspiring display of creative energy and commitment to free and open source software by the NZ FOSS community. The full results of the awards are on available on the NZOSA website.

Last week's announcement that Commerce Minister Craig Foss had submitted a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to alter the wording of the Patents Bill prior to its second reading in Parliament rightly raised the ire of the New Zealand software industry.

With the removal of the explicit software patent exclusion, and the addition of two tiny words, "as such", the Commerce Minister, Craig Foss, has more or less thrown kiwi software developers under a bus.

The NZOSS has held its 2012 Annual General Meeting starting at 17:30 this evening, 6 August 2012.

The agenda for today's AGM is as follows:

1. President's report
2. Treasurer's report
3. Membership summary
4. Councillors and Officers stepping down
6. Officer Elections

We would like to make sure the people of NZ are aware of the work being done behind the scenes to ensure that NZ gets a Fair Deal: that we don't suffer substantial restrictions on our personal liberty and sovereignty as a result of the top secret Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) currently being negotiated on our behalf.

The new Lotto website is now online, and it is open source. It is built on the Silverstripe CMS and web application platform. The site involves a fair amount of money changing hands, and is an example of a transactional website performing a government run and managed activity: i.e. it is a crown entity operating under an Act.