Stuff.co.nz is reporting that Air New Zealand will be adopting a open source content management system produced by New Zealand IT company SilverStripe. Unlike many other companies SilverStripe has been expanding as customers looking for more cost effective solutions sign up. Last year they signed up the United States Democrats' National Convention.

Google has announced that they will be releasing a operating system called "Chrome OS" next year. The operating system will have the Linux kernel at its core and will be released as Open Source. Google say that Chrome OS will initially be aimed at the netbook market which although initially dominated by Linux distributions are currently primarily Windows based.

Yesterday I attended a meeting about Copyright with Labour MP Clare Curran. The meetings was attended by representatives from APRA, ISPANZ, InternetNZ, Chapman Tripp, Creative Freedom along with various ISP's and independent record labels. Although this is an emotional subject the meeting turned out to be quite constructive, with various people making excellent points to reinforce their views. Although organised by Labour it was clear that the meeting was apolitical. The main focus was clearly to find a way to resolve the difficulties with copyright. Nevyn from Auckland LUG has posted further details here.

Two major environmental databases are set to become more accessible and easier to use following the re-release of these digital maps by the Ministry for the Environment.

The Land Cover Database and the Land Environments New Zealand classification layers, widely used by agencies in environmental and resource management planning, will now be issued online with a Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Ministry for the Environment’s Len Brown says this will promote the free exchange of environmental data, allowing more people access, use and benefit from the data.

Peter Harrison has put together a strong submission to the Commerce Committee which is currently reviewing the Patent Bill going through Parliament. The NZOSS, like many others in the industry, is calling for a specific exclusion of Software as something that should be patentable.

The full submission is available here.

On June 5th I wrote to the State Services Commissioner and the Ministry for Economic Development . In my role as President of the NZOSS I was seeking “advice on government agency procurement of software products following the recently concluded G2009 Microsoft negotiations.”

In particular I asked for “your confirmation that government agencies are required to tender for software procurement so that our member companies and others have the opportunity to tender open source products and services.”

In the past few weeks the NZOSS has written to two ministers and the Auditor General regarding the G2009 negotiations and how Government in general effectively deals exclusively with Microsoft for certain technologies.

Minister Steven Joyce's office told us to direct our communications to Minister Tony Ryall, the Minister for the State Services Commission. SSC is the central Government agency who lead the negotiations with Microsoft that collapsed recently.

The core of our complaint to the Auditor General is expressed in the following statement:

If you are a government agency this is just about the worst possible outcome. Now is the time to consider alternatives to Microsoft. We must never again allow our Government to get into this situation. State Services Commission press release follows:

Outcome of G2009 Microsoft negotiations

26 May 2009

The State Services Commission today announced the government has concluded negotiations with Microsoft on a pan-government agreement for the next three years.

It became apparent during discussions that a formal agreement with Microsoft is no longer appropriate.

STOP G2009
Wellington, 14 May 2009

The New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) is calling for an immediate halt to the G2009 “All of Government” negotiations currently being completed with Microsoft. The Society will be seeking a complete review of the G2009 procurement process by the Auditor-General.

“Government procurement practices are built around the notion of delivering value for money to the New Zealand taxpayer through a contestable process.” says Society President Don Christie.

A while ago I caused a bit of a stir within Microsoft when I used the headline "Old Dog, same old tricks". I tried to think of a less contentious way of describing Microsoft's support for ODF1.1, as released in SP2 for the MSOffice suite. I have failed.