STARTS
Time to rethink public sector technology
Wellington, 29 April 2009

New Zealand Open Source Society is calling for far greater use of free software in the New Zealand public sector. The renewed call comes at a time when central government agencies have been conducting line-by-line reviews of their expenditure and the UK government has released sweeping policy changes to put open source on an even footing with proprietary software.

I will comment publicly on the NZOSS site about this. I am in no way connected to GLS, Vovo or Laurence Millar and know nothing about the GLS project other than what has be placed in the public domain recently.

However, the loss of Laurence from NZ Government circles is a crying shame. He brought a lot of vision and very broad experience to his role and this will be very hard to replace. I can't think of any other government CIO that has his background.

For immediate release.

23 March 2009

The New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) is pleased to see the abandonment of the unfair Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment (New Technologies) Act, a move supported by the vast majority of NZOSS members and the ICT community in New Zealand.

Prime Minister John Key announced on Monday that the Government will throw out the controversial section, and Justice minister Simon Power will now initiate a rewrite.

Press release from the CFF:

Friday 20 March, 2009

One Week Until 'Guilt Upon Accusation' Law In NZ

UK Government announce an action plan to increase the pace of FOSS uptake.

Some key sentences from the linked article:

"Open Source has been one of the most significant cultural developments in IT and beyond over the last two decades"

"the Open Source movement has given leadership to new thinking about intellectual property rights and the availability of information for re-use by others."

Update: The site has returned to the normal theme as Section 92A has been delayed.

The New Zealand Open Source Society has changed it's website to black for a week in support of the Creative Freedom Foundation's Internet Blackout. The website will have a black theme for the rest of the week to
protest the introduction of this shortsighted law.

United Future today joined the growing list of organisations who oppose Section 92A of the recently passed Copyright Act. Peter Dunn, sitting MP for Ohariu and leader of United Future says that "...it is now clear that we have a situation where internet users are vulnerable to the mere accusation of piracy, and that is simply neither fair nor just."

Grant Paton-Simpson pointed me to an article in Computerworld that begins with the encouraging words:

The UK's Tories could order the wholesale introduction of open source IT systems if they are returned to office at the next election.

Further on the article notes:

Thompson's report said savings "would come not just from reduced licensing costs, but importantly by freeing government bodies from long-term, monopoly supply situations."

New Zealand copyright law changes shortsighted says head of Open Source Society

26 January 2009

The New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) believes the upcoming changes to New Zealand copyright law are shortsighted.

“Copyright law underpins all free and open source software (FOSS) licenses” says Society President Don Christie. “It is an enormously important area of law for the FOSS community the Society was established to represent.”

It has been a long held dream to have a second LCA in New Zealand, preferably in my home city, Wellington.

I wrote about this in my newsletter of early 2008.