EDRI - Open Source

ECJ decided Microsoft must pay a 860 million Euro fine

bogdan — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:49:19 +0000

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Deutsch: EuGH verurteilt Microsoft zu 860 Millionen Euro Strafe

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected Microsoft’s appeal against the European Commission’s decision of 2008 to fine the company for not having shared interoperability information to its competitors, in a long case first brought by the European Commission's competition watchdog in 1998.

A record fine of 899 million Euro was given by the European Commission in 2008, which decided that, by the end of 2007, Microsoft had not fulfilled its obligations under the "Reasonable And Non Discriminatory (RAND)" conditi

Slovakia: Mandatory e-forms work only on software from one vendor

bogdan — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:20:47 +0000

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Slowakei: Verpflichtende Web-Lösung funktioniert nur mit Software ein...

In Slovakia, a law introduced to reduce red tape has led to injustice. The state has mandated electronic means as the only way of fulfilling certain statutory obligations. However the dedicated web solution excludes some citizens from its use as it is not interoperable and runs only on the software from one vendor.

EU standards reform: Carte blanche stifles open formats

bogdan — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:26:51 +0000

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Deutsch: Reform europäischer Normen: Blankovollmacht bremst offene Formate aus

The European standardisation system is being revamped.

Software-hardware bundling not accepted in France

bogdan — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:59:30 +0000

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Deutsch: Frankreich: Verknüpfung von Hard- und Software nicht zulässig

The giant Lenovo computer hardware manufacturer that sold computers with Windows OS included suffered a defeat in a French court of Aix-en-Provence in a case introduced by a French customer. This is another case in a long line of defeats in France for companies that sell computers who include mandatory unwanted software licences in their products' sales.

The case was brought to court in 2007 by Mr. Pétrus who decided to buy a Lenovo laptop.

UK: Medical records in the open data programme?

bogdan — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:59:23 +0000

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Deutsch: GB: Medizinische Daten im „Open Data“-Programm?

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that, under his "open data" programme, all UK medical records will in future be made available to researchers in both academia and the pharmaceutical industry, unless patients opt out.

Unlocking education in the Netherlands

bogdan — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:54:19 +0000

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Deutsch: Befreit die niederländische Bildung

Dutch schools are progressively locking out students from online environments due to the use of proprietary web-technology (Silverlight) and closed standards. This contravenes with the 2007 Netherlands Open in Connection policy framework that mandates the use of open standards for all public sector organizations, including educational institutions.

The European Commission encourages the digitisation of culture

bogdan — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:01:05 +0000

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Deutsch: Europäische Kommission fördert Digitalisierung des Kulturerbes

An EC Recommendation issued on 28 October 2011 is urging Member States to intensify their efforts and involve the private sector to help in digitising cultural material in order to improve the exposure and stocks of Europe's digital library Europeana.

The Recommendation, which updates a 2006 version, has taken into consideration the Member States' progress reports from 2008 and 2010 and assigns a precise target, establishing a minimum content contribution for each state so as to reach 30 million objects

Free operating systems might be blocked by Windows 8

bogdan — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:47:17 +0000

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Deutsch: Das neue Windows 8 könnte freie Betriebssysteme blockieren

The hardware certified for the new 64 bit operating system from Microsoft (Windows 8) will have to use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) with security measures that would not allow installing of other operating systems, such as GNU/Linux.

The UEFI firmware specifications might require next-generation PC firmware to only boot an image signed by a key chain rooted in keys built into the PC.

Copyright complaint leads to public domain music library takedown

bogdan — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:57:05 +0000

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Deutsch: Urheberrechtsbeschwerde: Musikbibliothek offline

International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), the largest public domain music library on the Internet, has been recently taken offline following a complaint from the UK's Music Publishers Association which convinced registrar GoDaddy to takedown their website.

The action was brought over a single 90 year-old classical piece by Rachmaninoff.

Lack of net neutrality and open standards threaten the web

bogdan — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:37:08 +0000

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Deutsch: Mangel an Netzneutralität und Open Standards gefährdet das Netz

"The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity-and even our liberty.