Issue no. 413 - 20 February 2011

• BE - Open Data portal (OpenBelgium.be)
  Whether we talk about government data, scientific, medical or technological knowledge: in a lot of areas, there is a (big) tension between opening up data, or not to do so out of commercial or other interests. With OpenBelgium.be, we want to strive to open up as much data as possible and to make that data easily available & usable. That way, people can be informed better, software developers can work with the data to create interesting applications, and scientists can build upon freely available research data.

• EU - Public Data Corporation to free up public data and drive innovation (Cabinet Office)
  Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude and Business Minister Edward Davey have outlined plans for a new Public Data Corporation. The Corporation will, for the first time, bring together Government bodies and data into one organisation and provide an unprecedented level of easily accessible public information and drive further efficiency in the delivery of public services.

• EU - Technical workshop on pan-European data portal (CORDIS)
  Technical workshop on the goals and requirements for a pan-European data portal, Wednesday 3rd November 2010, Luxembourg.

• EU - The Challenge of Open Access (RAPID)
  Speech by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda Launch of OpenAIRE, the European infrastructure for open access publishing of research results Ghent, 2 December 2010.

• EU - Unlocking the full value of scientific data (RAPID)
  Speech by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda. Formal presentation of the report Riding the Wave: How Europe can gain from the raising tide of scientific data, Brussels, 6th October 2010 .

• One on One: Vivek Kundra, U.S. Chief Information Officer (New York Times)
  Vivek Kundra, chief information officer of the United States government. Vivek Kundra is the chief information officer of the United States. His job is to help shape the use of technology in government and build tools to help the public navigate the incredible amount of data and information available.

• OpenData in the EU (Datenjournalist)
  Interview with Jonathan Gray: A short while ago I sent some questions about the recent Eurostat Hackday to Jonathan Gray (@jwyg). He ist the Community Manager of the Open Knowledge Foundation. He's painting a thoughtful picture about OpenData in the EU and its economical impact in his answers. see also Eurostats Hackday: Es braucht Daten, um Politik verstehen zu können Open Data Blog Offene Daten – offene Gesellschaft.

• UK - Government data: what's really been achieved? (Guardian)
  One year after the Labour government launched the data.gov.uk portal, intended to provide a front door to a library of government data that developers in the outside world could use to analyse trends and create commercial services, there is disquiet that the initial enthusiasm has worn off and that civil servants are quietly blocking widespread release of useful information.

• UK - How I would fix data.gov.uk (Guardian)
  Open data expert Paul Clarke explains how he would change the government's open data project. A year, almost to the day, from the launch of data.gov.uk it seems clearer that it was really trying to fire at three targets simultaneously: transparency, usefulness and good old commercial value. Three targets that have some overlap, but also some inherent tensions. How well has it done?

• Untangling code (Economist)
  Much conventional wisdom about programs written by volunteers is wrong. Book review of The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development. By Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman. MIT Press. Its main contribution consists of two surveys - one of users of software, the other of developers - that are unprecedented in both scale and scope. More than 2,300 companies and nearly 2,000 programmers, spread across 15 countries, both rich and poor, filled out questionnaires. And Messrs Lerner and Schankerman asked a lot of questions, from how much open-source software a firm has implemented to whether governments should mandate the use of such programs. The findings contradict much conventional wisdom. Many open-source developers work for firms that develop both open-source and proprietary programs and combine them in all kinds of business models. More than a quarter of companies happily mix and match both sorts, in particular in poorer countries. Yet the finding that open-source advocates will like least is that free programs are not always cheaper. The authors argue that governments should make sure that the two forms of software compete on a level playing field and can comingle efficiently. One way of doing this would be to promote open standards to ensure that proprietary incumbents do not abuse a dominant position.

Issue no. 405 - 24 January 2010

• Wikileaks suspends ops to launch pledge drive (The Register)
  Wikileaks has temporarily suspended operations while it launches a pledge drive. The whistle blowing site is taking time out to ask for support in many forms, not just donations. Wikileaks is appealing for help from volunteer coders, offers of free legal assistance and hosting support as well as cash donations. The site has promised not to accept corporate or government finance in order to protect its integrity. As an incentive to potential supporters Wikileaks said it is sitting on "hundreds of thousands of pages from corrupt banks, the US detainee system, the Iraq war, China, the UN and many others that we do not currently have the resources to release".

Issue no. 395 - 27 December 2008

• EU funding for open access projects in 2009 (Open Access Newsletter)
  The EU's Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) has released its Draft Work Programme 2009. If the EC approves the draft in January, then it should open a call for proposals from January 29 to June 2, 2009. one thread of the new funding program is devoted to OA: Objective 2.4: Open access to scientific information.

Issue no. 391 - 31 August 2008

• EU - Pilot project for online access to research results (RAPID)
  The European Commission wants to ensure that the results of the research it funds under the EU's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) with more than € 50 billion from 2007 - 2013 are disseminated as widely and effectively as possible to guarantee maximum exploitation and impact in the world of researchers and beyond. The Commission today launched a pilot project that will give unrestricted online access to EU-funded research results, primarily research articles published in peer reviewed journals, after an embargo period of between 6 and 12 months. The pilot will cover around 20% of the FP7 programme budget in areas such as health, energy, environment, social sciences and information and communication technologies.

Issue no. 390 - 20 July 2008

• EU - Being open about standards (RAPID)
  Speech by Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy. 0penForum Europe - Breakfast seminar, Brussels, 10th June 2008. See Kroes calls for open standards in eGovernment (EurActiv). In an unusual move, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes backed the use of open software for eGovernment and called on public authorities not to impose proprietary standards on citizens. She clearly suggested that public authorities should use open standards rather than proprietary software that could generate anti-competitive practices and harm citizens.

Issue no. 387 - 12 May 2008

• US - Harvard Law School goes Open Access, unanimously (Berkman Center)
  by John Palfrey. I'm just delighted that the Harvard Law School faculty has voted unanimously to adopt an open access policy. This policy is consistent with the policy adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences earlier this year.

Issue no. 384 - 24 February 2008

• EU - EC expresses doubt on Microsoft open-source move (CNET News)
  The European Commission has expressed doubt regarding Microsoft's recent announcement claiming a move toward greater interoperability. "The Commission would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability," the statement says. "Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability."

• Microsoft pledges not to sue over open source (CNET News)
  A Microsoft press release announced changes in its business practices to work better with software from other providers, including open-source communities. The software maker had already taken baby steps in this direction, signing individual pacts with companies like Novell and Turbolinux, as well as agreeing not to sue individual developers. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said these steps are part of the company's efforts to comply with anti-trust obligations laid out by the European Court of First Instance (CFI).

• US - Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences goes Open Access (Ars Technica)
  In recent years, the Open Access movement in academic publishing has been gathering steam, with the growth of open access journals such as PLoS and mandates from funding bodies such as the NIH that require authors to deposit copies of their work into open databases. Now that 800lb. gorilla of academe, Harvard University, has started to throw its weight behind the spread of Open Access publishing. Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences has voted to require faculty to make copies of their research freely available through the Office of Scholarly Communications.

Issue no. 378 - 5 August 2007

• Microsoft seeks official 'open source' imprimatur (CNET News)
  For years Microsoft kept its "shared source" distinct from the broader open-source movement, but now the company is seeking official blessing for its work from the Open Source Initiative organization that bestows official open-source status.

Issue no. 377 - 5 July 2007

• EU - Microsoft funds questionable study attacking open source in education (Ars Technica)
  Yet another Microsoft-funded study about open-source software evaluates the comparative cost of open-source software and Microsoft technologies, this time in European schools. The study, which was conducted by Microsoft partner Wipro Technologies, evaluates the performance of Microsoft and open-source software solutions in the contexts of student learning, teacher productivity, administrator productivity, and cost.

QuickLinks consists of

• a free newsletter appearing approximately every two to three weeks. The newsletter is distributed by electronic mail through an "announcement only" mailing list.
• a Web site with frequent updates, an events page, news items organised by category as well as chronologically by issue and full text search.