Open Source | Steve Woods

LibreOffice 3.6.3 now available

02/11/2012 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech
The Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 3.6.3, the latest version of the leading free and open source office suite.

This maintenance release fixes some 90 bugs, including fixes for layout problems, overflowing margins, a regression in chart complex category placements and problems in importing and exporting ODF documents. Several problems that caused crashes when, for example, deleting the last cell in a table, importing tables from .docx files or following an incomplete print have likewise been corrected.

Versions of LibreOffice 3.6.3 for Linux, Windows and Mac platforms are available from the LibreOffice download page, as is the source code.

If anyone readers need convincing to try LibreOffice, do this simple test. How much lighter will getting an office suite leave your bank balance?
- LibreOffice = £0.00;
- cheapest single user version of MS Office 2010 from Amazon UK = £82.00 (figure correct at the time of publication. Ed.).
Furthermore, LibreOffice’s functionality can be enhanced by means of extensions, such as MultiSave (posts passim).
Today’s special offer from CodeWeavers

31/10/2012 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

CodeWeavers, Inc., the developers of CrossOver, which enables users to run Windows software on Linux and Mac, is having a giveaway today, 31st October 2012.

For one day only, CodeWeavers is giving away CrossOver with 12 months’ free support and product upgrades.

If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, point your browser at http://flock.codeweavers.com/, register and download!

For more details about the rationale behind this offer read the press release.

This post originally appeared on Bristol Wireless.
GNU’s trick-or-treat at Windows 8 launch

28/10/2012 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech
Last Friday saw the launch of Windows 8, the latest “best Windows ever” release from the Beast of Redmond.

However, the launch was not without its problems for MS, as reported by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The FSF crashed the Windows 8 launch event in New York City. A cheerful GNU and her team handed out DVDs loaded with Trisquel GNU/Linux (a Linux distribution that meets the FSF’s very strict definition of free. Ed.), FSF stickers and information about the FSF’s new pledge, which asks Windows users to upgrade not to Windows 8, but to GNU/Linux.

The FSF crew at NYC Windows 8 launch

Have a FSF sticker!

I must concur with the FSF’s conclusion: Windows 8 is a downgrade, not an upgrade since it compromises users’ freedom, security and privacy. Some of the ‘features’ of Windows 8 identified by the FSF that Microsoft won’t tell potential users about are:
- Restricts freedom: Windows 8 is proprietary software. At its core, it’s designed to control you as a user. You can’t modify Windows 8 or see how it is built, meaning Microsoft can use its operating system to exploit users and benefit special interests.
- Invades privacy: Windows 8 includes software that inspects the contents of your hard drive and Microsoft claims the right to do this without warning. These programs have misleading names like “Windows Genuine Advantage.”
- Exposes personal data: Windows 8 has a contacts cache that experts fear may store sensitive personal data and make users vulnerable to identity theft.
Amazon integration – the last thing I want from Ubuntu

20/10/2012 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech
The Inquirer yesterday carried a report in which Canonical, purveyors of Ubuntu Linux, claim that Amazon integration is what users want in Ubuntu.

Canonical released Ubuntu 12.10 on Thursday. This new release introduced tighter integration with Amazon in system search results – a move which has provoked criticism from the Ubuntu community. Canonical asserts that Amazon integration in Dash is something users expect and it will integrate other online services in future Ubuntu releases.

The move was defended by Steve George, Canonical’s Vice-President of communications and products, who told The Inquirer that: “Users increasingly expect to search. It is driven by two things, firstly the fact that online they search, so naturally they think about searching and the other thing is the total amount of content. […] The Dash has previously been restricted to only the things that were on your desktop, so where we are taking the Dash so we are trying to pull it so that everything – your personal cloud – all of your online and offline, everything you have in your universe around you, the Dash will be able to search that and find those things for you.”

Thanks for that Steve. I’ve been using Ubuntu happily on my laptop for two and a half years now, but if you’re going to clamber into bed with the likes of Amazon, I’m putting Debian on that machine when the long term support on my present Ubuntu install runs out.

Update 21/10/12: Bruno Girin has been in touch since I wrote this post and informed me there are 2 options for disabling the Amazon search – turning it off in the system settings and removing the package respectively – as follows:
1. Option 1: system settings -> privacy -> include online search results = off
2. Option 2: sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping
Reading for all

14/10/2012 Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source
One thing I meant to mention (but forgot!) in the recent Reading for Boys post (posts passim) was the vast wealth of e-books available to read for free from one of the gems of the internet – Project Gutenberg.

Lenin – just one of the thousands of authors available for free from Project Gutenberg. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Project Gutenberg was founded by Michael S. Hart, who died in 2011. Hart’s other claim to fame is as the inventor of the electronic book (or ebook). In Gutenberg’s early days, Hart is reputed to have produced many of the texts himself.

The aims of Project Gutenberg are to:
- Encourage the creation and distribution of ebooks;
- Help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy;
- Give as many ebooks to as many people as possible.
Gutenberg offers over 40,000 free ebooks in various formats – epub, Kindle, PDF, HTML, plain vanilla text, etc. – in 60 languages as at September 2011.

All the authors featured are out of copyright in the USA. Consequently, Gutenberg’s catalogue contains thousands of works in all fields: authors from ancient Greece and Rome, medieval literature, politics, philosophy, children’s literature and so on. If these are your desire, why pay the likes of Amazon for the privilege of acquiring a text that’s in the public domain when the same work is more than likely free of charge from Gutenberg or its partners and affiliates? Of course, Gutenberg accepts donations to support the work of its volunteers and keep the servers running.
GBeers – open source and beer

13/10/2012 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

GNOME – enjoy with a beer!
Phoronix reports that 2 of my favourite things – beer and open source – are being combined in GBeers (GNOME + Beers = GBeers), a world-wide initiative for GNOME meet-ups with lightning talk presentations taking place while drinking beer. Madrid in Spain recently hosted the very first GBeers event. Other GNOME users and developers are being encouraged by the GNOME project to arrange GBeers in their own towns and cities.

The proposed format of GBeers events is one hour of lightning talks (with each talk lasting 5-10 minutes. Ed.) on unrestricted topics every month, with the talks possibly being recorded for internet distribution. A further possibility is for virtual GBeers through Skype or Google hang-outs.

GBeers have so far been organised in Madrid, Las Palmas, A Coruña, Seville (all Spain), Chicago (USA) and Lima (Peru). Further information about this initiative can be found on the GNOME Live Wiki.

Hat tip: Roy Schestowitz.
Language and open source

08/10/2012 Steve WoodsLanguage, Linux, Open Source, Tech

I’m intrigued by the way we advocates of free and open source software (FOSS) are viewed and described by the world outside our circle. Frequently, the terms are very loaded, e.g. ‘zealot’.

A report today in The Register Channel on Scottish NHS IT procurement and a decision to waste millions on Microsoft Windows 7 is no exception. Mark Taylor, CEO of Sirius, a major UK open source supplier, is quoted and referred to as a ‘firebrand’.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, firebrand‘s first recorded use was in the 13th century, when it was originally “a piece of burning wood“. Its meaning was extended to over subsequent centuries to include “one that creates unrest or strife“.

Synonyms for firebrand are: demagogue, exciter, agitator, fomenter, incendiary, inciter, instigator, kindler, provocateur, rabble-rouser.

I’ve met and spoken to Mark on a number occasions and the last thing one can describe him as is a firebrand or any of its above synonyms. Admittedly, he has a business to run, but he’s also concerned that the UK spending on ICT amounts to an eye-watering £20 billion per year. That’s three times more than is spent on the army. Most of that £20 billion is spent on proprietary software and its suppliers, in the course of which vast amounts of taxpayers’ money are exported to MS’ coffers in Redmond, USA.

Both Mark and I feel that FOSS would be a better alternative and there’d then be more money for the NHS to spend on patient care – a far better use of resources. If that makes us ‘firebrands’, then we’ll wear the label with pride.
2012 LibreOffice Conference will be in Berlin

06/10/2012 Steve WoodsOpen Source

October looks like being a busy month for the people at LibreOffice, the cross-platform, open source office suite.

To begin with, there was the announcement of the release of LibreOffice 3.6.2; this will be followed by the annual LibreOffice Conference, which is a yearly gathering for the worldwide LibreOffice Community and interested developers, marketers, adopters, end-users and supporters.

Following a public poll, this year’s conference will be held in Berlin from 17th – 19th October, where the venue will be the Conference Centre of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

The conference programme reflects the broad engagement and diversity of the community and will include talks and workshops from various areas of the project.

For updated information, you can subscribe to the conference mailing list, but if you’re thinking of attending registration ends on Monday, 8th October.

Prior to the conference itself, Community Meetings will be held on Tuesday, 16th October 2012 at the same venue.
Italy’s Umbria region adopts LibreOffice

02/10/2012 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Tech

Location map for Umbria. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
It’s not just self-employed wordsmiths such as myself that are moving away from overpriced proprietary office suites towards free and open source alternatives: cash-strapped public sector organisations are doing so too.

EU open source news website Joinup reports that the Administration the Italian region of Umbria has started a project to migrate an initial group of 5,000 users to LibreOffice. Osvaldo Gervasi, president of Umbria’s Open Source Competence Centre – CCOS – states that getting rid of IT vendor lock-in is one of the main motives for the migration.

As part of the move, the region will also be adopting LibreOffice’s default Open Document Format as an open document standard.

The legal basis for the migration is a 2006 regional law promoting the use of free and open source software by the public sector in Umbria.

According to the Libre Umbria blog, the project involves the Provinces of Perugia and Terni, Local Health Unit no. 2 and the Region of Umbria, and is being co-ordinated by the Consortium of Umbrian Authorities (Consorzio SIR Umbria) and CCOS Umbria.

The story is also covered by La Stampa (in Italian).
Local youngsters get chance to win a Raspberry Pi

24/09/2012 Steve WoodsBristol, Linux, Open Source, Tech

Although my postal address says Easton, I’ve lived in Bristol’s Lawrence Hill ward for 35 years now and was delighted to see there was a competition to win a Raspberry Pi in the latest edition of Up Our Street, the quarterly regeneration and community matters magazine produced by Easton and Lawrence Hill Management.

The Raspberry Pi is of course a small Linux computer available at pocket money prices and aimed at young people who wish to learn programming.

Raspberry Pi in a case

To be eligible for the competition, entrants must be under 25 years of age and live in either Lawrence Hill or Easton ward in Bristol.

Entries stating why you would like to win the Raspberry Pi should be sent by email to stacy (at) eastonandlawrencehill.org.uk by the closing date of 30th November and should also include your name, date of birth and address.

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