Archives par mot-clé : Society

Ubuntu, Ubuntu Planet, GNU/Linux

Gnu/Linux integrator complains to supreme court about Quebec government illegaly upgrading to Vista without proper RFPs

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This usually happens in other places, not in quiet, boring-without-any-tech-news Quebec province.

Apparently Montreal-based Savoir-faire Linux has had it, and have sent the Quebec Supreme Court a Motion for Declaratory Judgement. The Régie des Rentes du Québec wants to upgrade its desktops to Windows Vista from Windows 2000 without going through any RFPs, because, well, it is an upgrade.

The full documentation of the request (including emails exchanged between the RRQ and SFL), is available online at Cyrille Beraud’s (SFL’s CEO) blog. Cyrille has been blogging about the irregularities of Quebec’s government tech bidding processes for some time now. I’ve known him for some time and I actually almost worked at SFL at the time, but instead ended up at Canonical. If you know Cyrille at any level, you know he’s not joking about this.

This would be the first time (AFAIK) that a North-American company is taking legal action against the government by going to its highest legal instance and asking it to rule as illegal their ignoring of the bidding process of one of its own organizations. So, technically this is not suing our own government, but I hope this will bring some attention to the people and other levels of local government. Although there are some interesting efforts in our province, many government organizations in Quebec are stuck in stone-age procurement systems that leave them out of cash, paying what I call licensing taxes. I wanted to explain a bit how the software business works in Quebec, but quite frankly, I just had some food and it is so disgusting I’ll save it for another rant.

For more information about the Declaratory Judgement Motion legalese, see article #453 of Quebec’s Code of Civil Procedure. Such code is « …intended to render effective the substantive law and to ensure that it is carried out; and failing a provision to the contrary, failure to observe the rules which are not of public order can only affect a proceeding if the defect has not been remedied when it was possible to do so. The provisions of this Code must be interpreted the one by the other, and, so far as possible, in such a way as to facilitate rather than to delay or to end prematurely the normal advancement of cases. » In other words, we have a Code so the actual Code is respected. Pfew!

Update: An English press release is now available.

 
Ubuntu, Ubuntu Planet, GNU/Linux

Ubuntu now available to Dell customers in Canada and Latin America

It’s as if these news were specially written for me. I am originally from Colombia and have been living in Montreal, Canada for the past ~20 years.

Dell announced on their blog that their systems will now be available in Canada and Latin America (including Colombia initially!).

Check the original announcement on their english blog, as well as the spanish annoucement for Latin America. It’s nice to see they have a blog for hispanic customers.

In Canada, visit http://dell.ca/open . Phone orders only in Latin America for now.

What a week!!!

 
Non classé

Neo FreeRunner – le mobile libre arrive en 2008

OpenMoko a officiellement annoncé leur nouvel appareil open-source Neo FreeRunner. Le Neo FreeRunner pourrait avoir un air familier – mais peut-être parce que c’est une version grand public du Moko 1973 à base de Linux. Le Neo FreeRunner a gardé l’ensemble du design, bien qu’il y ait eu des améliorations : un processeur 500Mhz, le support graphisme 3D, ainsi qu’une nouvelle collection d’applications mobiles open-source. Les autres caractéristiques comprennent le support tribande GSM, connectivité WiFi et technologie à base de gestes. Le prix et la disponibilité ne sont pas connus pour le moment. Pour en savoir plus, voyez le communiqué de presse ici.

Étrangement, je ne retrouve pas le communiqué sur le site officiel d’OpenMoko. Le CES 2008 a lieu la semaine prochaine, donc on ne tardera pas à avoir plus de détails! Ça tombe bien, mon téléphone mobile a passé dans la laveuse la semaine dernière!

via Ubergizmo

 
Ubuntu Planet, Ubuntu, GNU/Linux

Contribute to the Free and Inexpensive Adaptive Technology Database: get Ubuntu listed

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I got an email from the FACIL « forum » mailing list telling me about Dawson College in Montreal putting together a Free and Inexpensive Adaptive Technology Database through the Adaptech Research Network.

The Adaptech Research Network consists of a team of academics, students and consumers. We conduct research on the use of computer, information, and adaptive technologies by Canadian college and university students with disabilities. We are based at Dawson College and are funded by both federal and provincial grants.

Our work is guided by an active and enthusiastic cross-Canada bilingual Advisory Board. Our goal is to provide empirically based information to assist in decision making that ensures that new policies, software and hardware reflect the needs and concerns of a variety of individuals: college and university students with disabilities, professors who teach them, and service providers who make technological, adaptive, and other supports available to the higher education community.

I am not the usability and accessibility expert for software in Gnome or KDE that is included in Ubuntu, but I am going to contact them and make them aware of it. I’d also like to ask anyone more knowledegable about this to also contact them. Here’s the quick explanation of what this resource is:

One concern that has been repeated throughout all of our studies has been the issue of the high cost of adaptive software and hardware. In response to this, we have undertaken the compilation of a list of free and/or inexpensive hardware and software alternatives that might be useful. Some of these are long-running demos, while others are fully functional.

We in no way are suggesting that these replace the higher end hardware and software currently on the market. However, as a short-term solution, or for the purposes of trying out different adaptive technologies, we think they are a good place to start.

How can you help? If you use or know of software that is either free or inexpensive ($200 or less) that you feel would be beneficial to students with disabilities, we want to hear about it. Please send the name of the software and, if you have it, the name of the company which makes it and a web site to catherine.fichten@mcgill.ca. Read more about Adaptech’s search for free and inexpensive software. View our Free and Inexpensive Computer technologies video (WMV support required).

Most of the listed software has no clear indication on its licensing or is clearly non-free/open-source, which I believe would be another way to help them.

And I know the videos are not in any open format. I’ve already contacted them offering help in transcoding them. 🙂

 
Ubuntu Planet, Ubuntu, GNU/Linux

Beware of Freetard Ideology in Ubuntu

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The recent release of Ubuntu has had some good coverage in many media publications (online, print, radio and even TV) but it’s always interesting to read the comments people leave on the blogs.

While reading the comments in New Ubuntu Linux release is easy, sexy (at BoingBoing.net), I came across this remark:

I hate MS as much as the next guy. But Linux is not really a viable option for the vast, vast, vast majority of computer users. People who can’t see that are simply blinded by freetard ideology.

Freetard ideology ?

I now realize I have been a greentard too.

All jokes aside, I think it’s important as Ubuntu users, developers, advocates and enterprise decision makers, we ask ourselves « what would make the people that don’t like Ubuntu actually try it and end up using it full time for all their computing needs ?« . I mean, other than being the proud parents of someone working for Canonical 🙂

Let’s pause for a moment and think real hard about that.