Digital Copyright Canada

A tech article on Whitehouse.gov documents the release of some custom code authored by the technology team implementing that website. While such releases are common from many organisations and not worthy of press releases, I suspect this information release is done to signal to other US government departments and governments of other countries that they should follow suit.

May 30'th, 2008 is the 6 year anniversary of GOSLING: Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments. We are having a party at the Parliament Pub, just in front of the parliament buildings in Ottawa. For details and any changes please see our website where we also ask people to RSVP so we can plan food.

GOSLING started in May 2002 as a couple of informal Friday gatherings after work at the pub, to bounce around some ideas ahead of the first free/libre/open source software event hosted by the Government of Canada. We have been meeting nearly every Friday since. Our weekly gatherings are very informal. While we expect our 6-year anniversary party to be larger than any other GOSLING gathering in the past, it will be equally informal.

In yet another blow to vendor lock-in and proprietary software standards, the Associated Press is reporting that the Dutch Government on Wednesday adopted laws requiring all national agencies to use the Open Document Format by April 2008. Even state and local agencies are required to comply by 2009; though there is flexibility in the new policy - agencies can chose to use proprietary standards, such as MS Office, but they must justify use. The new laws also mandate the use of FOSS in all agencies in a similar manner, for cost savings and accessibility reasons.

GOSLING, eat your heart out!

The ODF Alliance recently announced that Japan has joined Norway to be the latest country to have government mandates recommending the use of open document standards, something many consider to be a prerequisite before serious acceptance of open source software in government can ever be a possibility. How far behind is Canada in this regard?

I hope to meet people at the 2007 Ottawa Linux Symposium. I'll be there much of the time between Wednesday and Saturday, with our GOSLING / Canadian Copyright Update being at 13h00 on Saturday.

I have posted a suggestion to the Facebook Event for OLS in case there is anyone wanting to get together earlier to talk technology policy and create policy documents.

California now joins Massachusetts, Texas, and Minnesota in the league of US states that have moved towards adopting laws mandating use of open stadards in government agencies.

An article by ITBusiness.ca editor Shane Schick discusses the recent FLOSS MP awareness campaign by the GOSLING community which involved creating 308 envelopes of material, one per federal member of parliament.

While GOSLING had found a sympathetic ear in former MP Reg Alcock, McOrmond said the regime change in Ottawa has meant searching among new faces for support. One possibility, he said, is James Ragotte, MP for Edmonton-Leduc who used to act as Industry critic when the Conservative Party was still in opposition.

“Normally you can't tell who the important people are before they become important,” McOrmond said.

My hope is that people will write their MP so that we can find out who the people are in parliament that are aware of FLOSS.

Glen Newton has posted a note about Day 1 of Access 2006 (Ottawa, October 11-14, 2006) on his personal BLOG. This includes discussion of Hackfest and Ad Hoc Fest.

Glen was one of the founding members of GOSLING, back when there was only 4 of us. He is Program Head, Research - Information Technologies, Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI), National Research Council (NRC).

Attached is a letter sent to the 3 named MPs. The staff from the offices of Mr. Rajotte, Mr McGuinty's and the Minister of Canadian Heritage have acknowledge receipt.

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(Note to staff receiving this message. Please indicate receipt. Thank you.)

Dear James Rajotte, M.P., Chair of Industry-Science-Technology committee,
Ms. Bev Oda, P.C., M.P., Minister of Heritage,
Mr. David J. McGuinty, M.P. for Ottawa South

I received reply letters from both Mr. Rajotte dated September 27 and, through Mr. McGuinty's office, a letter from Ms. Oda. dated July 7.

An Ottawa Citizen article by David Reevely discussed the recent GOSLING MP awareness project.

McOrmond says GOSLING has had positive responses from a few MPs -- Tory James Rajotte is one. Unfortunately, he says, two enthusiastic open-source proponents have left the picture. Former Liberal labour minister Joe Fontana is quitting federal politics to run for mayor of London; Reg Alcock was an enormously influential supporter as president of the Treasury Board, McOrmond says, but lost his Winnipeg seat in the election that defeated his government last January.

It was Joe Fontana's hill staff that hosted an Open Source event on parliament hill on June 19th, 2006.