
Open Source
UK: Medical records in the open data programme?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Belgian Court upholds Creative Commons licence
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Deutsch: Belgischer Gerichtshof bestätigt Creative Commons Lizenz
A local court in Nivelles, Belgium upheld in a case decided 26 October 2010 on the validity of the Creative Commons licence in a copyright infringement case when a music group published its music under CC BY-NC-SA.
In this case reported by Professor Séverine Dussollier of the University of Namur, a theatre adapted the music published by the band to make an advertisement for their theatrical season. The ad was broadcast on the national radio several times (with no attribution).
Free Culture 2010 in Barcelona
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Deutsch: 'Free Culture' 2010 in Barcelona
Barcelona was the capital of free culture at the end of October 2010, with two events - Oxcars and then the Free Culture Forum (FCF) - organized by Exgae for awarding and promoting free culture concepts across Europe and beyond.
The third edition of the Oxcars ceremony took place on 28 October 2010, with 1000 people joining the event on the spot and many more watching it live on the Internet.


