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The New Zealand Open Source Society is a non-profit organisation set up to protect, advocate and advance the use of Open Source Software in New Zealand.
NZOSS represents Open Source users, creators and contributors in New Zealand by promoting software, representing the interests of the community to Government and the education sector. It also supports community user groups.
The NZOSS 2011 AGM has been held. Thanks to all who took the time to participate.
The NZOSS will be holding its Annual General Meeting at 7pm this coming Thursday, 4 August. Groups connected by video and/or teleconference will be meeting at venues Auckland (at ICONZ), Wellington (at Catalyst IT) and Christchurch (at Egressive) - with meeting business to take place on Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
Jack Yan has approached the NZOSS asking if we can put our collective heads together and come up with the a FOSS friendly strategy for Wellington. Jack is one of the candidates running in this year's Wellington Mayoral elections (see http://www.jackyanformayor.org/).
On 2 May, I presented the NZOSS' viewpoint on cloud computing privacy issues at the Privacy Forum 2012 (PDF programme) in Wellington - the official name for the day was "Think Big? Privacy in the age of big data". The questions we were asked, and my answers (or at least the notes on which my answers were based) are below.
The NZ Open Source Society is taking part in a global protest (Wikipedia is blacking out its entire site today) against proposed US legislation, called SOPA ("Stop Online Piracy Act") and PIPA ("Protect IP Act") ostensibly intended
"To see one of NZ's two main parties finally recognise the immense value free and open source software contributes to our economy - and make it a core part of their election platform - is a very encouraging step".
So says Dave Lane, President of the NZ Open Source Society (NZOSS), in response to Labour's released ICT policy. In that policy Labour makes it clear that open source software will be at the heart of Government ICT.
Koha, the open source library management system project, originally conceived and developed by Horowhenua Library Trust and Katipo Communications, is fighting a decision by IPONZ to allow a trademark from PTFS for the Koha name. Since the original development a substantial international community has evolved around the software.
Many members of the NZOSS community are software developers, both professional and hobbyist. Over the past several years, we have watched with increasing horror the absurdity of software patents unfolding in the United States. To many of us, it seems like watching a slow, painful, obscenely costly (but probably non-fatal) train wreck.
A milestone has been passed in the Open Source control software for 3D printers, allowing an NZ$800 RepRap to produce higher resolution output than an NZ$25,000 commercial 3D printer using the same basic printing technology. The RepRap is also printing faster than the proprietary offering and uses cheaper, multi-sourced consumables.
Details and images here http://blog.reprap.org/2011/09/tipping-point-of-print-quality-open.html
Wellington open source software firm and NZOSS sponsor Catalyst IT has won a significant Chinese software contract. The South China Morning Post will use Catalyst's Open Source expertise to develop their news website and supporting systems for more than 100,000 subscribers.
Full coverage here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/5645891/Catalyst-IT-wins-South-China-M...
It would be fair to say that here at the NZOSS we agree that copyright is a vital legal instrument to ensure that people get credit for their creative endeavours (and can't claim credit for that of others). It is key to free and open source software and free and open culture:
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The New Zealand Open Source Society is a charitable entity (Reg No CC42367) under the Charities Act 2005.
