Christchurch-based OnlineGroups.Net have just reached a major milestone, the first release of their impressive email+web collaboration open source web services application: GroupServer. Here's the scoop from OnlineGroups.Net's founder and director, Dan Randow:

After five years in development, our software-as-a-service at OnlineGroups.Net is out of beta, and we have released as open source GroupServer 1.0α, the software that powers it.

The 2008 AGM of the New Zealand Open Source Society has now ended.

Many thanks to all those who took the time to attend. We very much appreciate your continued support.

The 2008 AGM of the New Zealand Open Source Society will be held on:

Sunday the 22th of June starting at 2pm.

The meeting will be conducted primarily via an IRC channel
chat.freenode.net #nzoss

Voting, if required, will be conducted online via the main NZOSS website. You must be a registered and current financial member and be logged in to vote on the website.

The State Services Commission contracted local companies to develop the Broadband Map and have released the underlying code under an Open Source license according to this Computerworld article. The Broadband Map is part of the overall Digital Strategy and is designed to visually show demand areas by sector to encourage network infrastructure development. It has apparently been used with some success in Australia and the US so here's hoping.

Oh, and local companies ProjectX andSilverStripe both get plugs as well!!

This Computerworld story is about the mainly New Zealand developed Open Source eLearning XHTML editor (eXe). This is an excellent effort and demonstrates yet again the power that the Open Source collaborative development model has in benefiting and supporting society.

There is also reference to how well eXe perfomed in a live test of a load into a Learning Management System. The test used a format called the "Common Cartridge" which is designed to allow compliant learning modules to be loaded into any complaint LMS, thus giving the end users the choice that standards are supposed to bring...

A nice little read in this Computerworld article. One OLPC on it's own is a nice machine but two or more together and you can immediately see some really spectacular stuff.

Number three at 22% according to this Computerworld article.

Come on people... we can do better than that! Download and distribute your favourite Open Source package today!!!

Need more ideas? Try our Getting Started page.

Over a month ago I was asked to submit an article for Standards NZ official magazine. That is an offline publication but it was released this week. Here is the article I submitted, it appears alongside a piece by Brett Roberts of Microsoft:

Don Christie of the NZOSS Discusses why he is Against the OOXML Standard

The Standards NZ press release announcing its recent decision to vote against Microsoft's proposed OOXML standard states what has been obvious to technical experts across the world:

One of our members has pointed out that there is a Government Web Standards Wiki up and running. From the about page we have "The intent of this wiki is to provide a collaborative website where anyone who is interested in the New Zealand Government Web Standards and Recommendations and Web Standards compliance can share knowledge and make suggestions on the future development of the Standards."

We know that a lot of work has already been done in this area by NZOSS members in Wellington especially so here is a chance to contribute on line as well if you wish.

You'll need to email the SSC to request an account and details of that process are available here.

I am tired, but was composing an article on the OOXML fall out. Groklaw got there first, because PJ is tireless. She says:

"Anyone, then, from this day forward who is naive enough to believe a single word from Microsoft needs to see a doctor right away. That is the single most important positive result from this OOXML process, as far as I'm concerned. Now we know.

And here it is, just for completeness.

I can see why it took two days to write... it's one of the most neutral, watertight press releases I have seen. Even when they do digress into an area of possible contention (i.e. what the standard is allegedly for) they point the origin of the claim directly back at the originating party.

Well, I wish them all the best with that one. I'm sure they'll be very happy together.