Significant events in 2007
From Schoolforge-UK
Was 2007 the "tipping point" for FLOSS?
Momentum and public awareness of Free and Open Source Software seemed to grow to such a point that progress is not only irreversible but increasingly rapid. Here are some of the momentuous events that took place:
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OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) [1]
...became available to the public in USA and Canada by means of a "Give One Get One" deal, making it possible to seed the donation of laptops to education authorities in Haiti, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Afghanistan, as well as the existing projects in Uruguay, Peru and Rwanda. Significantly, competitive laptop products aimed at education were launched by Intel and Asus, and the Asus eeePC [2]is the first Linux product to be offered by Research Machines [3] in the UK.
OpenDocument Format (ODF) - ISO23600 [4]
...was formally adopted for government use in the Netherlands, South Africa, Malaysia, Norway, and Croatia. Japan, Poland and Russia adopted policies that mandate procurement on the basis of open, publicly-available standards. An "alternative standard" [5] was put forward to the ISO with much negative publicity...
Open Access to US health research results [6]
... was made a condition of continued funding [7] for US National Institutes for Health projects...
Open Courseware
.. became increasingly available from sites such as the Open University's OpenLearn [8] and the Open Courseware Consortium [9]...
CreativeCommons [10]
... held its fifth birthday with parties all over the world, celebrating the adoption of Creative Commons licences by a vast and growing body of published and artistic works...
BBC iPlayer [11]
... was launched for Windows XP users, and drew such an outcry that the BBC Trust was persuaded to publicly affirm their commitment to providing an open platform. A cross-platform streaming "Click to Play" service was launched, using Adobe Flash ...
Early Day Motion
...John Pugh, MP, posted an Early Day Motion in the Houise of Commons about the use of Open Source Software in schools. George Osborne, MP, Conservative Shadow Chancellor also called for greater use of FLOSS in schools...
The INGOTs [12] achieved QCA approval
... The Learning Machine Ltd. became a QCA-approved Awarding Body, authorised to award recognised Diplomas for the International Grades in Open Technologies (INGOTs), the only UK accredited qualifications specifically targeted on learning about open systems and FOSS.
Over 60 Academies participating in UK.
INGOT EU Comenius project approved with partners in Germany, Portugal, Poland and Turkey
INGOT project in South Africa started funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation
Over 1000 accounts registered on the INGOT community site in last 6 months of 2007. Nearly 20,000 certificates issued since starting.
The SCO Lawsuit
... finally toppled over in August, when a federal district court judge in SCO v. Novell ruled that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of copyrights covering the Unix operating system.The whole orry saga of SCO's claims to "intellectual property" rights over any and all instances of Linux staggers on, each moment meticulously documented over at Groklaw (http://www.groklaw.net], whilst all conceivable funds that might possibly be decided in favour of IBM or Novell are frittered away by overpaid lawyers...
