German Development Organization InWEnt is partnering with FOSSFA (The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa" ) on a new training and networking programme called "ict@innovation". Both partners signed an according Letter of Intent at the third African Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons – Idlelo 3.

Time is running out to register for Idlelo 3, the third African Conference on Free and Open Source Software and the Digital Commons. The conference will be held in Dakar, Senegal between 16 and 20 March.

The South African minister of public service and administration on Monday addressed the opening of the Idlelo 3 free software conference in Dakar Senegal, saying software patents posed a considerable threat to the growth of the African software sector.

On October 22, government and private industry experts will debate the issues and opportunities presented by collaborative software development models at the Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) Portland, Oregon.

In Windhoek last week, the Ministerial Bureau of the fifth Pan African Conference of Ministers for Public or Civil Service met to review progress on the collective work of the various public service ministers. Among the themes covered was that of e-governance and free and open source software (FOSS).

Theseus, the German government-funded program to develop new semantic Web technologies, will launch a competition in November to attract talented software programmers, including experts from the open-source community.

The Icelandic government has released a policy on free and open source software. In short, the policy states that when buying software free and open source software should be considered on an equal footing with proprietary software, that software based on open standards shall be chosen, that lock-ins to specific vendors should be avoided (choosing free software is one means to achieve this), that bespoke or customized software shall be reusable (and free and open source software achieves this), and finally that students of Icelandic educational institutes shall have the opportunity to learn about and use free and open source software on a par with proprietary software.

This policy applies to all state institutions and organizations operated with public funds.

"Richard Stallman, who started the free software movement, visits Russian in March 2008. The legendary programmer plans to give several lectures for students and specialists and hold a press-conference. Mr. Stallman is known to be the initiator of his visit to Russia. Experts relate his arrival to a boom in the domestic free software market..."

The world of open-source development could be divided if the European Commission succeeds in passing a law extending consumer protection rules to software, according to experts.