Just as a brief summary for those not familiar with the topic: A vendor of proprietary software can store data in closed, proprietary data formats. Thus, if you are a customer of that vendor it becomes very difficult for you to move to a competitor's product, for example if you like the features or price/performance of that offering better. Instead, the cost of moving, the risk of loosing all your data may be too great. You are 'locked in' to the current vendor...

"...Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) gave the jury’s motivation: 'Bioclipse is breaking new ground by integrating different research areas in life science and making the tools available as Free Software for everyone. It is the jury’s expectation that the project will have major impact in the future of life science research and education.' ..."

Segundo o WebInsider, na última semana o Ministério da Cultura lançou seu novo site totalmente gerenciado com Wordpress. . "Sim, o mesmo gerenciador de conteúdo que gerencia o meu blog, gerencia também um site de grande porte como este Webinsider e ainda o site de um dos ministérios mais importantes do Governo Federal."

In English

Accordingly with WebInsider, last week the brazilian's Ministry of Culture[1] launched its new website totaly managed with Wordpress. "Yes, the same content manager that runs my weblog manages also a big site like Webinsider and also the website of one of the most important ministries of our Federak Government."

[1] http://www.cultura.gov.br/site/

The dream of cheap computers in the hands of millions of poor children is becoming a reality, though not exactly as its proponents imagined. For-profit competitors snatched the idea and have run with it.

"The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure. Through the democratizing power of digital technology and the Internet, we can place the tools of creation and distribution, communication and collaboration, teaching and learning into the hands of the common person — and with a truly active, connected, informed citizenry, injustice and oppression will slowly but surely vanish from the earth..."

Sun Microsystems on Wednesday will release details of a new award program meant to spur growth and activity within the company's open-source efforts, according to a post by Sun's open-source officer, Simon Phipps, on his corporate blog.

It has taken more than two years, but the One Laptop Per Child initiative has finally released its much-anticipated laptop: the OLPC XO-1. The XO-1 costs $200 each to donate, but for a limited time — until Dec. 31, 2007 — people can avail themselves of the "Give One, Get One" promotion to give a $399 donation ($200 of which is tax-deductible).