freedom

Good practices on building successful interconnections of base registries

In order to provide quick and user-friendly public services to citizens and businesses, public administrations are trying to adopt customer-centric approaches and readjust their ways of working. One way to achieve efficiency and increase user-friendliness is through the ‘once-only principle’. Instead of asking the citizen for information that they have already provided, public administrations will … Read more

Swiss open source directory for IT solutions and businesses

The ‘OSS Directory‘ aims to make it easier for public administrations and companies to find open source IT solutions as well as providers of open source IT services. “In the database those interested in open source IT solutions can see that for instance Linux or Postgresql is used by many others. That does not mean … Read more

The #Data That Turned the World Upside Down

Psychologist Michal Kosinski developed a method to analyze people in minute detail based on their Facebook activity. Did a similar tool help propel Donald Trump to victory? Two reporters from Zurich-based Das Magazin went data-gathering.   On November 9 at around 8.30 AM., Michal Kosinski woke up in the Hotel Sunnehus in Zurich. The 34-year-old … Read more

SecureDrop: an #opensource #whistleblower submission system

What is SecureDrop?  SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can install to accept documents from anonymous sources. It was originally coded by the late Aaron Swartz, with assistance from Wired editor Kevin Poulsen and James Dolan. The project was previously called DeadDrop. Freedom of the Press Foundation took over management of … Read more

Push #Free #Software and #Open #Science for #Horizon2020, by Erik Albers

Summary: please help us to get the idea about the importance of Free Software as a condition for Open Science into the mind of stakeholders and decision-takers of the Horizon2020 program. You can do so by participating in the interim evaluation and re-using FSFE’s position paper.  What came to my mind the first times that … Read more

There is no #OpenScience without the use of #OpenStandards and #FreeSoftware, by Erik Albers

Recently, the EU ministers responsible for research and innovation decided unanimously that by 2020, all results and scientific publications of publicly and publicly-private funded research must be freely available. This shall be ensured by the mandatory use of Open Access licenses that guarantee free access to publications. In addition “the data must be made accessible, … Read more