Government emphasises open standards and urges use of liberating alternatives Sweden’s public administrations should use open IT standards and software “that frees the state administration from dependence on single technical solutions”, the government writes in its note on ICT, part of its 2016 budget plan. “For eGovernment solutions, IT standards will play an increasing role … Read more
Apache Spark When it comes to open source big data processing, Hadoop is no longer the only name in the game. Apache Spark is a general purpose distributed data processing tool that allows users to process gigantic datasets across many nodes, coordinating the processing so that users can concentrate on writing their queries in their language … Read more
There are two processes in the public sphere that we all depend on but that few of us really understand. And what’s worse is that both are in trouble. The first is the process of funding public projects. Public financing often involves a mix of taxation and the issuance of bonds or federal grantmaking to … Read more
Image: Jack Wallen For the longest time I’d been heralding Ubuntu and it’s Unity desktop as one of the best Linux distributions. I liked Unity…a lot. The design was beautiful, and workflow about as efficient as you would ever find. The Dash, the Launcher, the HUD…they all came together in a perfect storm of form … Read more
Image: Jack Wallen Let me just put this out there for your consideration. All platforms are insecure. They can all be exploited in one way or another. At some point in time, it will be announced that no operating system is invulnerable and every single one of them has their kryptonite. Every. Single. One. Windows. … Read more
Consultation on anti-corruption resource package This document summarises an initial plan for the development of a companion resource to the International Open Data Charter, and invites comments, feedback and contributions to shape the draft resource, to be developed over the first half of 2016. You will find a number of consultation questions (Q) in … Read more
A few days ago, Tom Steinberg—the founder and former director of mySociety—wrote a fascinating piece on power that was meant for people developing civic technology. In a post on Medium, Tom clearly describes the nature of power as it relates to technology and implored civic technologists to think more directly about how shifts in power … Read more
People who work in digital technologies don’t tend to talk a lot about power, except perhaps in relation to our ever-depleting smartphones. But if your goal in deploying modern technologies is even partly to make the world a better place, rather than solely increase the size of your Exit, sooner or later you’ll need to … Read more
Our next Patchwork hack night will be on December 10, and will be co-hosted with our friends at The Cube in Athens, Greece. Please join us! GitHubbers @petros, @fernandez, @justinmccormick, @sanicki, @stevecat, and @jdennes, as well as local community mentors, will be on hand to walk you through the Hello World tutorial, answer your questions, … Read more
The European Commission has adopted an ambitious new Circular Economy Package to help European businesses and consumers to make the transition to a stronger and more circular economy where resources are used in a more sustainable way. The proposed actions will contribute to “closing the loop” of product lifecycles through greater recycling and re-use, and … Read more
