If anyone out there doubts that they could make a pile of green pieces of paper with FLOSS, they might want to read this article in ConsultingTimes.com.

Dennis Kucinich, the FLOSS-Friendly candidate in the US, identifies some key issues on his website: "Congressman Kucinich is working with his Congressional colleagues to draft legislation that would create an open-source design process for voting machine software. This process would ensure public oversight and transparency, as well as establish the most secure voting software for citizens to cast their votes"; and, "...Diebold [US voting machine manufacturer], among others, has abused this provision [of the DMCA] in order to stifle free speech.

"The IDA [Interchange of Data between Administrations] Open Source Migration Guidelines provide practical and detailed recommendations on how to migrate to Open Source Software (OSS)-based office applications, calendaring, e-mail and other standard applications. They have been developed with guidance from public sector IT experts from Denmark, Finland, Italy, Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey."

"While critics in the United States grow more concerned each day about the insecurity of electronic voting machines, Australians designed a system two years ago that addressed and eased most of those concerns: They chose to make the software running their system completely open to public scrutiny."

'The Government of the Republic of Slovenia has adopted a proposal of the Ministry of Information Society titled "The Policy of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on development, implementation and usage of open source software code and solutions based on open source".'

"South Gujarat Information Technologists' Association (SITA) is all set to begin a Linux revolution within the state. To mark the beginning, it has reserved a separate Linux Pavilion at its forthcoming IT Expo 2004, which will be held from January 3 to January 5, 2004 at Surat."

'"Linux is about to become an explosive hit in Japan," said Hajime Watanabe, chief executive of Tokyo-based Linux supplier Turbolinux. "The Chinese are determined to say goodbye to Mr Bill Gates. The South Korean government is thinking seriously about it. And the move is starting to take off in Japan."'

We recently ran a story about FLOSS in Bulgaria which has resulted in some private feedback. It seems that there are various forces pulling Bulgaria in different directions, and no one is quite sure where they are headed.

This article makes some observations you won't want to miss about what's going on with FLOSS. It's written by Toni Solo, who is another FoF (Friend of FLOSS) who floats around Cental America. I have no idea why this area attracts so many FLOSS advocates; maybe I'm just being parochial and they're really everywhere.

After complaints from proprietary software vendors, the UN decided to delete part of the statement which might have guaranteed FLOSS protection as part of the human intellectual legacy, and which would have encouraged its use mainly in developing countries. It's not hard to see why, due to the major structural problems in both MS financials and the US dollar, that the inevitable Linux/FLOSS advance must be slowed at all costs...if that's where your money comes from, that is.