Homage to Catalonia

There is something of a battle going on over the use of open source by local and national governments. Mostly, this centres on cost, together with various technical issues. But one area that is frequently overlooked is the fact that open source software that is created by such bodies can also be used free of charge by businesses. In other words, there may be knock-on benefits that would never be produced through the use of broadly equivalent proprietary solutions....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Catalonian Androids

Google's Android makes its debut in Barcelona:

The first mobile phones fitted with Google's Android software platform made their debut at an industry trade show on Monday, a key advance in the struggle to bring the power of desktop computing to handsets.

But the most interesting part of this report was the following:

Although the technology on display Monday is in prototype form, experts and journalists were so eager to witness its demonstration that all places for private displays were booked out on Monday within the first hour of the show.

Well, there's clearly some pent-up demand *there*.

Catalonians of the World, Unite!

Good news: a Catalan translation of Rebel Code - Codi Rebel, no less - is hurtling towards a bookshop near you. Well, it is if you live in Catalonia. Here's the rousing peroration to keep you going until that happy day (probably a good few months off):

El GNU/Linux i els projectes de codi obert tracten del codi interior que està en les arrels de tot allò bo que tenim i que es rebel·la contra el pitjor que hi ha en nosaltres mateixos i que existirà mentre la humanitat perdure.

Brings tears to the eyes.