All you comments are welcomed!

PS: the files contain no macro.

Template of an invoice including Belgian Tax Law generalities – OpenOffice.org version

Template of an invoice including Belgian Tax Law generalities – Microsoft Excel version

Google tools

Create a new project: http://code.google.com/hosting/createProject

Create a new group: http://groups.google.com/groups/create

Mercurial source control

Quickstart to mercurial http://mercurial.selenic.com/quickstart/

Quick reference card and cheat sheets: http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/QuickReferenceCardsAndCheatSheets

Mercurial source control: http://mercurial.selenic.com/downloads/

Eclipse IDE

Eclipse IDE: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

Google Plugin for Eclipse: http://code.google.com/eclipse/docs/getting_started.html

Mercurial plugin for Eclipse: http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/mercurialeclipse/

MercurialEclipse and its priceless tips  http://www.javaforge.com/project/HGE

Create the new repository – watch this tutorial : http://www.javaforge.com/wiki/78696

Gnu Privacy Gard (GnuPG) tools : http://www.gnupg.org/

This is based on the talk made by Russel Bryant http://fosdem.org/2011/schedule/speaker/russell_bryant during the FOSDEM 2011 http://fosdem.org/2011/

http://www.asterisk.org/ is software that turns an ordinary computer into a communications server

http://www.reviewboard.org web-based code review tool that offers developers an easy way to handle code reviews

http://www.atlassian.com/software/bamboo/ continuous integration server that automates the building and testing of your software

http://www.lua.org powerful, fast, lightweight, embeddable scripting language used for unit testing

Sniff2snipp: utility for creating SIPp scenarios from pcap files

http://sipp.sourceforge.net/ free Open Source test tool / traffic generator for the SIP protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pcap pcap (packet capture) consists of an application-programming interface (API) for capturing network traffic.

1. www.tcpdump.org (Un*x)
2. www.winpcap.org (Windows)

http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/ GNU Project debugger, allows you to see what is going on `inside’ another program while it executes — or what another program was doing at the moment it crashed.

http://valgrind.org/ instrumentation framework for building dynamic analysis tools (for debugging in C)

It was faster to run a test using the tools already installed on my machine. 

To be short:

1. install Visual Studio 2010 Express http://www.microsoft.com/express/downloads/
2. install IIS 7 and all ASP.NET options using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer http://www.iis.net/webpi
3. run as administrator the following command lines:
   32 bits: %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe –i
   64 bits: %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe –i
4. Create an account on http://www.twitter.com
5. Run IIS 7 as administrator
6. Create a new site called “nettwitter” and choose a port: e.g. 8081

7. 

   Create a new site using IIS7 named nettwitter

8. Update the application pool of the nettwitter site in order to .NET 4.0 target framework

9. 

   Update to .NET 4.0 the target framework of the nettwitter site

10. Run Visual Studio 2010 as Administrator
11. Follow this twitter tutorial: http://www.giantflyingsaucer.com/blog/?p=2074
12. Publish the web application using the following properties

13. 

    Properties to set for the deployment of the nettwitter site on IIS7

14. You should see your last tweets as described inside the post

I also tried the twitter API provided by http://www.twitterizer.net 

1. run the sample from http://www.twitterizer.net/downloads/#general by running the Twitterizer2.3.1-examples\TwitterizerExampleApplications.sln project
2. That’s all folks

Next time, I do the same exercise using Python; Then I may start to develop a tool to fasten and improve the visibility of the tweets (tweetdeck, twitter and the others quite sucks)

A few months ago, Microsoft released the Microsoft Web Application Installer[0] that allowed limited amount of Windows users[1] to easily install widely used Open Source software. But strangely, the Readme file [2] contradicts the list[1] supported Operating Systems by saying: “…Windows Vista RTM is not supported due to the lack of FastCGI support for the version of IIS that ships with it…”.

I haven’t found a given explanation justifying the first selection: DotNetNuke, Drupal, Gallery, Graffiti CMS, osCommerce, phpBB, WordPress.

It seems that the first Microsoft choice doesn’t focus on developers but on users of open source software: The tools proposed are not exclusively manageable by high skilled administrators like OBM,

What are the reasons why Microsoft releases such installer? I found several good reasons:

1. To increase the amount of PHP developers on Windows OS
2. To increase the amount of ASP.NET developers by Open Source developers
3. To increase the usage of Internet Information Services (IIS) by Open Source developers

But today, I used the same link to see what happened to this initiative and I can only say that it has been abandoned!

Microsoft is now providing a kind of LAMP stack of Microsoft Free solutions: .NET Framework, IIS and Extensions, SQL Server and Visual Web Developer.

That is a great idea for the Microsoft .NET developers but will once again prove that Microsoft has difficulties to find a breach into the open source community cohesion against them.

[0] http://www.microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebApplicationInstaller.aspx

[1] Supported Operating Systems are: Windows Vista RTM, Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008

[2] http://forums.iis.net/t/1152406.aspx

[4] http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/

R4egov: The technical components

The architecture of the system is based on Open Source or Microsoft solutions. We selected the two competing architectures to address the needs of the partners and to ensure an interoperability of the most used multi-tier architectures on the market.

Open Source Stack:

• Intalio|BPMS
• Apache foundation components
• WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus
• Web Services Specifications

Microsoft Stack:

• Microsoft BizTalk 2006 R2
• Microsoft SharePoint 2007
• Microsoft .NET 2.0
• Microsoft .NET 3.0
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Workflow Foundation

Further information about the project available on http://www.r4egov.eu

This post is based on my understanding of legal discussions. As I’m not a lawyer I already ask you to forgive me for the mistakes. It is clear that this post will be updated depending on the input of the readers or my offline discussions with legal experts.

Some introduction

A few months ago I wrote this post: Will gpl die at european administration now that eupl is available? where I asked if the European Commission will introduce a real competitor to the GPL in Europe thanks to its Open Source Licence. A licence that will be transposed as laws in the 27 European Union Member States.

The translation process

I knew that the European Commission was dealing with the translation of the EUPL because my company dealt with the process.

After a first proposal from the translation service of the European Commission, we requested to more than 40 “Open Source Licence” experts all over Europe to review, comment and propose amendment (if needed) to the Licence based on their national law.

Adapting the Licence to a Member State means that the public or private organisations wanting to use the EUPL in its language have the advantage that the Licence will preserve their national rights (copyright, obligations of the licensee, Chain of authorship, Warranty, Liability, Termination of the licence…).
Except the French Cecill licence, no other Open Source licence adapts its content with any national law!

Important notice regarding the language

The translations of the EUPL are translated in 22 languages. We are 27 Member States. We know that several countries recognise the same languages: French is used in Belgium and France; German is used in Germany, Belgium and Austria; Dutch is used in the Netherlands and Belgium…

Today, for me it is still unclear how the French version of the EUPL reflects the Belgian and/or the French law ?!? I have the same question for the other “shared” languages.

I assume that the transposition of the directive in the different laws will definitely address my incertitude

The workshop with the legal experts and Open Source practitioners

25 January 2008, Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC) organised a workshop during which all legal experts and OSS practitioners from across Europe have met to discuss their experiences with the EUPL.

A presentation of

• the Business Plan of the Informatics’ Directorate General (DG DIGIT) regarding the use of Open Source Software,
• The reasons to develop the EUPL
• Legal context and milestones of the elaboration of the EUPL
• the process of translation and quality control
• the future of EUPL: the v1.1, current and possible
  compatibility /GPL V3

The future version of the EUPL

Last topic of the day was the preparation of the next version of the EUPL by discussing with the legal experts of the possible amendments to be made to the current version of the licence.

Main discussions topics were the following:

Do we need to add the Application Service Providers (ASP) (See section 1 definition)?

As most of the open source applications are “server based” it should be essential to include it

Finland expert explained how to apply the hierarchy between the distribution and the communication based on the finish law (see section 1 definition)

EUPL says the following: “Distribution and/or Communication: any act of selling, giving, lending, renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting, or otherwise making available, on-line or off-line, copies of the Work at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.”

the Finish law gives this priority for the verbs presented in bold:

1. Making available
   1. Distribution
   2. Display
   3. Public performance (Music, Television)
   4. Communication

This prioritisation is important but still vague for me. Apparently this is linked with, for example, the difference existing between “watching the television” and “using a User Interface of an application”. Physically speaking you do the same: you watch a screen; but legally speaking there is a difference. As soon as I get further information I will update this post.

Polish expert explained that there is a difference between the “Work” and the “Software”

The EUPL says this (section 1 definitions): “The Original Work or the Software: the software distributed and/or communicated by the Licensor under this Licence, available as Source Code and also as Executable Code as the case may be.

- Derivative Works: the works or software that could be created by the Licensee, based upon the Original Work or modifications thereof. This Licence does not define the extent of modification or dependence on the Original Work required in order to classify a work as a Derivative Work; this extent is determined by copyright law applicable in the country mentioned in Article 15.

- The Work: the Original Work and/or its Derivative Works.”

The expert explained us that there is a difference between the “environment” and the “software”.

The environment encloses everything that allows software to run: the software, the files associated (like XML Schemas, scripts…), the database software…

The Software is just the piece of code that could run on a specific environment.

The expert requested to add new definition describing the concept of the environment.

German expert asked what means the verb “use”?

EUPL says this:

• Section 2 Scope of the rights granted by the Licence:
  • “…Any use of the Work, other than as authorised under this Licence is prohibited…”
  • “…use the Work in any circumstance and for all usage…”
  • “…The Licensor grants to the Licensee royalty-free, non exclusive usage rights to any patents held by the Licensor, to the extent necessary to make use of the rights granted on the Work under this Licence…”
• Section 5 Obligations of the Licensee: “Legal Protection: This Licence does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the copyright notice.”
• section 8 Disclaimer of Liability: “…Except in the cases of wilful misconduct or damages directly caused to natural persons, the Licensor will in no event be liable for any direct or indirect, material or moral, damages of any kind, arising out of the Licence or of the use of the Work…”
• Section 10 Acceptance of the Licence: “Similarly, you irrevocably accept this Licence and all of its terms and conditions by exercising any rights granted to You by Article 2 of this Licence, such as the use of the Work…”

The verb “to use” must be understood as “to run the program”.

Section 7 Disclaimer of Warranty

Apparently the 3rd paragraph poses problem: “This disclaimer of warranty is an essential part of the Licence and a condition for the grant of any rights to the Work.”

The question by the German expert was “what happens if there is a problem with the national law?”

Apparently a change in the wording will be needed (unfortunately I didn’t write it down to share it inside this post)

“Section 7 paragraph 3″ and Section 13 are contradictory

Section 7 paragraph 3 says: “This disclaimer of warranty is an essential part of the Licence and a condition for the grant of any rights to the Work.”

Section 13. Miscellaneous says: “Without prejudice of Article 9 [Additional agreements] above, the Licence represents the complete agreement between the Parties as to the Work licensed hereunder. If any provision of the Licence is invalid or unenforceable under applicable law, this will not affect the validity or enforceability of the Licence as a whole. Such provision will be construed and/or reformed so as necessary to make it valid and enforceable...”

Effectively, Section 7 says that the “disclaimer of warranty is an essential part of the Licence” where the Section 13 days that “[if some] provision of the Licence is invalid or unenforceable…this will not affect the validity … of the licence as a whole”.

In Italy, clauses limiting warranties must be “double signed”

Section 7 should be updated in Italian because the clauses limiting the warranties must be signed by the licensor and the licensee: Reading and clicking on a button demonstrating your acceptance of the licence is not sufficient!

Bugs inherent to the Open Source software?!?

A legal expert correctly mentioned that the section 7 Disclaimer of Warranty says this “The Work is a work in progress, which is continuously improved by numerous contributors. It is not a finished work and may therefore contain defects or “bugs” inherent to this type of software development.”

This sentence presumes that Open Source Software quality is such that bugs are inherent to this type of software. Meaning that other types of applications (read closed source applications) are not subject to bugs

This sentence will be removed in the future.

What means “reasonable” in the Section 13 Miscellaneous?

Section 13 says this: “The European Commission may put into force translations and/or binding new versions of this Licence, so far this is required and reasonable.”

Reasonable adjective is too vague. People could imagine that the European Commission can change the type of the Open Source classification of the EUPL to a closed source classification.

Off course, this is not the vision of the European Commission!
German expert proposed to change the adjective “reasonable” by something like “Open Source licence” or “Copyleft licence”.

Conclusion

This is not my first meeting with legal experts but it is maybe the first time that I could understand each word of an Open Source Licence thanks to the translations that was made available.

Off course, the GPL has been translated by people without any warranty of quality and completeness but here, we discussed with people wanting to translate an Open Source Licence that can be used in Europe and be used in its own language.
A lot of money has been used to translate this Licence but the advantage for the European Public or Private organisations that don’t need to translate it individually is such that our money has been perfectly used.

Today, people are working on the comments made by the experts in order to propose a new version of the Licence. It will take months before the version 1.1 will be released and everybody is free to make comments on this licence to make it the most used Open Source licence in Europe!

References

European Union Public Licence v1.0: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/6523

Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs: http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l26027.htm

European Union Public Administrations can now release their software under a licence that “takes care of their national specific copyright terminology and their provisions related to information, warranty or liability exclusion respecting consumer’s rights”. This is also related to “applicable law and competent court, as the EUPL guiding principle is based on trust towards Member States’ parliaments and judges without restrictions or exceptions”.

Does mean a threat to the GPL? Off course not, the writers of the Open Source Licence demonstrated an openness of mind by authorising the re-distribution of derivate works under the compatible licence:

• GNU General Public Licence v2.0
• Cecill v2.0
• Open Software Licence (OSL) v2.1
• Open Software Licence (OSL) v3.0
• Common Public Licence v1.0
• Eclipse Public Licence v1.0

Should the licensee’s obligations under the compatible licence conflict with EUPL’s obligations, the obligations of the Compatible Licence shall prevail. If other similar licences could be inspired by this open mind, the « free licence wars» and resulting incompatibilities would rapidly end!

1. an on-line collaboration server: Communication and Information Resource Centre Administrator (CIRCA), a forum like application used by the European Commission, the Member States and the European Commission’ contractors; public access is also available.
2. an on-line tool IPM that provides functionalities for “Interactive Policy Making”, a survey-like application

This is a great opportunity for Public Administrations to get an Open Source licence

1. transposed into their national law,
2. translated into their native language,
3. targeted for European public sector legal services with:
   1. Full « European » copyright coverage (communication / moral rights)
   2. EU compatible liability and warranty clauses
   3. EU compatible applicable law and jurisdiction clauses
4. Compatible with GPL

The aim of this meeting was to try to find synergies between two European Commission projects:

• OSOR that will (i) setup an open source repository for the European Public Administrations, (ii) provide news, guidance, links, contacts concerning Free Libre Open Source Software, (iii) providing technical, organisational, and legal support to apply Open Source concepts inside the Public Administrations.

• QualiPSo is a unique alliance of European, Brazilian and Chinese ICT industry players, SMEs, governments and academics to help industries and governments fuel innovation and competitiveness with Open Source software. To meet that goal, the QualiPSo consortium intends to define and implement the technologies, processes and policies to facilitate the development and use of Open Source software components, with the same level of trust traditionally offered by proprietary software.QualiPSo is the ever largest Open Source initiative funded by the European Commission, and is funded under EU’s sixth framework program (FP6), as part of the Information Society Technologies (IST) initiative. QualiPSo is launched in synergy with Europe’s technology initiatives such as NESSI and Artemis.

In short, to setup a repository for Public Administrations we need (i) Quality Software factories reviewing the quality/reliability of the free softwares available on the forge, (ii) best practices concerning the development of Open Source Software are shared accross organisations, (iii) state of the art stacks reliable and usable by any organisation; many deliverables that will be delivered by QualiPSo team during the next 4 years.