The Polish Technical Committee Number 171 has just voted 80 percent against the adoption OOXML as an ISO standard. It's not the end of the game though, since Committee 171, which was first planned to make the decision, does not make the final decision anymore. Another committee -- 182 -- will be voting on the same issue soon. More on the story from PolishLinux.com here

Norway opened a national center for competence in Free Software in Drammen, near Oslo, last week. Technocrat's Bruce Perens gave a keynote speech, after the Minister of Government Reform and a local politician, and got to discuss OpenDocument vs. MS Office Open XML with the minister. Perens says the minister is up-to-speed on the issue and Norway casts its ISO vote this week. More on the story from Technocrat here.

UK Greens get it
Environmental party promotes FOSS

The relation between environmental and free software issues may seem remote, but the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) is working to connect the dots. Since adopting a motion in favor of free and open source software (FOSS) in 2005, party members have not only spoken frequently in favor of FOSS, but also on related issues, such as software patents and lockdown technologies in Vista. More on the story from Linux.com here.

Europe gets it
High court: ISPs don't have to nark on file traders

Business Week reports that a high court adviser in the EU has decided that ISPs are not required to reveal information to authorities when users are suspected of music piracy. If this is adopted across the EU, then it can potentially spell doom for the IFPI's (the global RIAA) efforts to litigate against European P2P users. More on the story from Business Week here.

Ciao, Penguin!
Italian Parliament moves to adopt GNU/Linux

After the French Parliament's migration to GNU/Linux, the Italian Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) chose to let "the penguin" enter into the heart of Italian Democracy. As reported by Repubblica, a plan suggested by the leftist deputies Pietro Folena and Franco Grillini to migrate all the computers of the Parliament from Windows to GNU/Linux was approved by the Chamber. More on the story from Trevino's Blog here.

Norwegians would
Norway to recognize use of ODF

Norway is the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use. More on the story from consortiuminfo.org here.

Gelb hund for PlayStation 3

Yellow Dog goes German: Germany's Helios Software GmbH, a leading developer of cross-platform networking, released with Terra Soft Solutions, a free download of its modified Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) distribution optimized to use Sony's PlayStation 3 as a test-drive server. More on the story from Helios here.

FSFE launches Freedom Task Force

In the United States, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has reached out to the community with advocacy campaigns and the consultation process on the next version of the GNU General Public License. By contrast, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is focusing much of its community outreach on the creation of a group it calls the Freedom Task Force (FTF). Although relatively new, the FTF is already starting to make its mark on free software in Europe in the fields of education and compliance, and with its unique approach to the problems of copyright. More on the story from News Forge can be found here. and the Freedom Task Force Web site can be found here.

Mono brings Visual Basic to Linux