Your participation in completing the Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Development in Africa or FOSSDeva survey is highly welcome.

The survey can be accessed from http://servnet.ias.unu.edu/limesurvey/index.php?sid=86668&newtest=Y&lang=en

Please pass on the survey to friends, colleagues, researchers and research institutions interested in FOSS in Africa.

Looking forward to your participation.

Sincere regards

I co-edited (with Michael Wade) a special issue on Empirical Research on Free/Libre Open Source Software for JAIS, Journal of the Association for Information Systems. The special issue has appeared (2 issues, in fact, with a final paper to come in January). We were able to convince the publisher that they should make these issues open, so they are free to everyone. You can find them here: http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol11/iss11/ and http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol11/iss12/ .

I recently graduated with a master in Innovation Management from the Eindhoven University of Technology.

The subject of my master thesis is: How to buy something that is free?

It develops design principles, grounded in theory and practice, for the inclusion of (F/L)OSS in an organization's tactical procurement of software.

Organization's (especially government organization's) are very good at buying products. Creating an decent IT infrastructure proofs much more difficult. This thesis gives the reader design principles that can be used to change the way software is seen in the organization. They help an organization to strategically apply IT instead of just buying the next update.

Call for Book Chapters

Book Title: Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries

A book edited by Dr. Sulayman K. Sowe, Prof. Govindan Parayil and Prof. Atsushi Sunami

For further information, please contact: sowe@ias.unu.edu
Abstract Deadline Submission Extended to Monday, November 15, 2010

The key ideas in this book will be drawn from diverse and interrelated topics covering qualitative and quantitative research which has implications for FOSS diffusion and adoption; theories and best practices on FOSS for sustainable development, scientifically grounded models to explain the complex relationships driving FOSS sustainability and innovation in developing countries, FOSS and IPR issues; FOSS case studies and surveys with emphasis on lessons to be learnt; experiences on FOSS policy formulation, and obstacles to policy implementations in developing countries.

Call for chapters can be downloaded from here [pdf, 25kb]:
http://webserv.ias.unu.edu/fel/sites/default/files/Call%20for%20Book%20C...

Upcoming conferences

* The 8th International Conference on Open Source Systems: Hammamet, Tunisia, 10-13 September 2012.

Past conferences

* The 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems: Salvador, BA, Brazil, 6-7 October 2011
* OSS2010: 6th International Conference on Open Source Systems: South Bend, IN, 30 May-2 June 2010.
* OSS2009: 5th International Conference on Open Source Systems: Skövde, Sweden, 3-6 June 2009.

Maurice Verheesen is currently preparing research on the inclusion of FLOSS in neutral tactical purchasing of software.

Much is known about the adoption of FLOSS. Literature states for instance reasons, trends and factors that influence the adoption. However when comparing procurement practices with the FLOSS phenomenon one can see several incompatibilities:

IFIP TC 2 WG 2.13 Call for Papers

The focus of this track is on new software engineering method for Open Source Software development in distributed and large scaled environments, strategies for promoting, adopting, using Open Source Solutions and case studies or success stories in specific domains.

Important Dates

* Paper Submission - 6/30
* Acceptance/Reject notification - 8/15
* Camera ready - 9/1
* Author registration due date - 9/1

Track: Internet and the Digital Economy
Minitrack: Open Movements: FLOSS, Open Contents and Open Communities

We seek papers for a mini-track on Open Movement phenomena, such as:
* Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)
* Open Contents (OC)
* Open Access Publishing (OA)
* Open Communities (OComm)

3rd FLOSS International Workshop on Free/Libre Open Source Software
2-3 July 2009, Padua, Italy

Registration is now open at the official 3rd FLOSS website:
http://www.decon.unipd.it/personale/curri/manenti/floss/floss09.html

FLOSS embraces many dimensions and it is of interest of very different
disciplines; we welcome submissions from various fields: economics &
management, sociology, law, IT & computer science. Both empirical
(monographs and case studies, econometric or experimental methods) and
theoretical approaches are eligible for the Workshop. In what follows

Project Oekonux researches the economical, political and social forms of Free Software and similar forms of production we collectively call peer production. In Project Oekonux, different people with different reasons and different approaches get together to build something new. A lot of participants want to know, whether and if so, how, the peer production can serve as a basis for a new society.