Two events coming up demonstrate the spread of free / open-source software (and of course OpenOffice.org) in the Indian sub-continent:

OpenOffice.org will be holding a project day at FOSS.IN in Bangalore, India on December 5th. FOSS.IN is now one of the world’s largest Free/Open Source Software events
OpenOffice.org will also be featured in GO-FOSS – free training [...]

A lifelong friend of my wife’s dropped in for a chat last week (let’s call her Mary). Mary chatted away happily about a recent long haul flight with her husband to do the safari bit in Africa. They had managed to fit this in between their regular EasyJet trips to their holiday home in Italy.
Mary [...]

Does software have a natural life? At some stage, does it become too difficult to maintain, and the kindest thing to do is to retire it gracefully and do a complete re-write?
I voiced this suggestion on an OpenOffice.org mailing list, and was immediately referred to this article by Joel Spolsky which states (about Netscape):
They did [...]

Many open-source projects have mascots, with Tux the Linux penguin probably the best known. OpenOffice.org’s best known symbol is the seagull in its logo, and I have blogged before about a number of attempts to turn this into a full-blown mascot called “Otto” (aka La Mouette). Here are Tux and Otto hand in hand… La [...]

What do you do with firefighters when they aren’t actively putting out fires?
IT security firms have a similar issue – what do you do with highly trained, highly paid security analysts when they aren’t responding to a 999 call from a client about a possible computer virus? The answer for some companies is to have [...]