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Manchester Free Software: ‘Free Software in Ethics and Practice’ - speaker: Richard Stallman

Thursday 1st May, 2008 - Talk starts at 6:45pm (ends approx. 8:30pm) with refreshments from 6:15pm.

Venue: Room D1, Renold Building, University of Manchester, Sackville Street, Manchester M1 3BB

There is no need to book a place - just turn up on the night.

Abstract

Richard Stallman will speak about the Free Software Movement, which campaigns for freedom so that computer users can cooperate to control their own computing activities. The Free Software Movement developed the GNU operating system, often erroneously referred to as Linux, specifically to establish these freedoms.
About the speaker

Richard Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system (see www.gnu.org) in 1984. GNU is free software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer award, and the the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as several honorary doctorates.

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Search engine providers need to be more transparent about how they utilise users’ data, a government initiative has said.

Get Safe Online, a joint initiative between the government and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, has said internet users should make a decision as to whether to remain with providers who use private information for things such as targeted advertising.

A report released this month by the European Union stated that search engines should not hold on to personal data for a period of more than six months. Google and Yahoo! currently carry a policy of rendering all users’ data anonymous after 18 months.

Managing director of Get Safe Online Tony Neate said: “It’s not always exactly transparent why they [search engine providers] need it [user data] so I’d like to see a bit more clarity in relation to the information that they hold and why.”

A June 2007 report by Privacy International said that Google demonstrated an “aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies”.

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SMEs have been advised to increase their sales by selling through a website.

StartupCo, a support group for businesses, says this form of selling is a cost-effective and non-time consuming way of boosting sales.

A web presence can offer a low investment growth opportunity to businesses, with potentially high returns on those investments, the group said.

Managing director John De Groot said: ‘The absolute key is the ability to generate enough traffic to the website to get the best sales end result.’

He added that SMEs should not allow security fears to deter them from embracing e-commerce but advised them to reduce any risk by using reputable providers of online shopping carts, merchant accounts and payment encryption systems.

According to a report by IMRG Capgemini, online sales in February were up 46 per cent on last year’s figures, peaking at a record high of £3.23 billion ($4.2 billion).

Last week, the Internet Advertising Bureau said that advertising through video websites was a ‘powerful branding and messaging tool’ for SMEs.

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An independent advisory body for SMEs has said that running a business from home can provide significant cost savings.

The National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (NFEA) has said that developments in the internet have released some of the financial strain business owners face in getting their companies off the ground.

Statistics by Flexibility found that the number of employees working from home had risen by 11 per cent in 2005.

NFEA chief executive George Derbyshire said: ‘The NFEA network of enterprise agencies is now seeing a larger number of new business start-ups operating their businesses without the use of a traditional office.’

He added: ‘Of course, many of today’s business operations can be run with a mobile or by email.’

Mr Derbyshire said that as the businesses grow they may have to move to larger premises but that for the early stages it was an economically sensible decision for SMEs to make.

However, he added that it was still important to run a professional operation.

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A European advisory body has recommended that internet search engines should delete users’ personal data.

The European Commission’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party report has told how search engines are unclear on their data protection policies and advised that all collected personal data should be deleted after six months, the BBC has reported.

The recommendation would mean that collected data could only be used for the purpose of searching.

If the commission accepts the request it could lead to conflict with popular American search engine companies.

Google and Yahoo! carry a policy of rendering all users’ data anonymous after a period of 18 months. MSN’s policy comes into action at 13 months.

In a statement Peter Fleischer of Google’s global privacy counsel said: ‘Google takes privacy incredibly seriously; protecting our users’ privacy is at the heart of all our products.’

Another obligation set out in the report was the obtainment of personal consent from users to allow their data to be uses in non-search services. It also asked search engines to give users clear information on the data they intended to collect.

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Companies in western Europe have reached the stage where they are ready to adopt software as a service (SaaS), according to a new study.

Research carried out by IDC found that 37 per cent of IT bosses polled say they would consider investing in such solutions in the next two years.

Some 35 per cent said they would look to replace existing CRM solutions, while 32 per cent said they were looking for supply chain management solutions.

“We believe SaaS spending will be directed at new applications and at replacement of broken applications, rather than at ripping and replacing working solutions,” said Bo Lykkegaard from IDC.

“European organisations seek to leverage the SaaS delivery model to reduce risk, complexity, and upfront costs of new IT initiatives.”

A recent study from BIW Technologies found that SaaS revenues are likely to double by 2011 to reach £2.5 billion a year.

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