Hack4Europe! 2012 is a set of events in five different countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Latvia and Poland) organised by Europeana and partners between 9 May- 21 June.
Hackathons are organised to bring together developers, designers and programmers who can compete to develop their ideas for the creative re-use of Europeana data and to build applications.
Happy hacking!
Celebrating Europe’s day with football boots & 1650 discussion of rocketry and pyrotechnics
Europe is not only about complex regulations, right?
EU Culture Ministers have chosen their top treasures to add to Europeana
, Europe’s digital library, archive and museum (23 million books, artworks, photographs and other items)
The opening up of innovation in Europe
Although we have to face difficult times for the economy, we also have to think about the future growth of Europe. One of the aims of Innovation Union and its financial instrument Horizon 2020 is to boost Europe’s competitiveness via innovation.
As FSFE suggested in its position paper concerning Horizon 2020, education and developing future talent in Europe will be crucial for this.
First of all because technology literacy is essential to better understand and make better use of technology.
Second, while on other parts of the World following the logic of internet, universities are publishing not only lecture notes but also online courses, Europe should also support these activities.
Open Access to publicly founded research results is also essential for up-to-date knowledge and the development of new innovations.
Active participation
There are several ways of active participation in the EU. In case you’re interested in making your voice heard, the best way is to discover first the Commission’s page.
ECJ: The functionality of a computer program and the programming language cannot be protected by copyright
News to complete our legal knowledge on the Directive 2009/24/EC . Case law is developing:
According to the Court of Justice of the European Union: The functionality of a computer program and the programming language cannot be protected by copyright.
On the basis of those considerations, the Court holds that neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression. Accordingly, they do not enjoy copyright protection.
To accept that the functionality of a computer program can be protected by copyright would amount to making it possible to monopolise ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development.
Hungarian government sponsors development of ODF tools
The Hungarian government is investing 370 million HUF (about 1,23 million euro) in a three-year project to improve applications which use the open document format (ODF). The funds are shared between the software engineering department at the University of Szeged and Multiracio, an open source IT specialist developing EuroOffice, office applications based on LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Gijs HILLENIUS on April 25, 2012, European Commission- Joinup
University of Szeged, Institute of Informatics, Department of Software Engineering
Wake up next door to Barroso
Advertisement with Mr Barroso. Loved the reaction from his blog:
“Many find it absurd and many do not seem to be particularly interested in waking up next (door) to me – although I usually do not sleep in the Berlaymont building.”
Find EPFSUG
IPRED minutes from the conference
Conference on the Enforcement IPR: the review of Directive 2004/48/EC, Brussels, 26 April 2012
for the twitter/identi.ca live discussions check #EIPR12
DFD & EU
This years DFD was a great success, especially the handcuffs mission.
Even Neelie Kroes, vice President of the European Commission, received a pair of them.[1]
I’d like to highlight the best comment on the issue from Caroline De Cock:
‘Kroes was particularly pleased with her handcuffs’ http://ow.ly/ayoJ5 #girlsjustwannahavefun cc @neeliekroeseu
Already looking forward next years DFD 🙂
[1] See her reaction and articles writing about DFD: The Guardian, Wired UK, PCWorld