Suomen open source -keskus COSS täyttää tällä viikolla 5 vuotta. Tällä hetkellä COSSilla on 141 bisnesjäsentä, mikä tekee siitä yhden merkittävimmistä avoimen lähdekoodin bisnesverkostoista Euroopassa.

COSSin jäsenmäärä on jatkanut avoimen lähdekoodin liiketoiminnan kehityksen mukana tasaista kasvua. COSSin ohjausryhmän puheenjohtaja Timo Väliharju arvioi COSSin roolia avoimen lähdekoodin tunnettuuden paranemisessa ja käytön yleistymisessä seuraavasti:

Akademy 2010

Akademy is the annual meeting of the KDE community. This year, Akademy will be held in Tampere, Finland 3-10th July 2010. It is organised by KDE e.V. and COSS.

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EduCOSS

Organizes COSS’ activity in education sector. EduCOSS acts as a forum for schools and education officials while collecting and distributing information about Open Source projects.
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COSS releases case studies about interesting open source projects. Case studies are mainly written about COSS business members’ projects.

Cases (only in Finnish)

Case 1/08 – Kauniainen

Case 1/07 – Walki Medical

Case 2/06 – Masku

Case 1/06 – Linux koulussa

Case 4/05 – Turva-Tane

Case 3/05 – Konecranes

Case 2/05 – OpenPSA

After this FAQ it’s adviced to also check Free Software Foundation’s GNU License FAQ.

1. If changes are made to GPLv2 or GPLv3 -licenced product, but it’s not distributed, does the source with  changes need to be published?

No.

If the product is only used inside a company, the clauses concerning the distribution of licence are not applied and it’s source does’nt have to published. For this it doesn’t matter if the product has been changed or not.

Contents

Research description
Publications
Researchers

FILOSI, the Finnish Linux and Open Source Initiative, is a joint venture of leading academic and industrial organizations to boost open source technology research and development in Finland.

Localization is the adaptation of products or services to the cultural, legal, linguistic, and technical requirements of a specific locale. Localization of open source solutions is especially important for users from SMEs and the public sector.

COSS aims to improve the cooperation between different localization projects and promotes localization work for different actors. Development of localization occurs through work with projects, communities, companies, researchers, and public bodies.

EduCOSS aims its activities at consulting schools in relation to usage of open source software. EduCOSS collects and distributes information about OS projects in the fields of teaching and education. EduCOSS provides a forum for organizations working in the field of education to compare and exchange information about actors (e.g. solution providers) in the field. The research group of EduCOSS develops custom open-source-based ICT solutions together in collaboration with schools. It also evaluates economic and educational views of the deployments.

COSS License Helpdesk is a flexible, fast and effective advisory service for COSS business members. The package includes:

1. Assessment of the client’s problem
2. Basic legal advice
3. Recommendation for actions and financial assessment

The service doesn’t include the preparation of documents, contracts, etc.

The service is available in regular office hours by e-mail: helpdesk@coss.fi. It is offered free of charge for COSS business members

About Summer Code

WTH is this?
COSS and a number of companies are hiring students to code in open source projects.
 
And it works exactly how?

Summercoders for 2006 were chosen in a final contest held in Helsinki at 7th of March 2006. The five chosen students got a ”summer job” doing an open source project. The applications gave the students a chance not only to suggest the project of participation, but also the particular tasks. The criteria stressed on business viewpoints though subjects of applications weren’t chosen in advance.

The Summercode 2007 project employs five university students for the summer. Summercoders for this year were chosen at Helsinki University of Technology.

2008 Summercoders have finished their projects

COSS and a number of Finnish companies hired Finnish university students to code in open source projects during summer.

The coders and their projects were:

Antti Kaijanmäki – Mobile Broadband Configuration Assistant for NetworkManager
Juuso Alasuutari – Improving the LASH Audio Session Handler
Niklas Laxström – I18n with MediaWiki
Olli Savolainen – Moodle Quiz

Summer Code Finland is an annual project, which aims to support Finnish participation in significant open source projects and to strengthen the open source competencies that companies need.

2009 Summercoders have been chosen!

Tanu Kaskinen: D-Bus Interface for PulseAudio
Akseli Mantila: Banshee shoutcast/streamtuner
Riku Salminen: XCB and OpenGL 3.0