SKOSI.org / Slovak Open Source Initiative

The Slovak Open Source Initiative was founded to provide a basis for the Open Society by using Open Source and Open Standards technologies such as the OpenDocument Format, the Apache Web server and the OpenOffice.org suite. We are primarily focusing on the government and education sectors, open source and open standards communities, and national projects for 'Informatisation' (which is the deployment of (mostly) public sector computer infrastructure), and educating citizens (not only in schools). SKOSI.org is young organization, currently in existence for only 4 months.

So far we have managed to support the community with a few projects and some partnership events. This entails me working 100% for SKOSI.org purposes (which íncludes supporting FFII.org).
SKOSI.org partnership projects

* SK.OpenOffice.org - the Slovak Localization team of OpenOffice.org. (2.0 sk.release was released 4days after english version!)

** members : 4

* Ubuntu-sk.org - the Slovak Localization team of Ubuntu-sk and the slovak community project around the ubuntu linux distrubution.

** members : 15 and still coming more every week

* FOSS hotspot - Free public accessible PC terminal (running ubuntu) with Free Wi-Fi hotspot. Currently we have one functional and three ready to deploy. All are accesible in public places such as an English used book store, coffee house, night club. With this, we are trying to promote FOSS, Wi-Fi and SKOSI.org to public. Later this project will (in partnership with Sun Microsystems and Faculty of Technology and Chemistry) provide widespread access for internet terminals in libriaries. (Currently 1300 internet terminals are planned for all libriries in Slovakia).

** Already have WiFi Hardware sponsor
** Will join Internet Terminals for Public in Libriaries
** Will become diskless thinclient

* FFII SK - promoting and helping FFII visions

** is promoting Open Document
** is promoting Open Standarts
** deliver for schools and goverment
** EU Parliament consultancy


SKOSI.org partnership events

* SoftwareFreedomDay.org in Bratislava, together with Sun Microsystems. (next year is planned for three cities in Slovakia)
* OpenOffice.org 2.0 press release, together with Sun Microsystems
* LinuxWeekend Conference, together with SkLug

SKOSI.org Foundation

It started as SKUUG (Slovak Unix User Group), and tried to improve upon the support given by LUGs (Linux User Groups) in promoting FOSS and GNU/linux. Then we became involved with the troubles with software patents, weird informatisation and similar things. I tried to reform SKUUG into SKOSI which first of all will support all FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) not only Unix Systems. Later on we started to support Open Standarts and Open Technology software such as Java, which also attracts more support from corporate members such as Sun or IBM. Right now, there is no legal base, but this will change at the end of this month. We did a lot of work even without a legal foundation. We learned a lot from projects such as the Apache Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation.
SKOSI.org and slovak press

So far we have managed to do two articles regarding informatisation and the wrong things that happened with it.
SKOSI.org national Plans

Currently we are planning to do better support for our currently active projects (mainly OpenOffice.org support). Priority One is OpenDocument information. At the end of the year the Committee of Informatisation will set the 'Electronic Standarts in the Governmental Informatisation of Slovakia'. We must work hard or we will be stuck with Microsoft's "Open" XML and the like. There is a lot work to do here. The next big step is to try to fuse our two localisation projects into one bigger SLT (Slovak Localization Team) which will have the task of localising smaller projects such as Ubuntu Linux, OpenOffice.org, and GNU tools, etc. We can provide more people and have poven that we can do localisation extremely effectively (such as releasing OpenOffice.org 2.0 4 days after stable english release). We wish to attract more localisation teams in Slovakia.
SKOSI.org international plans

This month we joined a partneship with a similar Czech foundation, the OSS Alliance Czech Republic (www.oss.cz). They have cz.OpenOffice.org, ubuntu czech, a mozilla team and they are supported by Czech Ministry of Informatics. We also have entered into a partnership with aaso.pl (Akademia Alternativnych systemow operacnych). Together we are planning to form V4 (Vysegrad Four) Alliance which will later on form the European Open Technology Alliance. Right now we are in the planning stage. Later on, I can give more information about how things should look.
FUTURE

Things like Swpat, Ipred, and EU directives for Open Knowledge are really important for us. This is why I'm so involved in FFII- becuase it matters. I wanted you to know that we manage to support FFII in many more ways than it appears. I'm happy to receive any comments regarding these steps. As always I think I must have missed many important things; I will try to do it better next time :)