He wasn't one who went with the flow, and was widely regarded as an outspoken advocate of the open source movement in Singapore. Cheok Beng Teck, CIO of the country's Ministry of Defense (Mindef), chartered the way that saw the government body embrace--almost unabashedly--an open source strategy that few in the public sector would have been as comfortable adopting.

SINGAPORE--Ahead of celebrating global Software Freedom Day on Saturday, several of the country's open source user interest groups have been busy jointly hosting a number of related events this week.

In reading through IDC's excellent report, "2007 Industry Adoption of Open Source Software, Part 2: Project Adoption," analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing observation in open-source software adoption. He apparently believes it is a weakness of the current open-source landscape, but I believe it is a strength. The observation? That IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies.

The Singapore Linux Meetup Group (SLMG) and Club Rainbow, a charity that provides services for terminally ill children, have teamed up to create a 10 seat Edubuntu computer lab for the kids. Using donated hardware from the Overseas Family School and National University of Singapore, the Linux Meetup Group used to power of LTSP to deploy 9 thin clients and 1 combined desktop/server.

Open source is answering the call at government agencies on all levels as they look for opportunities to carve out costs and improve security, transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Why?

A new directive from the Government of Malta directs government agencies to give preference to the use of open source software. Agencies choosing not to use open source solutions must provide documentation supporting their decision

Some industry observers are sounding the alarm about the need for open source software license awareness in the enterprise.

Open Source in the public sector seemed to be all the rage in 2008, with government agencies all over Europe — not to mention agencies of the EU itself — adopting, and in many cases, mandating Open Source software and standards.

Federal government agencies are adopting free and open source software (FOSS) with increasing zeal, according to a new study undertaken by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).