Everything is almost ready for the start of the II International Congress of Free Software and Electronic government 2009, that will take place 26, 27 and 28 of August in Brasilia, Brazil.

The conference seeks to stimulate debate on policy and management of open source technologies in government, administration, business, international organizations and in community in general.

Therefore, in different panels and discussions that will take place there, the role of free software communities will be highlighted by presenting their collaborative models, licensing and experience. In the same way, explaining the ITC infrastructure, technologies of development, tools, and hardware aspects of robotics and mobility made with open source software. The role of applications for supporting government operations, education or industry will be also analyzed. All these issues and some others are the main axes of this second edition which is supported by the good reviews received in the first congress.

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During the days in Latin America, we had the chance to meet new entities and corporations, within the scope of the Cono Sur and Brazil Morfeo Offices and in general, throughout Latin America.

There are a lot of people, organizations and initiatives that we had the pleasure to know. We had the chance to chat and discuss different points of views about the possibilities offered by open technology and ways to collaborate. Therefore, we decided to dedicate a series of entries in our blog to share contacts of these organizations. In brief, the presentations of all the contact that we made will begin running in the Morfeo community’s blog to promote the strengthening of the community, which now spans two continents dimension.

If you went to some of the events in Argentina and Brazil and believe that the series should refer to any other organization or initiative, please let us know.

In the same way, we select the set of organizations and the most significant initiatives that belongs to the European community to spread, under the same scheme of entry, on the Red Oficinas’ Morfeo[1].

This initiative will aim to make a list of institutions, projects, products, etc. that serves as a reference to the demand and supply of OSS technology.

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Now you can enjoy with the new incorporations to the Think Tank with the post of Jesús M. González Barahona, headmaster of the GsyC/Libresoft reseach group and professor at the Rey Juan Carlos University, Miriam Ruiz, developer in Debian and publisher in Barrapunto and Sergio Montoro foundator of the KnowGate consulting company, creator of the CRM Open Source Hipergate platform and author of the blog La Pastilla Roja.

Although it has been few days ago when it has been this new annexation, you can delight in the Think Tank with the  posts that they had previously published in their blogs which are interested to the Morfeo Community.

If in addition you would like to comment because of the great interest of their writings, you also want to write to the authors, we offer you a way to get in touch with them; Jesús M. G.Barahona: jgb[at]gsy(dot)es, Miriam Ruiz: miriam[at]debian(dot)org y Sergio Montoro, sergiom[at]knowgate(dot)com.

As it has already announced, Morfeo was invited to give two speeches in the Jornades of Programari Lliure at the University of Barcelona this last Friday. Andrés Leonardo Martínez, Jesús M. González Barahona and Pedro Coca were the speakers in this expected conference.

Andres Leonardo Martínez was the person in charge of explaining what the Morfeo Community of Free Software is and what requirements must be taken into account to create a community. In first place, in a general way, the head of the Morfeo Office explained what should be the basis to settle any community, participation and collaboration. Starting from this basic outline, any community should manage and organize its principles so that all members contribute and gain some benefit (win-win architecture).

In a second part, the speech was focus on the own characteristics of the Morfeo Community where it was defined as a community in search of a competitive market technology based in open source software where there isn’t a unique supplier, it has efficient price and innovative solutions. After a brief historical chronology of Morfeo, it was mentioned another basic structure to be taken into account in order to create a community, collaborative tools such as mailing lists, blogs, bug tracking, forges or use of social networks. Without doubt, as important is the creation of technology as how to communicate new developments and achievements so that the results are always available to all  the community members.

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Last Thrusday, 25th June, took place the II Comunity Morfeo Meeting in Iberoamerica organized by Morfeo Cono Sur in the Technologic Institute of Buenos Aires – ITBA (Argentina). Latin Americans Software  Industry representatives, universities and free software communities of different nationalities enjoyed in this meeting.

Opening the event took charge by the admiral Dr. Enrique Molina Pico, rector of ITBA, who offered a warm welcome to all participants of the meeting and stressed the importance of Free Software in the technological evolution. Gerardo Renzetti, ESI Cono Sur Center director and head of the Morfeo Regional Office (Cono Sur), continued with the presentation of the regional office of the Morfeo Project. T hereupon, he gave way to the head of the Morfeo Office Andrés Leonardo Martínez Ortiz de Telefónica I + D (Spain), who explained the objectives of the project and the different stages since its inception in 2004.

During the meeting, it was talked about the current vision of free software in the region. Released free software projects undertaken at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, the role of governments and the Chambers and the projects housed in the various communities in the region.

Andrew L. Martínez Ortiz stated some of the free software development that are taking place in the Morfeo Community. For example, MyMobileWeb technology that simplifies the development of accessible websites and EzWeb/Fast, technology web that allows you to configure your own web window and interrelate various gadgets to offer facilities and services that were not possible to obtain before. He also presented the Free Software Universities contest that has been done at several universities in Spain through the Morfeo Community in which allow collaborative development  knowledge to students and it can be translate into ideas that may have a future economic development. Due to the success of these competitions in Spain, the representative of the  Spain Morfeo  office suggested this scheme in Cono Sur with the universities in the region which  could be interested.

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