We'll be having elections on the 10th in Belgium. Each day on radio and TV there are countless debates between political parties discussing the most popular topics. If you want to give your vote to a party that is pro-OSS but don't know which ones those are, I'll try to present a list here. I'm using their stance on 'software patents' as a guideline (perhaps this is not the best metric, but at least an indication).

CD&V/NVA

It's not easy to get a clear picture on the point of view of this party. Fientje Moerman was one of the biggest PRO patents members, while in another well made document we see a rather ANTI opinion.

SP.A/Spirit

Spirit is well known as a OSS friendly party, last elections one of their points even was to have more OSS software in government institutions because of price advantages/cost savings.

It seems that SP.A is at least in favor for OSS and ANTI patents as well. On their site you can find at least the opinions from El Khadraoui, Els Haegeman, Anne Van Lancker and Kathleen Van Brempt.

Open VLD

With the work 'open' in your name you can only be OSS friendly. Well, we can only hope. The general stance of Open VLD appears to be PRO patents, as noted in this article from 'De Standaard'. Although on the other hand Patricia Ceysens is a bit more reserved.

Groen!

One of the parties that has most open about their dislike against software patents. You'll find articles on the topic and Bart STAES/Meyrem ALMACI have been working hard in the EU parlement.

Vlaams Belang

Can't find anything about software patents and the stance of Vlaams Belang on this. Although it seems that they are a bit mad at China for ignoring patents (which is their right, US/EU patents are not valid in China, so why should they care?). Perhaps we can conclude that they are rather PRO patents.

As a last resource I would like to point you to an overview of the votes in the EU parlement on the patents issue. It seems that their votes and public opinions differ quite a bit.

First, the wine repositories have been updated for Feisty, so adjust your sources file to get the latest wine builds.

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt feisty main

Next, for the people unfortunate enough to have to use the Cisco VPN client every now and then, and found more problems then it was worth in Feisty, a patch can be found at Alexander Greisser blog tuxx-home.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn was released today! You can find the upgrade instructions here and the trusted starters guide is already available at ubuntuguide.

Keyboard Freeware Utilities :

1. automatically send defined keystrokes : keyboard shortcuts
2. easily enter unicode characters : character map
3. remap the keyboard : xkeycaps

This is a list of tools that are available in, at least, Ubuntu 6.10 (Edge Eft).

Internet Freeware Utilities :

1. backup mozilla (firefox/thunderbird) browser profile : *
2. blog from the desktop : blogtk
3. create a single page html of all firefox bookmarks : built-in
4. create/edit html files / website : bluefish
5. create/edit xml files : conglomerate
6. download a file via a torrent / p2p site : built-in / azureus
7. download an entire website : gwget
8. download manager for internet downloads : gwget / d4x
9. encrypt email messages : seahorse
10. ftp multiple sites simultaeously : gftp
11. ftp files securely : gftp
12. log into an internet-connected computer from another : ssh (command line)
13. manage passwords : revelation
14. manage/resume file downloads : gwget
15. monitor bandwidth usage : gdesklets
16. read my RSS feeds : liferea
17. remove all html tags from a file to make a into text file : html2txt (command line)
18. remove dead (404) bookmarks : Bookmarks LinkChecker +
19. safely browse the web : firefox
20. search the web from the browser : built-in firefox
21. tune-up firefox browser : fasterfox +

This is a list of tools that are available in, at least, Ubuntu 6.10 (Edge Eft).

* these can be created easily with shell/perl scripting, but the purpose is to find ready-to-use apps.
+ these can be found on the FireFox Add-ons page

Information/Fun/Misc Freeware Utilities :

1. convert units of measures : units
2. find word meanings and synonymns : gnome dictionary
3. see 3d space simulation : celestia(-gnome)
4. solve a scientific calculation : galculator / rcalc
5. solve equations and plot graphs : euler
6. zoom onto the Earth from space : google earth

This is a list of tools that are available in, at least, Ubuntu 6.10 (Edge Eft).

Graphics/Images/Photographs Freeware Utilities :

1. convert images into various formats : gimp
2. create a flash-based animated how-to/tutorial : istanbul (only to theora ogg)
3. create a web photo album and slideshow from my photographs. : gthumb
4. create icons : gimp / gnome-iconedit
5. create thumbnails of images : gthumb
6. draw charts/graphs in 2D/3D from data : OpenOffice / gnuplot / plotdrop
7. draw diagrams : dia
8. edit an image : gimp
9. find the color of any pixel : gimp
10. magnify image to pixel level : gimp
11. manage galleries of photographs : gthumb / f-spot
12. paint creatively : gimp
13. paint creatively (for kids) : tuxpaint
14. pick a color from a pallette : gimp / agave
15. remove unnecessary information from a jpeg file : exiv2
16. stitch together multiple photographs : gimp
17. view images in an album folder : gthumb

This is a list of tools that are available in, at least, Ubuntu 6.10 (Edge Eft).