The Open Solutions Alliance has released an assessment of free software growth and the directions the movement will take in 2008. This is an interesting group that is new on the scene, having just been formed in November 2006. They appear to have put some thought into their predictions report, which you can download as a PDF.

The founding companies of this alliance are an interesting mix: “Adaptive Planning, Centric CRM, CollabNet, EnterpriseDB, Hyperic, JasperSoft, Openbravo, SourceForge.net, SpikeSource and Talend.”

This is what it looks like when huge, multinational corporations start “moving into the open source space” — the Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia is “focused on four major research areas: Mechanics & Electronic Assemblies; Open Source; Mobile Solutions & Services and Operations & Logistics.” And it “maintains partnerships with the main universities and research centers in the world, in countries such as Germany, United States, Finland and Brazil.”

And, they are hosting a conference called Bossa 2008: International Conference on Open Source Software for Mobile Embedded Platforms in Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco, Brazil.

McAfee, a company known for creating an anti-virus program for Windows, has seriously mis-handled an attempt to complain about the GPL in their annual report. They write:

“To the extent that we use ‘open source’ software, we face risks […] Use of GPL software could subject certain portions of our proprietary software to the GPL requirements, which may have adverse effects on our sales of the products incorporating any such software.”

So first, McAfee admits that they use and distribute open source software but violate the GPL by not re-distributing their changes. It isn’t often that companies use their annual report to expose themselves to legal liability. McAfee’s misunderstanding about what the GPL is and how it can/cannot be used is baffling — don’t they have lawyers over there?

This is pretty exciting — in 2006, BBC World created a documentary about free software being used in developing countries. It was a 2-part series and it is now available online for anyone to see!

Stories from The Codebreakers include computer and Internet access for school children in Africa, reaching the poor in Brazil, tortoise breeding programmes in the Galapagos, connecting villages in Spain, and disaster management in Sri Lanka. The documentary also includes interviews from key figures around the world.

You can read about the documentary, see an APDIP page about the documentary, or watch the movie online: full-screen and streaming.

The One-Laptop-Per-Child project is being threatened by corporatism’s ugly head. OLPC is a non-profit which is attempting to bridge the digital divide by creating an extremely inexpensive laptop designed for children — the idea being that the generation of tomorrow will have to be computer literate and to prevent a sharp worsening of the gulf between have’s and have-not’s, OLPC seeks to make computer literacy possible for children all over the world.

Well, the bad news started recently when OLPC was sued for $20 million by Lancor Analysis Corp., a firm based in Nigeria. Apparently, they claim that OLPC stole their idea for multi-language keyboard.

Then, it was discovered that Intel was secretly pushing the Peruvian government to drop their order for OLPC computers and instead purchase an Intel competitor laptop. Intel is supposed to be a part of the OLPC project! When Nicholas Negroponte complained about this, Intel’s response was simple: they withdrew their support from the OLPC project. You can read about it in this NYT article: Intel Quits Effort to Get Computers to Children.

Update: Nicholas Negroponte has spoken to Fortune magazine about his views on Intel’s move.

What can be said about this? Can you all get a heart?