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German Gov't, Free Software, and Secure E-mail
friday2k writes "There is a nice Article on Newsforge describing how the German Government moves ahead on looking into Free Software solutions for government agencies. And you need a standard, secure, email client for this." Basically, they are funding some good secure e-mail - but making sure that it works with stuff like Kmail.
Project Ägypten will focus on making Open Source email programs KMail and mutt compatible with Sphinx
They're modifying KMail and mutt to work with Sphinx, not the other way around (as the post implies).
I noticed that in the article too, despite the Dept. of Defense adopting StarOffice. The German government seems to be taking it a step further; since StarOffice is a multiplatform app, the DoD can still run Windows as a primary OS.
However, IIRC the SSCA will affect open source OS development the most.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
I'm gonna karma whore for a little bit, and c&p an email to the kmail developer's list that came in today. Text follows.
:-).
Dear list,
we are happy to announce that the German
"Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik"
(Federal Agency for IT Security, BSI)
contracted us (Intevation, Klarälvdalens Datakonsult and g10 Code)
to make sure that Free Software for their email security
standard Sphinx will be created.
Sphinx basically consists of S/MIME, a PKIX compatible X.509
profile, together with certificate revocation lists (CRLs)
based on LDAP. The code developed will be modular
allowing inclusion in several MUAs released under the GNU GPL.
Part of the contract with the BSI is the inclusion in mutt
and KMail.
The initial project pages can be reached from the URL below.
We wanted to get the good news out to you as fast as possible.
Expect more information to get released on the website or on the
corresponding mailing lists.
We plan to do the development in an open manner suitable
for Free Software projects. We want to handle the project in a
way that it will leverage and add to the work of other developers
and ask for your collaboration. The BSI pays us to ensure that their
specs are followed precisely and the result passes strict tests.
This is the first time the BSI contracts for Free Software development
and the experiences they make will be important.
We will demonstrate the power of commercial Free Software.
www.gnupg.org/aegypten
So, basically they are adding ldap support (w00t!), S/Mime, X.509, and CRL support to Kmail and mutt, using the GPL and working together with the main developers to make sure it gets included. Very cool, if I do say so myself.
(and yes, I know there is already s/mime support for mutt, but iirc it is via a patch. dunno about ldap/x.509/crl, I use kmail
Hope that clears some questions up.
About 6 months ago I stumbled across an awesome GTK+ mail/news reader very similar in look to Netscape Messenger (and far superior to XFMail) called Sylpheed (http://sylpheed.good-day.net/). It'll handle as many accounts as you want, supports threading and image view through gdk-pixbuf, is extremely fast (and decently configurable), and I've never had it crash on me. Some distributions are starting to pick it up now, and it's included in Mandrake 8.1, though I usually compile myself from source. I'd suggest giving it a look.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
The German government isn't too happy about the fact that at least of couple of the companies that write utilities used in Windows are associated with the "Church" of $cientology.
And given $cientology's record of infiltrating government offices in the US, Canada, Greece, France, etc, the thought of proprietary code gives them the creeps.
xenu.net
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The City of Turku, the oldest and one of the largest cities in Finland, is planning on a switch to Linux + OpenOffice in order to save the XP license money. Links here and here.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Mutt is already standard (i.e. works on any terminal, including text-only), and secure (PGP/GPG/choose-your-flavour).
The City of bojmir, the oldest and one of the largest cities in Switzerland, is planning on a switch to Linux in order to sav licensing fees from linux.