On Wed, 2003-06-18 at 07:51, strattonsmith@ozemail.com.au wrote: > I am a law student in Australia about to be admitted. Being a bit of a > Linux fan this project interests me greatly. I would like to see courts > promote open source software and more particularly, open source formats. > > Alas I cannot program in any language so I will not be much help in > that department. Hello. You can package software for Debian without being a programmer. You can also create support files, templates, etc. for things like OpenOffice.org, or write documentation or draw a logo or other things. > My question to you Malcolm is, do you have a media release that I could > try and get published in our Law Society bulletin so that other > practitioners become aware of this? The article from the Sydney > Morning Herald is already on our office notice board. Thanks for offering to do that. Here is something you could use or modify (if other people want to use it they may want to change "Australia" to their country of choice and ask on this list if unsure who else is on it from that country): --- suggested PR begins --- A new project aiming to develop a specialist computer operating system for lawyers is attracting interest within Australia. The project is called Debian-Lex, and its aim is to produce a operating system designed and pre-configured foruse in legal practice. Its developers hope that Debian-Lex will not only sit on lawyers' desktops, but also be found in their accounts departments, on their office servers, and be used in court registries Debian-Lex will be based upon Debian GNU/Linux, a free version of the Linux operating system that is collaboratively developed by thousands of both volunteer and professional developers from around the world. Thousands of open source software packages are bundled with Debian, all of which are free to use and to extend. There are currently four Australians as part of the Debian-Lex development team, but new participants are also encouraged to join. Some of the tasks of the project are to prepare existing free legal software for inclusion in a Debian-Lex system, to customise existing free accounting and time recording software so that it works better in a legal office environment, to provide a unified client and matter database that can be accessed by a range of different software (and even different operating systems), and to provide documentation and templates that make the system easy to use by lawyers from a variety of jurisdictions. Some of the open source software that will form part of Debian-Lex includes a sophisticated multi-user accounting package, a desktop time recording package, and the well-renowned Microsoft Office-compatible office suite, OpenOffice.org, as well as more specialist tools for such tasks as checking for conflicts of interest, and searching and manipulate legal transcripts and pleadings. The fact that the software is "open source" (or simply "free", meaning free of restrictions rather than free of cost) allows both developers and users of Debian-Lex to alter the software to suit their needs. More information on the Debian-Lex project may be obtained from its developers' Web site http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-lex, or by contacting the project leader Jeremy Malcolm at Jeremy@Malcolm.id.au or +61-8-9213 0800. --- suggested PR ends --- -- JEREMY MALCOLM <Jeremy@Malcolm.id.au> Personal: http://www.malcolm.id.au Providing online networks of Australian lawyers (http://www.ilaw.com.au) and Linux experts (http://www.linuxconsultants.com.au) for instant help! Disclaimer: http://www.terminus.net.au/disclaimer.html. GPG key: finger.
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