Articles about Open Source

Four of the biggest names in technology -- Mozilla, Intel, Red Hat and Fastly -- have come together to create the Bytecode Alliance. The joining of forces sees the birth of an, "open source community dedicated to creating new software foundations, building on standards such as WebAssembly and WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)".

One of the aims is to take WebAssembly outside of browsers, taking whatever steps are necessary to ensure a secure ecosystem. More companies are expected to join the four founding member in the coming years.

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As users and enterprises demand more added capacity, particularly for their data-driven workloads, they are increasingly moving towards all cloud or hybrid cloud environments.

This needs cloud data orchestration to accelerate and synchronize data across different environments, and as a result users are turning to cloud data analytic services like Amazon's EMR and Google Cloud's Dataproc that reduce hardware spend, eliminate the need to overbuy capacity, and provide business agility.

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Is Fedora popular? Well, is any desktop Linux distribution truly popular in the grand scheme of things? I mean, look, Windows holds an insurmountable lead in the desktop operating system space -- it cannot be denied. Amongst Linux distributions, however, yes, Fedora is very popular comparatively. Why do people choose it over other distros, such as Ubuntu, MX Linux, or Manjaro? It's simple -- Fedora is a no-nonsense operating system with a genuine focus on free and open source software. Not to mention, it is fairly bleeding edge while remaining stable.

So, yeah, Fedora is wonderful. Today, however, the Linux distribution gets even better. You see, following the beta period, Fedora 31 is now available for download. Is it an exciting release? No, not really. Sure, enthusiasts will find themselves thrilled withe inclusion of the GNOME 3.34 desktop environment (with Qt Wayland by default), Linux 5.3 kernel, and Mesa 9.2, but otherwise, it is fairly boring. You know what? That's not a bad thing. In 2019, Fedora is simply a mature and stable operating system that only needs to follow an evolutionary path at this time -- not revolutionary. It stands alone as the world's best desktop Linux distribution.

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The Internet Archive is a massive and incredibly useful resource that offers access to millions of books, games, software, audio and video files, and cached versions of websites via the recently updated Wayback Machine.

To use it, you need an internet connection, but that’s changing thanks to the creation of the new Offline Archive project.

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Thank God for Linux. No, seriously, regardless of your beliefs, you should be thankful that we have the Linux kernel to provide us with a free alternative to Windows 10. Lately, Microsoft's operating system has been plagued by buggy updates, causing some Windows users to lose faith in it. Hell, even Dona Sarkar -- the now-former leader of the Windows Insider program -- has been relieved of her duties and transitioned to a new role within the company (read into that what you will).

While these are indeed dark times for Windows, Linux remains that shining beacon of light. When Windows becomes unbearable, you can simply use Chrome OS, Android, Fedora, Manjaro, or some other Linux distribution. Today, following the beta period, one of the best and most popular Linux-based desktop operating systems reaches a major milestone -- you can now download Ubuntu 19.10! Code-named "Eoan Ermine" (yes, I know, it's a terrible name), the distro is better and faster then ever.

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Continuing its embracing of open source, Microsoft has today announced two new open source projects. The first is Open Application Model (OAM), a new standard for developing and operating applications on Kubernetes and other platforms

The second project is Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime), designed to make it easier to build microservice applications. Microsoft says that both OAM and Dapr "help developers remove barriers when building applications for cloud and edge".

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All organizations want to get more value from their data, but can be hampered by the lack of reliable information within data lakes.

The Delta Lake project addresses data reliability challenges by making transactions ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliant enabling concurrent reads and writes. It also helps to ensure that the data lake is free of corrupt and not-conformant data.

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IBM is reinforcing its commitment to diversity and inclusion in the open source field with the launch of the IBM Open Source Community Grant.

Announced at this week's All Things Open conference in Raleigh, NC, the grant -- which will be awarded quarterly -- will see the winner receive $25k in cash and $25k in Cloud Credits in order to support their efforts dedicated to education and skill building for women, minorities, and/or under-served communities.

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Well, folks... they did it. The people over at System76 finally achieved one of their dreams -- selling laptops with open source firmware! This is quite an impressive feat.

System76 has long been a proponent of both Linux and open source, and over the years, it never deviated from that. And now, two of its laptops will come with open source firmware based on Coreboot. Thrilling stuff, eh? Also exciting, however, is both computers can be be configured with some excellent specifications too, such as 10th gen Intel Core processors, up to 32GB RAM, and Thunderbolt 3.

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Ransomware attacks are a major problem and they often gain access to systems via brute-force attacks against open and exposed remote access points such as Remote Desktop Protocol.

Cloud-native virtual application delivery platform Cameyo is launching its new RDP Port Shield security technology, along with a free, open source monitoring tool that any organization can use to identify attacks taking place over RDP in their environment.

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Fedora may not be the flashiest or most exciting Linux distribution, but it is very reliable. You can always depend on the operating system to be rock solid and very modern. Best of all, it focuses on true open source ideology -- there are no non-free packages by default. I tend to "distro hop" out of curiosity, but no matter what, I always find my way back to Fedora.

Fedora 31 is due later this year, but first, there needs to be some beta testing. And so, today, Fedora 31 Beta is made available for download. Unfortunately, details surrounding version 31 are a bit sparse. With that said, one big change involves Fedora users with ARM 64-based single board computers, such as a Raspberry Pi. Those folks will get access to an additional desktop spin -- the lightweight Xfce.

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There are many Linux desktop environments from which to choose -- some are good, others are bad, but only one can be best -- GNOME. Whether you choose Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, or some other different Linux distribution, GNOME will provide you with a superior user experience. Not only is it ideal for productivity, but GNOME is quite pretty too. And yes, there are plenty of customization options. Not to mention, the excellent stock GNOME apps create a very cohesive experience overall.

Today, GNOME 3.34 is finally released. Code-named "Thessaloniki," the newest version of the desktop environment is chock full of new features, bug fixes, visual improvements, and updated apps. One of the most apparent changes to users will be the ability to group icons into folders using drag-and-drop within the application overview -- very cool.

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Sandboxie -- the sandboxing tool with the tagline "Trust no program" -- has been made into a free utility. But more than this, Sophos also plans to make the software open source in the near future.

The company says that it was a difficult decision to make, pointing out that Sandboxie has never been a significant component of its business. While simply shutting down the app would have been the easiest and cheapest thing to do, Sophos says: "we love the technology too much to see it fade away".

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Some people may think a company focused on Linux can never be successful. That’s false thinking, actually. True, some people use Linux as just a hobby, but it is so much more than that. As Red Hat shows us, Linux can be a billion dollar business. Plus, System76, for example, has been selling personal computers running Linux for many years. So, yeah, a Linux-focused company can be a success.

Of course, that does not mean a Linux-focused company is guaranteed to be a success. Case in point, today, popular Linux distribution Manjaro announces that it has formed a limited partnership business entity. The question, however, is whether or not creating such a company is a good idea.

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MX Linux is apparently becoming increasingly more popular these days, and I am not really sure why. Lately, I have been testing out the open source operating system, and I simply don't understand the hype.

Xfce, which MX uses, remains one of the worst desktop environment for end users -- it is lightweight, but that aside, it offers nothing over the superior GNOME or KDE. If you own a HiDPI monitor (which more and more people have), Xfce remains a terrible experience.

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