Articles about Open Source

If you’re looking to equip your PC with a free spreadsheet, then your first thought will probably be to download one of the open-source Office competitors: OpenOffice, maybe, or LibreOffice.

But if you prefer something a little more lightweight then there’s an interesting alternative in the GNOME Project’s Gnumeric.

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In a recent interview Linus Torvalds, the mastermind behind the Linux kernel, said that the operating system is not as popular as Windows on consumer PCs because it doesn’t come preinstalled. Manufacturers sell the computers they make with an operating system on board, which most of the time is Windows. Why can’t it be Linux instead?

According to Net Applications, in 2011, sales estimates have Linux at roughly 1.5 percent usage share on desktop and laptop computers. Windows on the other hand was evaluated at 92 percent in the same estimate.  The discrepancy in sales points out few of the issues that Linux has to overcome in order to reach a broader market adoption, but it can also provide a solution.

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Hybrid cloud software provider Eucalyptus open sourced its software on Tuesday, moving the entire package to code-sharing site GitHub. Version 3.1 of the software includes performance enhancements and a feature called FastStart, which allows IT administrators to deploy Amazon Web Services-compatible clouds in under 20 minutes.

Eucalyptus is an application that reproduces the AWS cloud locally, which in turn allows IT personnel to easily migrate cloud applications built from AWS back and forth from the public to private cloud. Amazon itself supports Eucalyptus, giving the nod to Eucalyptus' efforts to support Amazon Web Services' APIs back in March.

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Open-source RTS games aren’t generally known for having quality graphics, even when finished, so you probably wouldn’t expect too much from an alpha build. Which is why 0 A.D. is a real surprise, thanks to visuals that are more impressive than many commercial products.

Okay, it’s true, the program has been in alpha for a very long time (running on Windows, the Mac and Linux must make for a complex development process), but the attention to detail is still impressive. Your citizens are people, not anonymous blobs. Buildings look as though like people live in them, with seating areas, pots and vases scattered around. And they live in a realistic and complex world, so for instance a desert will have sand, rocks, animals, perhaps palm trees which cast true shadows.

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More than half of all software acquired by IT in the next five years will be open source, according to a new study, and open source software (OSS) leads in the areas of cloud, big data, mobile apps and enterprise mobility.

"Taken together with applications like mobile and enabled by cloud, we are entering an exciting new era of 'Open Innovation on Demand,' where not only can OSS innovate faster, it can be deployed immediately and consumed as a service from the cloud", says Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, one of the sponsors of the survey.

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Code sharing site GitHub announced a client for Windows on Monday, aimed at making it easier to search for code on the platform. The move is an obvious nod to Microsoft's dominance in computing, and done more out of necessity than anything.

GitHub is built on top of the command line Git application, and has quickly begun to change the way software is developed. It makes the process of managing an open-source project a whole lot easier, and allows work on code by many developers versus a few "gatekeepers" who control what gets into daily builds.

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Red Hat celebrated the 10th anniversary of its flagship Enterprise Linux product, but reaffirmed the decision to shift focus to cloud computing, pledging that open-source roots would be key to success in the new business venture.

The company plans to release Enterprise Linux 7 in in late 2013, but offered little during a Tuesday press conference on what to expect. What may play a large part in the new release is a focus on the cloud. For all intents and purposes, Red Hat believes Linux is in the past and the cloud is the future.

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The Apache Software Foundation announced the release of Apache OpenOffice 3.4, the first new build of OpenOffice since it was handed to the ASF by Oracle after development stalled when many contributors defected across to The Document Foundation’s LibreOffice, which is also based on OpenOffice.

Version 3.4’s major features can be found under the hood -- vastly improved startup times, improved OLEObject handling, better chart rendering and support for scalable vector graphics are the most notable changes in this new release. Also implemented is ODF 1.2 encryption, while the suite is now licensed under the Apache License 2 engine.

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In terms of version numbering the release of GIMP 2.8 might seem like a minor one, but in reality it is very big news. The cross-platform image editor has been available for Windows, OS X and Linux for many years now and one thing that Windows’ user have often struggled with is the abnormal interface that comprises multiple windows; in this latest version there is now the option of working in a single window mode.

The great thing here is that there is a choice, so if you have become used to the way GIMP has worked in the past you can stick with this interface but if you have found this is the one thing that prevent you from using the image editor, you have a new option available to you.

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At first glance Linux Live USB Creator looks much like UNetbootin, theUniversal USB Installer, and every other tool that aims to help you download and create a bootable Linux environment for your PC. And as those existing tools are generally very good it’s not immediately obvious why we might need another.

Take a closer look at the Linux Live USB Creator and you’ll see it’s not just another “me too” utility, though -- the program really does have enough features and functionality to stand up against the best of the rest.

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Shares of Red Hat rose 17 percent to $60.12 in heavy midday trading. Yesterday, after the bell, the company reported $1.13 billion revenues for fiscal 2012, ended February 29. Red Hat is the first open-source based company to post $1 billion in revenues

Quite a feat for a platform Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once called a "cancer" and has repeatedly questioned the security of. One has to wonder if Ballmer might be reconsidering the parnership Microsoft penned with Red Hat back in February 2009.

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The busy folks at Pen Drive Linux have updated their handy Universal USB Installer tool to support four more distros. Which means it can now convert live CDs of Deepin Linux, LinHES Linux, Trisquel Linux and Satux Linux to run on USB keys.

And that’s not bad at all, as the tool already supported all the usual big name distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE and more, each in multiple versions), as well as a lengthy list of Linux-based utilities: Gparted, System Rescue CD, and antivirus rescue CDs from AVG, Avira, BitDefender, F-Secure and Kaspersky, amongst others.

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There are ups and downs to trying out new software and apps and web services every day. On the up side, you discover lots of things that simplify your life. On the down side, they often only simplify one thing, and don't integrate with the rest of the things in your life. This is why services like If This Then That (IFTTT) feel essential; they force these disparate services to play nicely with one another to simplify your life even further.

Ninja Blocks serves a similar purpose, but jumps an even bigger gap.

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You’re after a free image editor. You want a powerful one, something that gets compared favorably to the likes of Photoshop. You find Paint.NET and PixBuilder Studio intriguing, but just that little bit lacking. Ultimately, though, when you ask about a powerful, free image editor, you’re going to be pointed towards GIMP.

And that’s where the trouble begins, because while GIMP is undoubtedly the most powerful free image-editing tool there is, it’s also one that puts newcomers off because of its multi-paned floating user interface. But what if you could marry the interface of Photoshop with the power (and free price tag) of GIMP? The good news is, you can, thanks to an open-source, cross-platform program called GIMPshop.

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On the opening day of the Mozilla Festival in London on Friday, the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership announced five technology fellows who will spend the next year embedded in leading news agencies, studying the needs of the modern newsroom.

The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Al Jazeera English, Zeit Online, and the BBC have opened their newsrooms so these innovators can find new ways that open source Web technology can advance the values of journalism.

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