Category Archives: Open Source Software

These Are the Hottest New Open Source Projects Right Now

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Gobs of new open source projects are released every year, but only a few really capture the imaginations of businesses and developers.

Open source software management company Black Duck tries to spot these, measuring which projects attract the most contributors, produce the most code, and garner the most attention from the developer world at large.

Dubbed the Black Duck Rookies of the Year, the ranking isnt a perfect measure of the project popularity, but it can be can tell us a bit about where the world of open source is going. And thats no small thing. So much of the internetand the modern business worldnow runs on open source software, software thats freely shared with the world at large.

Judging from Black Ducks latest list, software developers are particularly interested in building widely distributed online applications that operate outside the control of big tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Amazonapplications like the bitcoin digital currency. Bitcoin is a system that runs across a vast network of machines thats outside the control of central banks or governments.

Software hacker types have long been interested in this sort of decentralization, but interest in such egalitarian operations has risen since NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden revealed the scope of the agencys surveillance activities. And its now at an all-time high.

According to Black Duck, one of last years most successful new projects was Storj, which aims to use bitcoins technology to help users store file online without sacrificing their privacy. Think of it as bitcoin meets Dropbox.

The idea is that youll upload your files to Storjs distributed cloud, but only youll be the only one with the keys to decrypt your data. Plus, you can sell your extra storage space to make money.

IPFSshort for InterPlanetary File Systemis even more ambitious. The project aims to create a censorship-resistant alternative to the web, taking inspiration from peer-to-peer technologies like BitTorrent.

And given all the uproar over the Silk Road, the bitcoin-based marketplace most famous for illicit drugs, its hardly surprising to see OpenBazaar on Black Ducks list. OpenBazaar could to do for e-commerce what BitTorrent did for file sharing: create a decentralized alternative that the government cant shut down.

But decentralization isnt the only thing developers are interested in. As the internet expands, theyre also hard at work on new software projects that can facilitate this expansionprojects that can help juggle enormous amounts of online traffic and data.

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These Are the Hottest New Open Source Projects Right Now

How to Make Millions of Dollars of Value with Open Source Hardware

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Houghton, MI (PRWEB) January 20, 2015

With the rise of distributed manufacturing with 3-D printing, hardware designs released under free and open licenses is growing exponentially. These designs everything from Android phone accessories to prosthetic arms can have an enormous value for those that want them. The number of open designs is growing exponentially as thousands of people download free files by the millions but it is difficult to quantify the value of the result. Industry knows open source software has a enormous value, but how valuable is an open source hardware design?

To answer that question, Dr. Joshua Pearce, an associate professor and director of the MTU Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab analyzed three methods to quantify the value of open source hardware design in the latest issue of the journal Modern Economy.

The first method is the easiest. As 3-D printing products costs less than purchasing them, the value of a design is the savings users generate by substituting open hardware scaled by the number of downloads. Most free design repositories (e.g. Youmagine and Thingiverse) track the number of downloads, says Pearce. The second method is more applicable to companies and represents the costs that they would incur if they hired engineers to create an equivalent design, he continues.

The third method is only valid when distributed manufacturing is more widespread and entire product markets are impacted. Pearce showed that the three methods represented minimum estimates as there are additional benefits related to market expansion because of lower costs, scientific innovation acceleration, educational enhancement and medical care improvement.

He then looked at case study of a syringe pump with numerous scientific and medical applications that his group had developed and shared last year. The open source pump design saves users hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on the commercial pump it replaces. Pearce adds, As it was an open design, hundreds of people are already using it and several have even improved on the design and shared their improvements. This is a clear example of the power of the free and open source paradigm to drive innovation.

The results of the case study analysis found millions of dollars of economic value already created. The results are somewhat shocking it is now clear millions of dollars of value can be created by designers if they share their work under open licenses. This scalability in value is much more difficult to achieve with traditional closed development methods. said Pearce, who concludes, For individuals or funding organizations interested in doing the most good and maximizing value for the public it is clear that supporting open designs of hardware should be a top priority.

Full article: Pearce, J.M. (2015) Quantifying the Value of Open Source Hardware Development. Modern Economy, 6, 1-11. Open access link, Syringe pump design files

Joshua Pearce is the author of the Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs, Elsevier, 2014

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How to Make Millions of Dollars of Value with Open Source Hardware

The Low Down on IRS status for Free and Open Source Software Nonprofits in the US – Video

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The Low Down on IRS status for Free and Open Source Software Nonprofits in the US
Karen Sandler http://lca2015.linux.org.au/schedule/30178/view_talk There has been a lot of recent press over some denials of tax exemption for US based nonpr...

By: Linux.conf.au 2015 -- Auckland, New Zealand

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The Low Down on IRS status for Free and Open Source Software Nonprofits in the US - Video

Penguin high-flyers: Andrew Tridgell on the Linux autopilot

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Vid The indefatigable Andrew Tridgell popped up at linux.conf.au in new Zealand last week, where he delivered an entertaining presentation on the state of play of porting ArduPilot to Linux.

ArduPilot is the open source software which controls our own Vulture 2 spaceplane on the 3DR Pixhawk autopilot. As Tridge demonstrated, it can now be deployed on a range of hardware which, with the addition of a suitable interface, allows aficionados to create a fully-functioning autopilot.

Last year, for example, a group of Russians successfully raised funds for the Navio, an autopilot shield for the Raspberry Pi.

As part of his talk, Tridge connected live to a model aircraft in Canberra, in this case equipped with an embedded Linux box - the BeagleBone Black - coupled to a PixHawk Fire Cape (PXF).

This hook-up was of particular interest to the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team since our own flight in New Mexico will feature a similar remote link, with Tridge on his sofa in Canberra monitoring the Vulture 2's status in real time.*

It's audacious stuff, and Tridge's linux.conf.au outing demonstrated just how quickly open source autopilot tech is moving. Evidently, porting ArduPilot to Linux is just part of a wider movement towards small vehicles running on the OS, and the Linux Foundation last year announced the launch of the Dronecode open source UAV platform project.

Tridge, meanwhile, will be at the Embedded Linux Conference in San Jose, California, at the end of March, where he'll be talking some more about ArduPilot on Linux and Dronecode.

*See here for info on the ultra long range radio rig which will keep us connected to the distant Vulture 2.

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Penguin high-flyers: Andrew Tridgell on the Linux autopilot

Linux Foundation debuts IoTivity open source project for IoT products and services

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Linux Foundation

Linux Foundation is set to host developer collaboration for IoTivity, the open source project sponsored by the Open Interconnect Consortium to provide software framework offering connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). The standard and the open source implementation will bring about interoperability among products and services regardless of maker and across multiple industries, including smart home, automotive, industrial automation, and healthcare.

Announced as a preview release, the open source software framework for IoTivity comes as a collaborative project and is set to allow interoperability between devices, products and services for the IoT. The project plans to release a reference implementation of the IoT standards being defined by the OIC, founded in July last year and currently includes over 50 members.

The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), with vendors across multiple industries such as automotive, consumer electronics, enterprise, healthcare, home automation, industrial and wearables, will define the connectivity requirements to improve interoperability between the billions of devices making up the IoT.

The OIC will deliver a specification, an open source implementation and a certification program ensuring interoperability regardless of form factor, operating system, service provider or transport technology creating a "Network of Everything".

The Linux Foundation hosts a variety of collaborative projects with an emphasis on code development. Open standards and specifications continue to play a fundamental role in software development, but common code bases are becoming the defacto way to accelerate innovation.

Open source software and collaborative development are the building blocks to get us there, said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. IoTivity is an exciting opportunity for the open source community to help advance this work.

Research firm, IDC expects the installed base of the IoT will be approximately 212 billion things globally by the end of 2020. This is expected to include 30.1 billion installed connected (autonomous) things. These devices are connecting to each other using multiple, and often incompatible approaches. The members of the Open Interconnect Consortium believe that in order to achieve this scale, the industry will need both the collaboration of the open source community and industry standards to drive interoperability of these devices.

As a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, IoTivity is governed by an independent steering group that liaises with the OIC. The project is open to all and includes RESTful-based APIs. It is expected to be available in various programming languages for a variety of operating systems and hardware platforms.

The IoTivity project is licensed under the Apache License version 2.0.

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Linux Foundation debuts IoTivity open source project for IoT products and services