Category Archives: Open Source Software

Purism Librem 15 Linux laptop blends high-end hardware with totally free software

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Exploring Linux, Chrome OS, and beyond.

We dont normally cover crowdfunding campaigns on PCWorld, but sometimes one comes along thats just begging for a deeper look. The Purism Librem 15 notebook is one of those.

Purism, which launched a drive on Crowd Supply on Wednesday, is seeking at least $250,000 to make a high-end Linux laptop that only runs free, or open-source, software. This means no annoying closed-source driversor binary blobsnecessary to make the hardware work. Make no mistakethis is a serious, slick Linux notebook, not a bit of kit for hobbyist hackers.

Linux laptops can be hard to find. Even harder to find are Linux laptops where the hardware works perfectly well with free software. Even Linux laptops that look nice and slick might have closed-source binary blob drivers running in the Linux kernel.

Enter the Librem 15, which claims to be the first laptop in the world that ships without mystery software in the kernel, operating system, or any software applications. This claim may be a bit overblownwere sureRichard Stallman and his Leemote YeeLoong would disagreebut it certainly does look like an awesome, high-end laptop that blows systems like the Leemote out of the water.

Purism claims the laptops hardware has been meticulously designed chip by chip to work with free and open source software, saying its the first laptop to reinstate your rights to freedom and privacy. Marketing the privacy angle is probably a smart move in this post-Snowden world, but this campaign may be just as exciting for any Linux user or developer looking for a solid piece of well-supported hardware that doesnt require potentially unreliable closed-source drivers.

The system will ship with the Purism GNU/Linux Operating System, a Linux distribution based on Trisquel. Trisquel is Ubuntu-based, but includes only free software. If you prefer another Linux distribution, it should be trivial to switch.

Theyre not lying when they say they want to make high-end hardware, either. The Librem 15 includes a 15.6-inch 1920x1080 display, an 8-core 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU, NVIDIA graphics, 4 or 8 GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, a 720p webcam, and all the other goodies youd expect in a high-end laptopincluding a brushed metal exterior. The price is high-end too, with the cheapest retail configuration starting at $1899, or $1499 if you commit to buying it during the crowdfunding campaign.

Price and configuration options for the Purism Librem 15.

Purism says theyve put together final prototypes, and now theyre seeking $250,000 to make it a reality.

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Purism Librem 15 Linux laptop blends high-end hardware with totally free software

Open Source Code Contains Fewer Defects, But There’s a Catch

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Research suggests that software developed using open source code contains fewer defects than that built with proprietary code.

Open source code is lower quality than proprietary code. At least, that's how many people now perceive it.

Until this year, you could make a persuasive argument that defects in freely available source code are more likely to be spotted and fixed promptly than defects in proprietary software. Then along came Goto Fail, Heartbleed, Shellshock and Poodle. These four high-profile bugs in open source software weren't detected and fixed for years, in some cases, despite the code having been freely available for anyone to inspect.

That's been enough to put a question mark back in many people's minds about the way that open source software is developed -- and whether it's enough to count on someone, somewhere, analyzing the code and spotting defects. There's a risk that everyone assumes someone else analyzes the code when, in fact, no one with the necessary skills is actually doing so. This calls into question the wisdom of adopting open source software in the enterprise at all.

[ Survey: Security, Quality Top Companies' Reasons for Using Open Source ]

But proprietary software frequently contains defects, including security vulnerabilities. Is there any real evidence to suggest that open source code is better or worse than its closed source counterpart?

The annual Coverity scan report provides one source of objective information about the amount of code defects in open source and proprietary software. The report analyzes the levels of defects found in software developed using the two different models, which it runs though its static analysis system.

It's important to bear in mind that the scan report only includes software that's submitted for scanning; in a sense, this is a self-selected sample. That said, it turns out that the defect density -- the number of bugs per 1,000 lines of code -- of open source and proprietary software are broadly similar.

In fact, the most recent report (2013) found open source software written in C and C++ to have a lower defect density than proprietary code. The average defect density across projects of all sizes was 0.59 for open source, and 0.72 for proprietary software.

Applications with few lines of code had, in general, lower defect densities than larger ones, although large apps with more than 1 million lines of code actually had a lower density than some medium-sized apps.

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Open Source Code Contains Fewer Defects, But There's a Catch

Proud Sponsors of the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards

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NZOSA Media Release Proud Sponsors of the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards

The New Zealand Open Source awards are a biennial event to promote, recognise and celebrate the contributions of New Zealanders to free and open source projects and free and open source philosophy. Exemplary use of free and open source by organisations is also recognised.

These awards could not happen without the generous support of our sponsors. Every two years, a group of organisations who recognise the importance of free and open source to New Zealand and the world support these awards through their sponsorship.

Catalyst are once again delighted to be the main organisers and Platinum sponsors of the awards. Don Christie, Director of Catalyst and the chair of the NZOSA judging panel states As New Zealand's and Australasia's leading open source company Catalyst and our clients benefit hugely from the generosity of spirit that is represented by the open source software community. These awards are an acknowledgement of that spirit and one small way in which we can recognise and promote the open source software community in general.

InternetNZ, the other Platinum sponsor, said As a voice, a helping hand and a guide to the Internet for all New Zealanders we wholeheartedly support open source. The generosity and innovative spirit of open source represents the best of the Internet. It is a great honour for us to be associated with such a wonderful evening.

Sigurd Magnusson, one of the founders of Gold sponsor SilverStripe, says As strong advocates of open source software we are proud to sponsors the 2014 NZ Open Source Awards. SilverStripe was founded in New Zealand in 2000, we first open sourced our CMS software in 2006 and have continued to help push awareness and adoption for open source ever since.

.nz Registry Services, the other Gold sponsor says At NZRS, the folks behind operation of .nz, we are keen supporters of open source developments and proud to share in the recognition of projects and software that build on open source philosophies. It is exciting to see and contribute to the level of innovation and collaboration that open source engenders. Our congratulations go out to all the finalists.

Silver sponsors IITP notes IITP is a strong supporter of both open source and recognising excellence, so we're proud to be supporting the NZ Open Source Awards. The awards recognise the massive contribution New Zealand's diverse open source community makes and we're very happy to be part of it.

Dragonfly Data Science, one of the Bronze sponsors says we are scientists by training, specialising in data analysis. Openness is integral to the scientific process. Data analysis should be reproducible, so that given the same data and the same software, another researcher can reproduce the results. Open source software supports this reproducible approach, and we recommend it to all researchers and analysts.

Open data makes the results of scientific research available to the broader community, gaining more efficiency from public funding, and building trust in any analyses which use the data.

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Proud Sponsors of the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards