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IBM Z mainframes revived by Red Hat, AI and security – TechTarget

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Mainframe systems could play a significant role in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence advancements in years to come and IBM is investing in those areas to ensure system Z mainframes have a stake in those growing tech markets.

IBM mainframe sales grew some 69% during the second quarter of this year, achieving the highest year-over-year percentage increase of any other business unit. Some industry observers attribute the unexpected performance to the fact the z15, introduced a year ago, is still in its anticipated upcycle. Typically, mainframe sales level off and dip after 12 to 18 months until the release of a new system. But that might not be the case this time around.

Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM's Z and LinuxOne mainframe business, discussed some of the factors that could contribute to sustained growth of the venerable system, including IBM's acquisition of Red Hat, the rise of open source software and timely technical enhancements.

Mainframe revenues in the second quarter were the fastest-growing of any IBM business unit, something analysts didn't expect to see again. Is this just the typical upcycle for the latest system or something else at work?

Ross Mauri: A lot of it has to do with the Red Hat acquisition and the move toward hybrid clouds. Consequently, mainframes are picking up new workloads, which is why you are seeing a lot more MIPS being generated. We set a record for MIPS in last year's fourth quarter.

How much of it has to do with the increase in Linux-based mainframes and the growing popularity of open source software?

Mauri: Yes, there is that plus all the more strategic applications [OpenShift, Ansible] going to the cloud. What also helped was our Capacity On Demand program going live in the second quarter, providing users with four times the [processor] capacity they had a year ago.

Some industries are in slumps, but online sales are up and that means credit card and banking systems are more active than normal. They liked the idea of being able to turn on 'dark' processors remotely.

Some analysts think mainframes are facing the same barrier Intel-based machines are with Moore's Law. Are you running out of real estate on mainframe chips to improve performance?

Mauri: What we have done is made improvements in the instruction set. So, with things like Watson machine learning, users can work to a pretty high level of AI, taking greater advantage of the hardware. We've not run out of real estate on the chips, or out of performance, and I don't think we will. If you think that, we will prove you wrong.

But with the last couple of mainframe releases performance improvements were in the single digits, compared to 30% to 40% performance improvements of Power systems.

Mauri: In terms of Z [series mainframes], they are running as fast as Power. We know where [mainframes] are going to be running in the future. As we move to deep learning inference engines in the future, you'll see more AI running on the system to help with fraud analytics and real-time transactions. We haven't played out our whole hand yet. The AI market is still nascent; we are very much at the beginning of it. For instance, we're not anywhere near what we can do with the security of the system.

As we move to deep learning inference engines in the future, you'll see more AI running on [mainframes] to help with fraud analytics and real-time transactions. We haven't played out our whole hand yet. Ross MauriGeneral manager, IBM's Z and LinuxOne mainframes

We have started to put quantum encryption algorithms in the system already, to make sure security was sound given what's going on in the world of cybersecurity. You'll see us continue to invest more in the future when it comes to AI. We'll build on that machine learning base we have already.

Is IBM Research investigating other technologies that would sit between existing mainframes and quantum computers in terms of improving performance?

Mauri: Our [mainframe] systems group is working closely with the quantum team as well as with IBM Research. We are still in the research phase; no one's using them for production.

What we're exploring with IBM Research and clients is trying to determine what algorithms run well on a quantum computer for solving business problems and business processes that now run on mainframes. For instance, we're looking at big financial institutions where we can make use of quantum computers as closely coupled accelerators for the mainframe. We think it can greatly reduce costs and improve business processing speed. It's actually not that complex to do. We're doing active experiments with clients now.

What are you looking at to increase performance?

Mauri: We are looking at a whole range of options right now. We have something we do with clients called Enterprise Design Thinking where they are involved throughout an entire process to make sure we're not putting some technology in that's not going to work for them. We have been doing that since the z14 [mainframe].

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IBM Z mainframes revived by Red Hat, AI and security - TechTarget

Feds are treating BlueLeaks organization as a criminal hacker group, documents show – The Verge

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The transparency activist organization Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) has been formally designated as a criminal hacker group, following the publication of 296 gigabytes of sensitive law enforcement data earlier this summer, known colloquially as BlueLeaks. The description comes from a bulletin circulated to fusion centers around the country in late June by the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The bulletins language mirrors earlier US government descriptions of WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and LulzSec.

A criminal hacker group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDS) on 19 June 2020 conducted a hack-and-leak operation targeting federal, state, and local law enforcement databases, probably in support of or in response to nationwide protests stemming from the death of George Floyd, the bulletin reads. DDS leaked ten years of data from 200 police departments, fusion centers, and other law enforcement training and support resources around the globe, according to initial media and DHS reporting. DDS previously conducted hack-and-leak activity against the Russian Government.

The document was obtained by Lucy Parsons Lab researcher Brian Waters through an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request with the Cook County Sheriffs Office.

The BlueLeaks data was reportedly provided to Distributed Denial of Secrets by a hacker claiming ties to Anonymous, comprising 10 years of information from more than 200 police departments and fusion centers. The records include police and FBI reports, bulletins, guides, and technical information about surveillance techniques and intelligence gathering. A number of news organizations have used BlueLeaks data to publish stories about law enforcement tactics, including the counter-surveillance methods of Black Lives Matter protesters, a skewed analysis on the antifa threat to law enforcement, and worries about widespread mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic foiling facial recognition algorithms.

From the beginning, DDoSecrets has faced intense difficulties keeping the BlueLeaks material online. In late June, Twitter suspended DDoSecretss account in response to the leaks and mass-blocked hyperlinks to the leaked dataset, making it impossible to share on the platform. It was a remarkably draconian step for a company that has long allowed links to extremist content and active election interference efforts like DCLeaks to remain online. Last month, German authorities seized the DDoSecrets server that hosted the BlueLeaks data, effectively shutting down the organizations online repository of the records. The seizure was made on the request of American authorities.

The bulletins description of a criminal hacker group will only strengthen suspicions that federal law enforcement is building a criminal case against DDoSecrets, particularly combined with the recent server seizures. Emma Best, one of DDoSecretss founders, told The Verge that they absolutely believe the document shows that American authorities are investigating their organization in the same manner as it did WikiLeaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, is charged with conspiring to steal and publish classified Pentagon documents.

Crucially, Best maintains that the group has never been involved in any intrusions to obtain documents and merely publishes files after theyve been obtained by others. Unlike WikiLeaks and Assange, we have no involvement in actual hacks and dont provide material support to hackers, they told The Verge.

It is not illegal to publish classified information in the United States, and most of the BlueLeaks data is marked For Official Use Only rather than classified.

Still, Best maintains that DDoSecrets is simply a publisher devoted to freedom of expression and transparency both at home and abroad. Calling us criminal hackers (while ignoring the numerous facts and evidence that undermines that accusation) gives them the excuse to circumvent the First Amendment, Best told The Verge.

One of the odder claims in the three-page bulletin is an assertion that Distributed Denial of Secrets conducted a similar hack-and-leak operation in 2019 on Russian government personnel. Russian media speculated the incident was a response to Russias hack-and-leak activities targeting the Democratic Party to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election the bulletin reads.

The January 2019 DDoSecrets release referenced in the bulletin, called the Dark Side of the Kremlin, included 175 gigabytes of information some previously released on Russian-language websites about the dealings of the Kremlin, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Russias war in Ukraine. It included a significant amount of hacked material from the Russian Interior Ministry that WikiLeaks refused to release in 2016. According to media reports, the Russian hacking group Shaltai Boltai and other Eastern European hackers were responsible for the materials referenced in the bulletin.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

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Feds are treating BlueLeaks organization as a criminal hacker group, documents show - The Verge

Free speech advocate, noted professor hopes media and public are better prepared to fight election disruption – Steamboat Pilot and Today

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STEAMBOAT SPRINGS One of the worlds greatest free speech supporters and a devoted student in the science of communication told a Steamboat Springs audience that social platforms, the media and the U.S. government are better prepared to face election disruption by the Russians and other cyber soldiers during the 2020 election.

You could say the platforms have now put in place a lot of protections, said professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg School for Communication and co-founder of factcheck.org, a nonpartisan website that searches out inaccuracies in U.S. politics.

Theyre (social platforms) shutting down inauthentic accounts. Theyre increasing the likelihood that you cant buy advertising if youre a foreign national.

Jamieson is known for her diligent work in ensuring the integrity of facts in public discourse. Her much lauded career has been dedicated to promoting public understanding of complex issues.

Jamieson spoke on cyber hacking and the 2020 election during the Seminars at Steamboat on Monday, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that hosts Americas top public policy experts.

Jamieson also expressed support for an earlier Seminars speakers suggestion that the Trump Administration should create a centralized military cyber force to fight espionage.

Jamieson spent much of her talk explaining how Russia used hacking and fake media accounts to influence the 2016 election. Interestingly, she originally didnt believe the Russians influenced the 2016 election, but her scientific study of data eventually led her to author the award-winning book Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President.

Jamieson made it clear that Russia didnt have to cooperate or coordinate with the Trump campaign to influence the election.

All they had to do was read our U.S. media, because our coverage is so tactical that if you read it carefully, you know what states to target and what voters to target and what the needs of the two campaigns are. Once you know that all you have to do is create a message imbalance that could shift votes on the margin, she said.

Jamieson pointed out how Russian-made social media accounts were used to suppress votes, even attracting more Black followers on a fake account than the legitimate Black Lives Matter account. One Russian account even told its duped followers to text a certain number to vote. She showed examples of Russian-made memes that focused on creating fear or memes that played on prejudices.

She also pointed out how the media was manipulated by the Russians who were behind WikiLeaks.

They were overwhelmed by Russian hacked content stolen from the democrats, said Jamieson who pointed out that the media ignored confirmation that Russians were behind the hacking, in part because of the overwhelming news cycle. On that day, Trumps Hollywood Access tape was also leaked, along with hacked emails from Hillary Clintons campaign chair John Podesta. She said the hacked emails were strategically leaked by the Russian-backed Julian Assange week by week to influence the news cycle.

She said the press will try not to repeat those mistakes, citing one award-winning journalist who admitted to failures in their coverage.

I didnt raise the possibility that wed become puppets in Putins shadowy campaign. I chose the byline, she quoted Amy Chozick, a reporter for The New York Times.

When asked how she would balance free speech and fake content on social media, Jamieson fiercely defended the publics right to post and say what they want barring dangerous or egregious content that violates Americas social standards.

We draw boundaries, about what we should be able to see child pornography a clear boundary, shouting fire in a theater a traditional boundary, she said.

But I dont want to trust somebody else to decide what Im gonna hear, said Jamieson. Frankly, Id like to know what theyre saying and thinking, because frankly, Id rather know that and be prepared to deal with it rather than be surprised.

She also encouraged people to go to the fact-checking websitefactcheck.orgto keep abreast of whats being written or said on media sites and how accurate or inaccurate the reporting is.

For Jamiesons full speech and Q & A session, visit seminarsatsteamboat.org.

Frances Hohl is a contributing writer for Steamboat Pilot & Today.

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Free speech advocate, noted professor hopes media and public are better prepared to fight election disruption - Steamboat Pilot and Today

What Kamala Harris Really Thinks of WikiLeaks – Consortium News

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Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris wants a bright line separating WikiLeaks from big media, but there is only a political one, says Joe Lauria.

By Joe LauriaSpecial to Consortium News

During a September 2017 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee debate on an intelligence bill a line was inserted that said WikiLeaks resembles a non-state hostile intelligence service and that the U.S. should treat it as such.

This language would help investigators secure the authorization needed to surveil those U.S. citizens thought to be associated with WikiLeaks, a McClatchy report quoted a government lawyer as saying.

You need to show that someone is an agent of a foreign power, said the lawyer, Robert Deitz, who held senior legal positions at the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Its possible that Assange has colleagues in this country that they need to focus on, McClatchy quoted Deitz as saying, noting that such action can only be done under court order.

The non-state hostile agency phrase was directly lifted from a scurrilous speech by Mike Pompeo in his first address as CIA director.

The language survived the committee and made it into the bill voted on by the full Senate. But before it did two senators raised objections to it. One was Ron Wyden of Oregon.

The other was Sen. Kamala Harris of California, the presumptive Democratic vice presidential candidate in Novembers election.

According to the McClatchy report,

Harris declared that she is no supporter of WikiLeaks, which she said had done considerable harm to the United States. But the clause on the group is dangerous because it fails to draw a bright line between WikiLeaks and legitimate news organizations that play a vital role in our democracy, according to her remarks for the record.

Harris left no doubt that she is an enemy of WikiLeaks, as is her running mate, Joe Biden, who agreed it was more like a high-tech terrorist organization that Daniel Ellsbergs release of the Pentagon Papers.

Harris made clear she cared only about establishment media (which almost universally undergirds aggressive U.S. foreign policy) and was worried about it getting caught up in a WikiLeaks dragnet.

She said she wants a bright line between publications such as The New York Times and WikiLeaks.

Except, there can be no such legal line drawn as both establishment papers, like the Times, and WikiLeaks have done the exact same thing: possessed and published classified material.

Because there is no legal distinction, the Obama administration, which desperately wanted to indict WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, backed away citing its New York Times problem. The Trump administration had no such qualms and had Assange arrested in April 2019 and indicted on conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and 17 counts of the Espionage Act.

The only bright line that can be drawn is political: a decision by the Department of Justice to not prosecute big media but to prosecute WikiLeaks for the same crime, which conflicts with First Amendment press freedoms.

This is what Harris was calling for: Protect the state-managed corporate media but go after a serious publication that dares to reveal crimes of the U.S. government, which Harris wants to protect. In other words, for the same activity, the Times is afforded First Amendment protections, but WikiLeaks is not.

In an answer last year to this question from The New York Times about the Trump administrations prosecution of Assange: Are these charges constitutional? Would your administration continue the Espionage Act part of the case against Assange?Harris said:

The Justice Department should make independent decisions about prosecutions based on facts and the law. I would restore an independent DOJ and would not dictate or direct prosecutions.

If she stuck to that, it would mean Harris would be in favor of also prosecuting the facts and the law as it applies to the Times for publishing the Iraq War Diaries, just as WikiLeaks did, and for which its founder faces 175 yearsthe rest of his lifein a U.S. super-max prison.

That it was a political decision by the Trump administration, and not a legal one, to go after Assange but not the Times, further bolsters the argument of Assanges lawyers that the U.S. extradition request is for a political offense, and thus forbidden by the U.S.-UK Extradition Treaty of 2006.

Not that his extradition for a political offense would much bother Kamala Harris, judging from her remarks.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional career as a stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe .

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What Kamala Harris Really Thinks of WikiLeaks - Consortium News

[Managed] Shadow IT: The oxymoron you never knew about – ITProPortal

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If you had told me at the start of this year I would be spending part of my day deciding which Zoom virtual background really speaks to how Im feeling, I certainly wouldnt have believed you.

These are strange times were living in. Call them unprecedented, call them challenging, but its for sure different than any disruption most of us today have seen in our lifetimes.

Watching Covid-19 reshape how business is done is quite incredible. Businesses have always wanted to move fast, but now to survive--they need to. Covid-19 has made any hope of waiting till next week to address a critical issue a thing of the past. It can mean the difference between a thriving business or shutting your doors for good.

Enter Shadow IT.

Shadow IT isnt a new phenomenon. But the disruption resulting from Covid-19 can cause it to surface within organizations in a big waythe default to action, the need to solve problems faster than ever before, means employees are often looking for their own solutions rather than following a path that may seem a bit more time-consuming. Further, with tens of millions of employees working from home, theres a rightful fear of risk from employees leveraging unsanctioned file-sharing services, video conferencing tools and more, exposing business-critical data to cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

So its no surprise that when faced with the options of (A) waiting for a resource-strapped IT team to carve out time to address one of many challenges faced by the business or (B) using a corporate credit card to pay for a cloud-based solution and not tell them about it, many will pick the latter. Its easy to see whyon the surface, it seems like not only the path of least resistance, but even the right thing to do in todays environment.

The challenges Shadow IT presents are well documented. Its an absolute security disaster waiting to happen (think of all that customer data that could potentially be linked to some SaaS application your IT team is unaware of) and on a practical level, you cant maintain software that isnt managed by the organization.

So naturally, IT organizations tend to limit the ability of individual employees to install their own software or connect certain devices. Which makes sense in theoryhaving complete governance over your technology certainly mitigates any security risks.

But the realities of time and resources work against well-meaning IT teams. Limited bandwidth and a shortage of developers to hire to fill any gaps, means timelines get extended and projects postponed. IT professionals rightfully focus on the most pressing and most impactful initiatives. And on the other side, you have business stakeholders that are trying to move forward, looking for ways to self-serve and find answers to their day-to-day challenges.

Turns out not all Shadow IT is created equally. In fact, some of what has been called Shadow IT in the past is really innovation at the edges of a businessthose dealing with the problems are developing relevant solutions. Its reasonable to think that those doing the work, living the processes, facing the challenges they present, are the ones best suited to figuring out what the solution should be. Shutting this type of thinking down completely can lead to the proverbial baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

We also have a growing digitally native workforceaccording to the most recent available data from Pew Research, more than 40 percent of the workforce are Millennials or Generation Z, more confident with technology and more demanding of solutions that meet their needs exactly, leading to more employees seeking tech solutions.

Instead of completely banning development at the edges of the business, I recommend a slightly different approach: Why not embrace the idea of managed Shadow IT?

As written, it may sound like an oxymoron (you know, like jumbo shrimp). After all, isnt the whole premise behind Shadow IT that it is done in secret, in the shadows, outside of the view of the governing eye of an IT team?

Thats where the managed piece comes inyou empower your people to perfect their own processes and address their challenges while maintaining oversight and clear guardrails in a controlled environment.

Striking that balance of continuous innovation at the edges of a business with strong security and governancethat supposed oxymoroncan be made possible using low-code platforms. The premise is simple: Anyone in an organization is empowered to build and maintain business applications at the speed they need, all within an environment that IT can effectively monitor and govern.

Today, low-code software applications are penetrating more businesses than ever. In fact, analyst firm Gartner projects that low-code will account for more than 65 percent of application development activity by 2024 as companies continue to experience a tech talent shortage.

Its also important to recognize the power of low-code in helping companies stay the digital transformation course under the purview of a robust enterprise-scale platform. A recent study revealed that 71 percent of security professionals reported an increase in security threats or attacks since the start of Covid-19, compounded by the move to full remote work. For IT departments looking to introduce secure tools to encourage collaboration, low-code is an obvious choice.

This is a classic carrot or the stick conundrum. Rather than playing whack-a-mole with every tech tool that pops up, IT should incentivize employees to use a centralized, managed platform to solve their problems cutting down on contraband tools. This way, IT still has a seat at the table, keeping data secure and empowering employees to accelerate innovation.

With the right platform, companies can remove the boundaries between IT and others in the business, empowering employees to become citizen developers, driving innovation and helping businesses react to market needs in real-time.

The main problems with Shadow ITcommunication gaps, lack of security, etc.fall away when you empower employees to solve their own problems using well-governed and secure low-code platforms.

So stop running away from Shadow IT and instead try to manage it. Rethinking Shadow ITs role and embracing the opportunity for innovation across the business, can quickly turn it from your worst nightmare to your competitive advantage.

Jay Jamison, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Quick Base

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[Managed] Shadow IT: The oxymoron you never knew about - ITProPortal

US ban on TikTok could cut it off from app stores, advertisers: White House document – The Straits Times

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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - President Donald Trump's executive order banning China's TikTok could prevent US app stores from offering the popular short-video app and make advertising on the platform illegal, according to a White House document seen by Reuters.

Mr Trump signed an order last week prohibiting transactions with TikTok if its parent ByteDance does not reach a deal to divest it in 45 days. It did not specify the scope of the ban, stating only that the US Department of Commerce would define which transactions would be barred at the end of the 45-day period.

The White House document, sent out to supporters last week, provides insight into the Trump administration's thinking. It shows the US government is considering disrupting key aspects of TikTok's operations and funding, amid concerns over the safety of personal data that the app handles.

"Prohibited transactions may include, for example, agreements to make the TikTok app available on app stores ... purchasing advertising on TikTok, and accepting terms of service to download the TikTok app onto a user device," the document states.

A source familiar with the White House document verified its authenticity. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some technology industry experts said eliminating TikTok's ability to be offered on Apple Inc and Google owner Alphabet Inc's app stores, which in turn allow it to be downloaded on iPhone and Android smartphones, could cripple the app's growth.

"That kills TikTok in the US," said Dr James Lewis, a cyber security expert with the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "If they want to grow, these rules are a huge obstacle."

He added, though, that the US government may not be able to prevent Americans from downloading TikTok from foreign websites.

Apple and Alphabet did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Following Mr Trump's executive order last week, TikTok told advertisers it would continue to honour planned ad campaigns, refund any that it cannot fulfil, and work with major influencers to migrate to other platforms in the event of a ban.

Some advertisers told Reuters they were drafting contingency plans and considering other apps for their marketing.

It is not clear whether Mr Trump's order will be implemented.

Microsoft Corp has been leading negotiations to acquire the North America, Australia and New Zealand operations of TikTok under the supervision of the Trump administration. A successful deal would make banning transactions with TikTok moot.

The White House document seen by Reuters is not clear on whether the US would implement a similar crackdown on WeChat, the social media app owned by China's Tencent Holdings Ltd that Mr Trump also sought to ban in an executive order on last week.

TikTok, which has said is exploring legal challenges to Mr Trump's order, has 100 million active users in the US, and is especially popular with teenagers. It has said US user data is safely stored in the US and Singapore, and that it would not hand over such information to the Chinese government.

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US ban on TikTok could cut it off from app stores, advertisers: White House document - The Straits Times

Google: Here’s how much we give to open source through our GitHub activity – ZDNet

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Google has given an update on its contributions to open-source software, revealing that its employees were active in over 70,000 repositories on GitHub in 2019.

Google's new 'by the numbers' snapshot of its contributions to open source over the past five years to 2019 shows its growing activity on Microsoft-owned Git-based code-hosting site GitHub, as well as on Google's own Git service, git-on-borg, which hosts Android and Chromium.

According to Google, more than 9% of Alphabet's full-time employees actively contributed to public repositories on git-on-borg and GitHub. It had just under 12,500 employees who contributed to repositories on both services in 2019, up from a little over 10,000 in 2018 and 5,000 contributors in 2015.

SEE: 10 ways to prevent developer burnout (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Google hosts over 8,000 public repositories on GitHub and more than 1,000 public repositories on git-on-borg and says it has doubled the number of public repositories over the past five years.

Last year, it was also active in over 70,000 repositories on GitHub and pushed commits or opened pull requests on over 40,000 repositories.

Google has also used different metrics to demonstrate its level of its activity on GitHub from the ones Microsoft employed when it announced its acquisition of GitHub in 2018. Microsoft claimed it was the most active organization on GitHub because it had made two million commits, or updates, to projects.

"For contribution volume on GitHub, we chose to focus on push events, opened, and merged pull requests instead of commits as this metric on its own is difficult to contextualize," said Sophia Vargas, a researcher at the Google Open Source Programs Office.

"Note that push events and pull requests typically include one or more commits per event."

Last year, Google employees created over 570,000 issues, opened over 150,000 pull requests, and created more than 36,000 push events on GitHub, added Vargas.

Again, it has doubled the number of issues created and push events since 2015 and tripled its number of open pulled requests in that time. And, to show how effective its contributions are, Vargas notes that more than 80% of pull requests opened by Google employees have been closed and merged into active repositories.

Vargas also highlights how Google has spread its contributions across more repositories than it used to In 2015, about 40% of its opened pull requests targeted the top 25 repositories. By 2019 the top 25 repositories accounted for 20% of opened pull requests.

"For us, this indicates a healthy expansion and diversification of interests, especially given that this activity represents both Google, as well as a community of contributors that happen to work at Google," said Vargas.

SEE: Open source: GitHub buries archive in Arctic vault for 1,000 years

According to GitHub's 2019 State of the Octoversereport, published last November, the top project based on the number of contributors was Microsoft's cross-platform open source code editor Visual Studio Code (VS Code). It had 19,100 contributors.

It was followed by Azure Docs with 14,000 contributors, and Google's Flutter UI framework was third with 13,000 contributors. Other popular projects included Google's Tensorflow, Facebook's React Native, and the Google-created container management system Kubernetes.

Google's Vargas also highlights the contributions the company has made to open-source security through projects like its OSS-Fuzz, a tool that anyone on GitHub can download to find bugs in their software.

Google has set out the annual growth in activities initiated by Google employees on GitHub.

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Google: Here's how much we give to open source through our GitHub activity - ZDNet

CORRECTING and REPLACING Anyscale Hosts Inaugural Ray Summit on Scalable Python and Scalable Machine Learning – Business Wire

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BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Please replace the release with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions.

The updated release reads:

ANYSCALE HOSTS INAUGURAL RAY SUMMIT ON SCALABLE PYTHON AND SCALABLE MACHINE LEARNING

Creators of Ray Open Source Project Gather Industry Experts for Two-Day Event on Building Distributed Applications at Scale

Anyscale, the distributed programming platform company, is proud to announce Ray Summit, an industry conference dedicated to the use of the Ray open source framework for overcoming challenges in distributed computing at scale. The two-day virtual event is scheduled for Sept. 30 Oct. 1, 2020.

With the power of Ray, developers can build applications and easily scale them from a laptop to a cluster, eliminating the need for in-house distributed computing expertise. Ray Summit brings together a leading community of architects, machine learning engineers, researchers, and developers building the next generation of scalable, distributed, high-performance Python and machine learning applications. Experts from organizations including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and more will showcase Ray best practices, real-world case studies, and the latest research in AI and other scalable systems built on Ray.

Ray Summit gives individuals and organizations the opportunity to share expertise and learn from the brightest minds in the industry about leveraging Ray to simplify distributed computing, said Robert Nishihara, Ray co-creator and Anyscale co-founder and CEO. Its also the perfect opportunity to build on Rays established popularity in the open source community and celebrate achievements in innovation with Ray.

Anyscale will announce the v1.0 release of the Ray open source framework at the Summit and unveil new additions to a growing list of popular third-party machine learning libraries and frameworks on top of Ray.

The Summit will feature keynote presentations, general sessions, and tutorials suited to attendees with various experience and skill levels using Ray. Attendees will learn the basics of using Ray to scale Python applications and machine learning applications from machine learning visionaries and experts including:

It is essential to provide our customers with an enterprise grade platform as they build out intelligent autonomous systems applications, said Mark Hammond, GM Autonomous Systems, Microsoft. Microsoft Project Bonsai leverages Ray and Azure to provide transparent scaling for both reinforcement learning training and professional simulation workloads, so our customers can focus on the machine teaching needed to build their sophisticated, real world applications. Im happy we will be able to share more on this at the inaugural Anyscale Ray Summit.

To view the full event schedule, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/ray-summit/program/schedule/

For complimentary registration to Ray Summit, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/ray-summit/register/

About Anyscale

Anyscale is the future of distributed computing. Founded by the creators of Ray, an open source project from the UC Berkeley RISELab, Anyscale enables developers of all skill levels to easily build applications that run at any scale, from a laptop to a data center. Anyscale empowers organizations to bring AI applications to production faster, reduce development costs, and eliminate the need for in-house expertise to build, deploy and manage these applications. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Anyscale is based in Berkeley, CA. http://www.anyscale.com.

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CORRECTING and REPLACING Anyscale Hosts Inaugural Ray Summit on Scalable Python and Scalable Machine Learning - Business Wire

Facebook’s React 17 JavaScript library: Here’s why its top feature is ‘no new features’ – ZDNet

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The open-source project behind Facebook's React JavaScript library has unveiled the first release candidate for React 17, its first major version in two and a half years.

However, the project describes the latest release of Facebook's popular framework for building user interfaces for web apps as "unusual", because it's a major release with no new features for developers.

"Instead, this release is primarily focused on making it easier to upgrade React itself," explain React contributors Dan Abramov and Rachel Nabors.

"React 17 is a 'stepping stone' release that makes it safer to embed a tree managed by one version of React inside a tree managed by a different version of React."

SEE: Hiring Kit: Python developer (TechRepublic Premium)

There are new features in the works but the main focus is getting developers on to React 17, so that those features can be rolled out without leaving developers behind on an older version.

The reason for the change in tack is that for the past seven years developers had an "all-or-nothing" choice: either stay on an old version of React or upgrade the whole app to a new version. Additionally, it meant supporting deprecated application programming interfaces.

"There was no in-between. This has worked out so far, but we are running into the limits of the 'all-or-nothing' upgrade strategy," say Abramov and Nabors.

The new approach with React 17 will allow for gradual upgrades in an attempt to cater to developers of apps with an older codebase and to those using two versions of React.

With React 18 and subsequent versions, developers will be able to upgrade the entire app at once, but they will also have an option to upgrade an app piece by piece. This second approach could be ideal for larger apps that aren't actively maintained and version 17 helps ensure these developers don't get stuck on an old version of React.

While React 17 does have potentially breaking changes, the major release introduces changes to just 20 components out of 100,000, making it less risky for developers to upgrade to React 17.

Given that React 17 is just the first release candidate, the React team discourage developers from deploying it into production and warn it is likely to contain more bugs than a stable release.

Read more:
Facebook's React 17 JavaScript library: Here's why its top feature is 'no new features' - ZDNet

Top 12 Most Used Tools By Developers In 2020 – Analytics India Magazine

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Frameworks and libraries can be said as the fundamental building blocks when developers build software or applications. These tools help in opting out the repetitive tasks as well as reduce the amount of code that the developers need to write for a particular software.

Recently, the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020 surveyed nearly 65,000 developers, where they voted their go-to tools and libraries. Here, we list down the top 12 frameworks and libraries from the survey that are most used by developers around the globe in 2020.

(The libraries are listed according to their number of Stars in GitHub)

GitHub Stars: 147k

Rank: 5

About: Originally developed by researchers of Google Brain team, TensorFlow is an end-to-end open-source platform for machine learning. It has a comprehensive, flexible ecosystem of tools, libraries, and community resources that lets researchers push the state-of-the-art research in ML. It allows developers to easily build and deploy ML-powered applications.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 98.3k

Rank: 9

About: Created by Google, Flutter is a free and open-source software development kit (SDK) which enables fast user experiences for mobile, web and desktop from a single codebase. The SDK works with existing code and is used by developers and organisations around the world.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 89.3k

Rank: 6

About: Built by Facebook, React Native is an open-source mobile application framework that is used to develop applications for Android, iOS, Web, etc. With React Native, you can use native UI controls and have full access to the native platform. Some of its features include creating interactive UIs, building encapsulated components that manage their state, enable local changes in seconds and more.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 72.2k

Rank: 1

About: Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment, which is designed to build scalable network applications. It is a popular environment that allows developers to write command-line tools and server-side scripts outside of a browser. The environment has an advantage that millions of frontend developers that write JavaScript for the browser can write the server-side code as well as the client-side code without the need to learn a completely different programming language.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 49.2k

Rank: 11

About: Keras is a popular and open-source deep learning API written in Python language. The API includes a number of features, such as offering consistent & simple APIs, minimises the number of user actions required for common use cases, has extensive documentation and developer guides as well as provides clear & actionable error messages.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 44.3k

Rank: 8

About: Ansible is a simple IT automation system that handles configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, ad-hoc task execution, network automation, and multi-node orchestration. Ansible works by connecting to nodes and pushing out small programs, called Ansible Modules to them. Some of the features include managing machines quickly and in parallel, avoid custom-agents and additional open ports, be agentless by leveraging the existing SSH daemon, focus on security and easy auditability.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 26.1k

Rank: 4

About: Pandas is a Python package that provides fast, flexible, and expressive data structures designed to make working with relational or labelled data both easy and intuitive. The library aims to be the fundamental high-level building block for performing practical as well as real-world data analysis in Python. The features of Pandas include easy handling of missing data in floating point as well as non-floating point data, flexible reshaping and pivoting of data sets, time series-specific functionality such as date range generation, frequency conversion, date shifting and lagging, and much more.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 23.3k

Rank: 10

About: Created by HashiCorp, Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code framework, which is used to build, change and versioning infrastructure efficiently. This declarative coding tool helps developers to utilise HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), which is a high-level configuration language to describe the on-premise infrastructure for running applications. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions.

Know more here

GitHub Stars: 14.2k

Rank: 3

About:.NET Core is an open-source and cross-platform version of the .NET framework that is maintained by Microsoft and the .NET community on GitHub. The framework supports C#, Visual Basic, and F# languages to write applications. .NET Core is a general-purpose development platform, which is composed of .NET Core runtime, ASP.NET Core runtime, .NET Core SDK, language compilers and the dotnet command.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 11.9k

Rank: 2

About: Created by the tech giant Microsoft, .NET Framework is a software development framework for building and running applications on Windows. It is a developer platform that is made up of tools, programming languages, and libraries for building many different types of applications. It is a cross-platform runtime for cloud, mobile, desktop, and IoT apps.

Know more here.

GitHub Stars: 213

Rank: 12

About: Apache Cordova is an open-source mobile development framework, which allows a developer to use standard web technologies, such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development. The framework can be used by a mobile developer to extend an application across more than one platform. It can also be used by a web developer to deploy a web app thats packaged for distribution in various app store portals. A mobile developer who is interested in mixing native application components with a WebView that can access device-level APIs, can also use it.

Know more here.

Rank: 7

About: Unity is a game development platform used to build high-quality 3D/2D games that can be deployed across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles, or web. Unity3D is a powerful cross-platform 3D engine and a development engine.Know more here.

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Top 12 Most Used Tools By Developers In 2020 - Analytics India Magazine


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