FOSS

Open Source Is Good, but How Can It Do Good?

Glyn Moody — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Open-source coders: we know you are good—now do good.

The ethical use of computers has been at the heart of free software from the beginning. Here's what Richard Stallman told me when I interviewed him in 1999 for my book Rebel Code:

The free software movement is basically a movement for freedom. It's based on values that are not purely material and practical. It's based on the idea that freedom is a benefit in itself. And that being allowed to be part of a community is a benefit in itself, having neighbors who can help you, who are free to help you—they are not told that they are pirates if they help you—is a benefit in itself, and that that's even more important than how powerful and reliable your software is.

The Open Source world may not be so explicit about the underlying ethical aspect, but most coders probably would hope that their programming makes the world a better place. Now that the core technical challenge of how to write good, world-beating open-source code largely has been met, there's another, trickier challenge: how to write open-source code that does good.

One obvious way is to create software that boosts good causes directly. A recent article on opensource.com discussed eight projects that are working in the area of the environment. Helping to tackle the climate crisis and other environmental challenges with free software is an obvious way to make the world better in a literal sense, and on a massive scale. Particularly notable is Greenpeace's Platform 4—not just open-source software, but an entire platform for doing good. And external coders are welcome:

Co-develop Planet 4!

Planet 4 is 100% open source. If you would like to get involved and show us what you've got, you're very welcome to join us.

Every coder can contribute to the success of P4 by joining forces to code features, review plugins or special functionalities. The help of Greenpeace offices with extra capacity and of the open source community is most welcome!

This is a great model for doing good with open source, by helping established groups build powerful codebases that have an impact on a global scale. In addition, it creates communities of like-minded free software programmers interested in applying their skills to that end. The Greenpeace approach to developing its new platform, usefully mapped out on the site, provides a template for other organizations that want to change the world with the help of ethical coders.

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Continuous Integration/Continuous Development with FOSS Tools

Quentin Hartman — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 11:30:00 +0000

by Quentin Hartman

Up your DevOps game! Get the fundamentals of CI/CD with FOSS tools now!

One of the hottest topics within the DevOps space is Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD). This attention has drawn lots of investment dollars, and a vast array of proprietary Software As A Service (SaaS) tools have been created in the CI/CD space, which traditionally has been dominated by free open-source software (FOSS) tools. Is FOSS still the right choice with the low cost of many of these SaaS options?

It depends. In many cases, the cost of self-hosting these FOSS tools will be greater than the cost to use a non-FOSS SaaS option. However, even in today's cloud-centric and SaaS-saturated world, you may have good reasons to self-host FOSS. Whatever those reasons may be, just don't forget that "Free" isn't free when it comes to keeping a service running reliably 24/7/365. If you're looking at FOSS as a means to save money, make sure you account for those costs.

Even with those costs accounted for, FOSS still delivers a lot of value, especially to small and medium-sized organizations that are taking their first steps into DevOps and CI/CD. Starting with a commercialized FOSS product is a great middle ground. It gives a smooth growth path into the more advanced proprietary features, allowing you to pay for those only once you need them. Often called Open Core, this approach isn't universally loved, but when applied well, it has allowed for a lot of value to be created for everyone involved.

An Embarrassment of Riches

The DevOps concept exploded in the past several years. The term quickly saturated the mainstream technology industry. With this increased mindshare comes a corresponding increase in the number of tools available to accomplish DevOps-related tasks. That's a blessing and a curse as a DevOps practitioner. Thanks to the endless buffet of options, you're sure to find something that meets your needs, but to a newcomer, the multitude of choices is overwhelming. Combine that with the vast scope of tasks that fall under the DevOps umbrella and the competing claims of "best" from all sides, and you have a recipe for paralysis. A good place for finding tools and filtering by a variety of criteria is DevOpsBookmarks.com. The content is all open source, and the maintainers are diligent about merging contributions, but it hasn't seen a lot of updates lately. Despite that, it makes a great jumping off point. If you find something noteworthy that should be included, a pull request would be appreciated!

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FreeDOS's Linux Roots

Jim Hall — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 11:30:00 +0000

by Jim Hall

On June 29, 2019, the FreeDOS Project turns 25 years old. That's a major milestone for any open-source software project! In honor of this anniversary, Jim Hall shares this look at how FreeDOS got started and describes its Linux roots.

The Origins of FreeDOS

I've been involved with computers from an early age. In the late 1970s, my family bought an Apple II computer. It was here that I taught myself how to write programs in AppleSoft BASIC. These were not always simple programs. I quickly advanced from writing trivial "math quiz" programs to more complex "Dungeons and Dragons"-style adventure games, complete with graphics.

In the early 1980s, my parents replaced the Apple with an IBM Personal Computer running MS-DOS. Compared to the Apple, the PC had a much more powerful command line. You could connect simple utilities and commands to do more complex functions. I fell in love with DOS.

Throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, I considered myself a DOS "power user". I taught myself how to write programs in C and created new DOS command-line utilities that enhanced my MS-DOS experience. Some of my custom utilities merely reproduced the MS-DOS command line with a few extra features. Other programs added new functionality to my command-line experience.

I discovered Linux in 1993 and instantly recognized it as a Big Deal. Linux had a command line that was much more powerful than MS-DOS, and you could view the source code to study the Linux commands, fix bugs and add new features. I installed Linux on my computer, in a dual-boot configuration with MS-DOS. Since Linux didn't have the applications I needed as a working college student (a word processor to write class papers or a spreadsheet program to do physics lab analysis), I booted into MS-DOS to do much of my classwork and into Linux to do other things. I was moving to Linux, but I still relied on MS-DOS.

In 1994, I read articles in technology magazines saying that Microsoft planned to do away with MS-DOS soon. The next version of Windows would not use DOS. MS-DOS was on the way out. I'd already tried Windows 3, and I wasn't impressed. Windows was not great. And, running Windows would mean replacing the DOS applications that I used every day. I wanted to keep using DOS. I decided that the only way to keep DOS was to write my own. On June 29, 1994, I announced my plans on the Usenet discussion group comp.os.msdos.apps, and things took off from there:

ANNOUNCEMENT OF PD-DOS PROJECT:

A few months ago, I posted articles relating to starting a public domain version of DOS. The general support for this at the time was strong, and many people agreed with the statement, "start writing!" So, I have...

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FOSS Project Spotlight: OpenNebula

Michael Abdou — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 12:00:00 +0000

by Michael Abdou

OpenNebula recently released its latest version, 5.8 "Edge", which now offers pivotal capabilities to allow users to extend their cloud infrastructure to the Edge easily and effectively.

Why OpenNebula?

For anyone looking for an open-source, enterprise solution to orchestrate data-center virtualization and cloud management with ease and flexibility, OpenNebula is a fine candidate that includes:

On-demand provisioning of virtual data centers.
Features like capacity management, resource optimization, high availability and business continuity.
The ability to create a multi-tenant cloud layer on various types of newly built or existing infrastructure management solutions (such as VMware vCenter).
The flexibility to create federated clouds across disparate geographies, as well as hybrid cloud solutions integrating with public cloud providers like AWS and Microsoft Azure.

And, it's lightweight, easy to install, infrastructure-agnostic and thoroughly extensible.

Figure 1. High-Level Features

Check here for a more detailed look at OpenNebula features.

New Features in 5.8 "Edge"

With the current conversation shifting away from centralized cloud infrastructure and refocusing toward bringing the computing power closer to the users in a concerted effort to reduce latency, OpenNebula's 5.8 "Edge" release is a direct response to the evolving computing and infrastructure needs, and it offers fresh capabilities to extend one's cloud functionality to the edge. Gaming companies, among others, who have been using OpenNebula were of the first to push for these features (yet they don't have the be the only ones to benefit from them).

LXD Container Support

In addition to supporting KVM hypervisors, as well as offering a cloud management platform for VMware vCenter server components, OpenNebula now provides native support for LXD containers as well. The virtues offered by LXD container support allow users and organizations to benefit from:

A smaller space footprint and smaller memory.
Lack of virtualized hardware.
Faster workloads.
Faster deployment times.

From a compatibility perspective, OpenNebula 5.8 and LXD provide the following:

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Digital Will, Part I: Requirements

Kyle Rankin — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 12:30:00 +0000

by Kyle Rankin

Digital assets are becoming as important as physical assets, so how do you manage them after you die?

When you lose a member of your family, you may find yourself at some point thinking about your own mortality, which then may lead you to think through preparations for your own death. I lost my father recently, but years before his death, he set up a will that described how to manage his estate, but he also made sure to share with me login details for his important financial accounts so I would have access when the time came. When the time did come to put his plans into practice, those details were invaluable.

All of this made me realize just how complicated it would be for someone to manage my own accounts in the event of my death, especially considering how much effort I've gone through to secure my computers and accounts. After all, unlike my dad, I don't use the same password for everything. What I realized I needed was the equivalent of a digital will: instructions and credentials so my next of kin had everything they needed to access my accounts and manage my affairs. In this first article of what will be a two-part series, I describe the requirements and plans to create a digital will in a way that would be manageable for my next of kin while also not negatively affecting the security of my accounts. The second part of the article will describe how I implemented these plans.

Defining Terms

This digital will is based on many of the ideas behind a traditional will, and I intend on borrowing a lot of the framework and terms instead of "re-inventing the will". To get started, let me define a few terms, but I should make it clear that I'm not an attorney, so these are just loose definitions to describe how some common terms used in a will might be applied to this digital will:

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We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

Doc Searls — Wed, 08 May 2019 13:11:53 +0000

by Doc Searls

If we take freedom and openness for granted, we'll lose both. That's already happening, and we need to fight back. The question is how.

I am haunted by this passage in a letter we got from reader Alan E. Davis (the full text is in our Letters section):

...the real reason for this letter comes from my realization—in seeking online help—that the Linux Documentation Project is dead, and that the Linuxprinting.org project—now taken over by open printing, I think, is far from functioning well. Linux has been transformed into containers, and embedded systems. These and other such projects were the heart and soul of the Free Software movement, and I do not want for them to be gone!

This is the kind of thing Bradley Kuhn (of the Software Freedom Conservancy) lamented in his talk at Freenode.live last year. So did Kyle Rankin in his talk at the same event (video, slides and later, an LJ article). In an earlier conversation on the same stage (it was a helluva show), Simon Phipps (of the Open Source Initiative) and I had our own lamentations.

We all said it has become too easy to take Linux and FOSS for granted, and the risks of doing that were dire. Some specifics:

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FOSS Project Spotlight: Drupal

Lizz Troudeau — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:30:00 +0000

by Lizz Troudeau

Drupal is a content management framework, and it's used to make many of the websites and applications you use every day. Drupal has great standard features, easy content authoring, reliable performance and excellent security. What sets Drupal apart is its flexibility; modularity is one of its core principles. Its tools help you build the versatile, structured content that ambitious web experiences need. With Drupal, you can build almost any integrated experience you can imagine.

Drupal Is for Ambitious Digital Experiences

Dries Buytaert, founder of the project, provides the vision for Drupal. Managing content for ambitious projects that aim to transform digital experiences for their organizations is what Drupal does best. Drupal goes beyond browser-based websites and reaches all digital platforms to provide a flexible, robust and innovative experience.

How to Get Started

Get started by downloading the official Drupal core files and reading the quick-start installation guide.
Or you can try Drupal with hosted solutions.
Or spin up the Umami demonstration profile in Drupal core with a service such as simplytest.me.
You can download many additional modules and themes from the Drupal.org website.

Figure 1. Umami Magazine Demo in Drupal Core

What's in Drupal Core

The base Drupal download, known as Drupal Core, contains the PHP scripts needed to run the basic content management functionality, several optional modules and themes, and many JavaScript, CSS and image assets.

Drupal 8's core platform has more than 200 features built in. For an up-to-date list of features, see Drupal.com.

Drupal 8.6.0 was the most significant update to Drupal 8. Expect Drupal 9 to release in June 2020, and if you're already using Drupal, it is expected to be the easiest major version upgrade yet. For the most current information on Drupal's latest version, visit Drupal.org.

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Thoughts from the Future of Linux

Bryan Lunduke — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 12:30:00 +0000

by Bryan Lunduke

By technology standards, I'm an old man. I remember when 3.5" floppies became common ("Wow! 1.44MB! These little things hold so much data!"). My childhood hero was Matthew Broderick war-dialing local numbers with his 300-baud modem. I dreamed of, one day, owning a 386 with more than 640k of RAM. At the pace that computing moves forward, I'm practically a fossil. So, if you were to ask me, "What is the best way to encourage kids, today, to get into open source?" Well, I honestly haven't a clue.

So, "What do kids want to do with Linux?" And, "Where will the next generation take open-source computing?"

I don't have good answers to those questions either. I'm just too stinkin' old. No, to get answers to those questions, we need to talk to the people that actually know the answers—the kids themselves.

Specifically, I mean people still young enough to be "the next generation" while old enough, with sufficient experience, to understand Linux (and open source) and create well founded opinions, goals and dreams of where Linux goes from here—perhaps young adults nearing the end of high school or just beginning their college (or work) lives.

Those are the people who will be running open source in 20 or 30 years.

After Linus Torvalds officially retires, these kids will take over Linux kernel development. When Richard Stallman finally calls it quits, these kids will push the ideals of the Free Software movement forward. And, eventually, I (and the rest of the Linux Journal team) will retire—hopefully to somewhere with a nice beach. And these kids (and the rest of their generation) will be the ones reporting on and writing about Linux.

So, we found three kids (young adults, really) who are eating and breathing Linux and open source in the United Kingdom: Josh Page, Samadi van Koten and Matthew Lugg.

Gentlemen, introduce yourselves to the world, and give us the quick overview of what you're currently doing with Linux and open source.

Matthew Lugg: Hi, my name's Matthew. I'm a year 11 student living in Devon, and I tend to spend most of my free time either coding or playing games. I've been using Linux—specifically Debian—as my main desktop OS, as well as on my VPS, for around a year now (both for dev and for gaming), and I've never looked back!

Josh Page: My name is Josh. I'm in year 11, and I use Linux for networking mainly, VMs, routing and the like.

Samadi van Koten: I'm Samadi van Koten, known online as vktec. I've recently finished my A levels and am currently taking a gap year before going to study Computer Science at Bath University this September. I'm currently in a software development contract at a multinational company that makes GNSS test equipment.

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FOSS Means Kids Can Have a Big Impact

Corbin Champion — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 12:00:00 +0000

by Corbin Champion

An eight-year-old can contribute, and you can too.

Working at a company that creates free and open-source software (FOSS) and hosts all of our code on GitHub, my team and I at UserLAnd Technologies are used to seeing and reviewing contributions, which are called pull requests, from users. Recently, however, we received a pull request that is very special to me. It was from an eight-year-old, and not just any eight-year-old, but my daughter.

Figure 1. Addison Hard at Work

Now, I had many reasons for wanting my daughter to get involved with our project, but before I pollute this story with what I think, let's hear from her—this is the Kids + Linux issue after all.

Figure 2. My Daughter's First Pull Request

The following is a brief interview I conducted with her after she provided the shown pull request.

Corbin: To start with, please tell us who you are and provide your age?

Addison: I am Addison Champion, and I am eight years old.

Corbin: Now Addison, you have a skill that I don't have. You may be eight, and I am (gulp) 38, but you have a skill that neither I nor any of the members of my team have. Can you share with us what that skill is and how you posses it?

Addison: I am bilingual, as I speak both Spanish and English. I am enrolled in a bilingual school, and in my class, we mostly speak and read in Spanish.

[Note: She has been in a two-way immersion program at our local, public school since kindergarten where some of the kids are native Spanish speakers and some are native English speakers.]

Corbin: Can you describe the work you did for UserLAnd that used this skill?

Addison: I provided a Spanish translation for UserLAnd's Android app, because there wasn't one already.

Corbin: Can you describe what you had to do to make a Spanish translation?

Addison: There were a lot of phrases in English, and I had to provide the phrase in Spanish that matched each one in English. I also had to make sure the translation would sound right to a Spanish speaker.

Corbin: Was the task difficult?

Addison: Some of the phrases were hard, but some were pretty easy. There were some technical words that we had to look up. We found a cool website, like Google translate, but where you could type in a word or a sentence and it would show you a real example of a translation that used something similar.

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The Asian Penguins

Bryan Lunduke — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 12:00:00 +0000

by Bryan Lunduke

When I was young, Apple computers dominated the schools I attended. The Apple II and, later, the Macintosh Plus were kings of the classroom in the late 1980s.

This was a brilliant move by Apple Computer (this was back before Apple dropped the word "Computer" from its company name). Get the kids used to using Apple hardware and software, and then those kids will be more likely to use it when they grow up. Plus, the parents of the kids will become at least a little more likely to pick up Apple gear, so that any computer schoolwork can also be done at home. And, the same goes for the teachers. It's just a fantastic strategy to encourage adoption of a computer platform.

When it comes to Linux and, more generally, open-source software, there's no singular company responsible for promoting the platform. Luckily, many individuals and small organizations have taken up the charge of teaching free and open-source software (like Linux) to the next generation of computer users.

One such group is a computer club at a Hmong charter school in Minnesota known as the Asian Penguins.

Figure 1. The Penguins Posing for a Group Shot

Started by Stuart Keroff in 2012, the Asian Penguins is a club made up of sixth, seventh and eighth graders—both boys and girls—all focused on using Linux, as they put it, "for school, for fun, for communication, and to help others".

Their Mission: "Changing the world, one computer at a time."

Their vision: "The Asian Penguins exist to have fun and experience freedom through Linux and open source software, to share that fun and freedom with others, and to use open source software to help as many people as possible."

I love it.

In the seven years since they started, more than 200 kids have gone through the program—200 young minds working with Linux and open source. It warms my heart.

Even better? They take recycled and donated computers, load them up with Linux and other free software, and donate them to the community (including family members of students, an anti-poverty non-profit in Minneapolis, and to a St. Paul recreation center). To date, they've given away 241 computers loaded with Linux. On average, that means nearly one computer every week!

Figure 2. Hard at Work Building Linux Computers for Those in Need

Figure 3. Students Ready to Deliver a Newly Setup Linux-Powered Computer

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