Congratulations to our long-time friend, advisor and ardent supporter: Deb Bryant of Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab.Deborah BryantDeb has worked tirelessly in getting open source software into state and local government agencies for the last 10 years. She is an expert in knowing how best to get open source software through bureaucratic hurdles and most importantly how to explain the value of open source to State and Local politicians.announcement found here
Suricata, developed by the Department of Homeland Security-funded Open Information Security Foundation, is available under the GPLv2 license.
By Elizabeth MontalbanoInformationWeek July 22, 2010 11:35 AM
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-funded foundation has released open source software for detection and prevention of network intrusions.The Open Information Security Foundation (OISF) — funded by the Navy’s space and warfare command, security vendors, and the DHS — has released source code for the Suricata Engine.Complete article here
Open source has always been a favorite among scientists and universities where budgets are limited but where there is plenty of expertise around to fiddle with the code and customize it for a specific project or department. It never behaved like the costlier, commercially available products from big-name vendors, and it required lots of patience for dealing with quirks and knowledge of some arcane coding tricks.
That explains why using open source for production in mission-critical environments, particularly where security is essential, has been relatively rare. But that’s beginning to change. Since the Internet’s widespread adoption, open source has become a global effort, and over the past several years that collaboration has yielded significant advancements. Applications are more readily available, security has been beefed up and the underlying Linux operating system has been worked on extensively.
Complete article here
A recent report at OpenSource.org has brought up an interesting fact. The Malaysian government is using 97% open source software. That is a decisive fraction and Malaysia being way ahead of many other Asian countries in technology, sets an example for them to follow.
The state of Tamil Nadu in India has been using OSS (Open Source Software) for the last two years and it has worked wonders for them. However, a full country switching to Open Source is a welcome move. One thing to remember here is that OSS does not mean there will be no costs involved in it at all. There is live and in-place support you need to pay for.
The report reveals that 703 of 724 agencies in Malaysia have switched to Open Source Software. The Malaysian government is using OpenOffice, MySQL, Apache web server and a Linux based distro. Quoting opensource.org, this is a historic achievement and Malaysia needs thumbs up for this great achievement.
The Malaysian government is not satisfied though. It aims at a 100% conversion to Open Source Software.
Are you wondering where the US stands at Open Source adoption? Read this report.
complete article here
IBM and the European Union are partnering on two projects that, in the end, aim to make government run more smoothly and businesses able to collaborate on web-based services.
Both will take advantage of and contribute to the open source community.
PINCETTE (which means “tweezers” in French) aims to be a new technology that will be able to hone in on even the smallest of software bugs in large networks that control the likes of electrical grids, water pipes and nuclear power plants.
The project will be shared with the OSS community upon its completion, so it’s not operating as a traditional open source project. Even so, the end result will be that others can make use of and contribute to improvements.
complete article here
OpenLogic recently conducted a survey to determine whether companies have a full understanding of the activities that constitute distribution per the terms of common open source licenses. Highlights of the survey include:
- 67% of the respondents who said their companies don’t distribute open source, also stated that they participated in activities - such as giving software to customers or partners, providing downloads of mobile apps , or giving software to outsourcers - that constitute distribution under open source licenses.
- Only 22% of companies were using any tools (open source, internal or 3rd party) or services to determine if they were using open source, despite that 84% of the companies were using open source software.
- 50% of Software developer respondents reported that their companies distribute open source, while only 14.3% of legal staff reported that their companies distribute open source.
Bottom line, many of these companies may be distributing open source without realizing it, thereby risking violation of copyleft clauses of the GPL and other open source licenses.
Distribution is a critical factor, since it triggers additional obligations in open source licenses and therefore additional compliance requirements. Clearly there is a disconnect here. Companies often don’t fully realize that their activities constitute distribution under open source licenses.
complete article here
Cost-cutting and operational efficiencies are requirements in most industries, regardless of economic conditions. Yet, given constant budget constraints and taxpayer push back, there are arguably few sectors that have quite as strong a mandate for the implementation of such initiatives as in the government sector.However, neither companies nor government bodies can run so lean that work can’t get done. Additionally, infrastructure such as content management systems must be kept up-to-dateto handle a growing vast amount of content. Government entities certainly don’t lack content that needs managing. With so many pages of web content necessary to provide their constituents with all of the information they need, government agencies require a system that can easily manage the flow of immense content generated by a variety of bureaus and departments.Then, there’s also a branding issue of sorts that these government entities must be capable of addressing when the time comes. When public sector companies choose to rebrand themselves because of a new product release or service focus, such a shift will oftentimes require some level of redesign of their websites. This task can be much greater for government websites, which typically need a complete rebranding effort with every new change to the administration.Complete article here
Whereas most developers have familiarity with open source, fewer of their managers and even fewer senior execs have much experience with it, especially when it comes to corporate policy or governance. Thus, it’s good news that there are organizations and resources that can help companies get their collective heads around the issues and best practices for managing them.
If you’re not convinced that open source has gone mainstream, believe it. From readership stats of this subnet to industry analysts to the trade press, the trend is clear. Even The Economist has weighed in, “The argument has been won. It is now generally accepted that the future will involve a blend of both proprietary and open-source software.” But improperly managed, using open source can create risks. So, how does a company with no established open source policies and procedures get started?
One great resource is FOSSBazaar ”an open community of technology and industry leaders who are collaborating to accelerate adoption of free and open source software in the enterprise.” Launched in 2008 by HP, the organization has expanded and hosts web discussions, webinars, videos and events on such open source topics as governance, support options, security, best practices…really anything related to adopting open source into an organization.Complete article here
Firefox has become the default browser for nearly 400,000 IBM employees, a big coup for the open-source project during a time of increasing browser competition.
“All IBM employees will be asked to use it as their default browser,” Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and Linux at IBM’s Software Group, said in a blog post Thursday. “Firefox is enterprise-ready, and we’re ready to adopt it for our enterprise.”
Mozilla has said in recent weeks it believes nearly 400 million people use its software.
In particular, IBM will load Firefox on new computers, train employees in its use, encourage vendors working with IBM to adopt it, and rely on the browser for its increasing use of cloud computing in its own IT infrastructure, he said.
“Today we already have thousands of employees using it on Linux, Mac, and Windows laptops and desktops, but we’re going to be adding thousands more users to the rolls,” Sutor said.
Complete story here
The victors in battles are those who create, modify and deploy ideas faster and more nimbly than opponents. Regrettably, limiting the U.S. military’s access to ideas risks failure.
For years, the U.S. military has been losing an asymmetric battle that involves not improvised explosive devices, bullets or al-Qaida, but instead swarms of defense industry contractors seizing control of taxpayer-funded ideas because government policy and regulations were engineered to buy iron and steel, not to deploy a software-based military.
Much like the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rapid and continual evolution of technology demands that the military accelerate just as rapidly, and the only way is to manage the ideas it has funded.
A common theme since 9/11 is that the U.S. government lacks imagination. We have not misplaced our imagination; we are simply unable to deploy new ideas as effectively or as quickly as we could. This loss of agility stands in stark contrast to private industry, foreign governments and nonstate actors, who are adopting and deploying software technologies once exclusively in the military domain.
For instance, China deploys advanced electronic warfare technologies, Iran builds unmanned aircraft, al-Qaida evolves explosive devices, and private companies like FedEx and eTrade create complex, redundant and failsafe command-and-control systems.
Complete article here