Should I switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office?

[Ed: yes, it's Microsoft Jack promoting Microsoft Office again]

Hello, Columbus: Ohio LinuxFest Up Next Oct. 2-3

Next up on Brother FOSS’s Traveling Salvation Show — pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone go — brings the proverbial tent and revival show to Columbus, Ohio, at the beginning of next month.

Gandi Joins Open Source Initiative Corporate Sponsorship Program

Sponsorship consolidates technical infrastructure and support for OSI’s web hosting and administrative systems.

Building efficiency software available as open source code

A set of automated calibration techniques for tuning residential and commercial building energy efficiency software models to match measured data is now available as an open source code. The Autotune code, developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is available on GitHub.

ORNL-Developed Building Efficiency Software Now Available

Project Calico: Open Source, High-Scale Network Fabric For The Cloud

Cloud developers and operators are facing a challenge: Much of the IT toolkit that has worked well for "silo" architectures and well enough for virtual machine environments isn't a good match for apps made using containers or for microservices, where components may be not just on different machines but in many locations, and instances may come, go, or multiply. Yesterday’s "network fabric" does not accommodate this activity efficiently or reliably.

The True Internet of Things

For a clear and encouraging look at where this should be going, read Phil Windley. He not only writes eloquently about the IoT, but he has been working on GPL'd open-source code for things and how they relate. To me, Phil is the Linus of IoT—or will be if people jump in and help out with the code. Whether Phil fills that role or not, nobody has more useful or insightful things to say about IoT. That's why I decided to interview him here.

SAP Hana Vora to Bridge Spark and Hadoop

SAP is out to create closer connections between the worlds of Big Data and Business Intelligence. The company is embracing Spark via SAP HANA Vora, a new in-memory query engine that leverages and extends the Spark framework to produce enriched Hadoop queries and experiences.

VMware Integrated OpenStack 2.0 Arrives, Based on Kilo

Android developers can now build Chrome custom tabs into their apps

Google released Chrome 45 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android yesterday, and today we’re learning that the Android update includes support for a new feature called Chrome custom tabs. You can download the new Chrome version now from Google Play, but you won’t see Chrome custom tabs right away — today’s news is primarily aimed at developers. That said, Google has partnered with a few apps already — Feedly, The Guardian, Medium, Player.fm, Skyscanner, Stack Overflow, Tumblr, and Twitter will support custom tabs “in the coming weeks.”

FreeBSD on Beagle Bone Black (with networking)

I set out to run FreeBSD on my Beagle Bone Black (now dubbed “smurf” by the kids on account of it’s small and blue), for network services. My DSL modem is a crappy under-configurable thing, but I don’t dare to start hacking on it directly because it runs the telephony side of things, too. So I decided to use the Beagle Bone Black to take control of my home network.

Ireland strengthens its Open Data strategy with a governance body and a new portal

The Irish Government opened an ‘expression of interest’ for a new open data public body in charge of the Open Data Strategy Governance and presented a new version of the national Open Data portal.

Scotland released an open data resource pack

The Scottish government has published an open data resource pack aimed at helping all local public authorities to implement their own open data plan. This resource pack has been developed to support the Open Data Strategy of Scotland.

Bulgarians having a date with data

This summer, the Bulgarian Council of Ministers organised 'A Date with Data'. The theme for this one-day event was 'Open Data for Transparent Governance'. The programme featured presentations, panel discussions, demonstrations of visualisations, and other applications of open data.

​SanDisk and Nexenta release open-source, flash software-defined storage array

SanDisk is best known for storage. Led by Nithya Ruff, the company's head of open-source strategy, the company is integrating open-source into storage. In their latest deal with Nexenta, an open source software-defined storage leader, the pairing of NexentaStor with SanDisk's all-flash InfiniFlash IF100 system underlines this shift.

Nexenta Extends Its Global Market Leadership in Open Source-Driven Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS) Platform with Simplified Management, Advanced Automation and Real-Time Analytic Capabilities

Free and open source online 3D modeling tool CraftML launches beta version

Over the past few years we’ve noticed that portions of the 3D printing community have regularly struggled with 3D modeling software. After all, the hobby itself isn’t cheap, so do you splurge on expensive, professional tools, or do you stick to a more limited free one? And does your programming experience limit your choice, or are you willing to learn a new language for the sake of the software you found? If you’ve struggled with these issues yourself or are unhappy with your current setup, then we’ve got some good news for you: a brand new, free and open source online 3D modeling tool has just launched a beta version; called CraftML, it is especially interesting for being accessible through common web technologies including html, css and Javascript.

Cross-compiling a PowerPC64 LE kernel and hitting a GCC bug

Code ninjas earn "belts" with CoderDojo

But where, one may ask, will we as a global workforce find the next generation of bright young programmers, hardware engineers, and system administrators? This is the problem being addressed—in part—by CoderDojo, an Ireland-based international organization of more than 700 coding clubs worldwide. By engaging young people ages 7-17 in informal, creative environments, independent clubs of youngsters can learn web and application development along with other opportunities to explore technology and learn what excites them. Volunteer adults lead the local clubs, called Dojos, and teams of mentors and helpers are working together to keep the Dojo active and healthy. The kids are usually referred to as Ninjas and can complete activities and earn belts as their skills grow, although most clubs are using color-coded USB bracelets to signify ranks.

Stupid RCU Tricks: Hand-over-hand traversal of linked list using SRCU