• Business applications demand custom open-source networking solutions | #ONS2016

  Networking is a vital and necessary part of the modern business world, but much as in the real world, the road is not the reason. Networks exist to enable applications, and it’s these programs and systems that companies really want. Given this truth, when building a system, it doesn’t make sense to design apps around a network; rather, it’s much more useful to create a network that fits the programs a company runs. Open-source networking hardware allows a company to do just that.

  To gain some insight into open-source networking, Jeff Frick, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, spoke to Calvin Chai, head of product marketing at Pica8, Inc., at the Open Networking Summit 2016 conference.

• Huawei scores SDN Idol award at ONS 2016

• Huawei at ONS 2016

• Huawei Crowned Winner of SDN Idol 2016 at Open Networking Summit

• Open Networking Summit Sees New Open Source ONOS Release, NEC ProgrammableFlow Update

This isn't just a WordPress story, it's really an open source story. WordPress, as you probably know, is a GPL-based open source project. It supports a wide range of plugins and themes that extend and modify its capabilities and customize its look. Each of the plugins and themes is also GPL.

Since plugins are smaller open source projects, most have just one or -- at most -- a few maintainers. That means if the maintainer gets tired of working on the plugin or has life circumstances that make it impossible to keep supporting it, there are two choices: let it wither, or put it up for adoption.

For many years, the open source software community has made the distinction between "free as in freedom" (the software can be used or modified as the user sees fit) and "free as in beer" (the software is available at no cost). Some have added a third type of free: "free as in puppy". Like a puppy, adopting open source software has ongoing cost.

What many people don't consider is that developing open source software has a cost, too. Many developers purchase extra hardware for testing or pay for code hosting, a website, etc. A pending bill in the New York Senate aims to help offset those costs.

• Slack smackback: There's no IRC in team (software), say open-sourcers

  Open-source software is not possible without collaboration and collaboration is not possible without communication. Collaborative communication in open source projects typically means some form of distributed chat.

  In the past, and indeed the present for most projects, that has meant IRC. IRC has some disadvantages, though, and developers love a shiny new toy, which is part of the reason more than a few projects have moved to Slack, the startup attracting crazy amounts of venture investment and equally crazy valuations.

  [...]

  There are ongoing efforts to improve IRC, notably the IRCv3 project, but if you're looking for a solution right now, IRC comes up short.

  And there's no question that Slack is a very well designed, easy to use chat system. But it's closed source, which makes it a questionable choice for open-source projects. Still, if good old IRC really isn't working any more - and I would suggest your project take some time to really evaluate that question before proceeding - there are open-source Slack imitators that can also solve some of the problems with IRC, but are self-hosted and FOSS licensed.

• TP-Link blocks open-source router firmware to comply with new FCC rules

  If you're a fan of third-party software that adds functionality to a Wi-Fi router, your options just got smaller. The Federal Communications Commission has new rules designed to make sure routers operate only within their licensed frequencies and power levels. TP-Link is complying by blocking open-source firmware like the Linux-based OpenWRT and DD-WRT from its routers. That’s the easiest way for router manufacturers to comply.

• 4 projects for building an open source arcade

  You may have heard the news recently that the MAME project has been licensed under the GPL version 2.

  MAME, which originally stood for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, is probably the largest and most complete game emulation systems ever created, with the ability to emulate many original gaming systems, largely from the 80s and 90s. While primarily developed for Windows, MAME also compiles easily for Linux, and can be ported to other operating systems as well.

• 4 open source tools for writing your next screenplay

  While I was putting together slides for my lightning talk at Great Wide Open (happening March 16-17), Not that Weird: Open Source Tools for Creatives, I remembered that in the last half of 2015 we had a bit of a loss from our open source creative toolbox. I think I was little late to the game in realizing this—after all, the last official stable release of Celtx (the open source, desktop version) was in 2012—but for folks paying attention, it's been a long time coming.

• User Security Relies on Encryption

  Security of users is paramount. Technology companies need to do everything in their power to ensure the security of their users and build products and services with strong security measures in place to do that.

  At Mozilla, it’s part of our mission to safeguard the Web and to take a stand on issues that threaten the health of the Internet. People need to understand and engage with encryption as a core technology that keeps our everyday transactions and conversations secure. That’s why, just days before the Apple story broke, we launched an awareness campaign to educate users on the importance of encryption.

• Crate Built a Distributed SQL Database System To Run Within Containers

  Crate Technology has designed a database system for supporting Docker containers and microservices. The technology stresses ease of use, speed and scalability while retaining the ability to use SQL against very large data sets.

  Crate was built to run in ephemeral environments, said Christian Lutz, Crate CEO. It was the ninth official Docker image in the Docker Registry and has been downloaded more than 350,000 times in the past six months. It can be managed with Docker tools, or with Kubernetes or Mesos.

• Tips for LibreOffice newbies

  Li Haoyi has written an excellent blog post entitled "Diving Into Other People's Code" about diving into an unfamilar codebase (HN discussion here).

  I think this is really very helpful for anyone who wants to look at the LibreOffice source for the first time. Many of the things he mentions are directly relatable to LibreOffice - in particular getting your dev environment setup is particularly relatable.

• Shopify plugin for WordPress launched

• WooCommerce Gets Competition From Shopify

• Shopify Launches Ecommerce Plugin for WordPress

• Shopify for WordPress Unveiled With Three, Free Themes

• What's New in Open Source CMS In March '16

• Share your Insights in the 2016 Future of Open Source Survey

  The interesting thing will be to see if the results continue to accelerate at the same rate or even faster. You can see results of last year's survey here. Follow the 2016 Future of Open Source Survey on Twitter at #FutureOSS and @FutureOfOSS, and stay tuned to Linux.com for future updates and results.

• Obama Administration’s Draft Source Code Policy Requires Free Software

  The Obama administration last week published a draft software source code policy that requires all government agencies to publish their custom-build software as free software for public use, according to the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).

• Open Source Learning

  The U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen program is an initiative to use openly licensed educational resources in the classroom. Chesterfield schools have a national reputation as a pioneer in the use of these programs, and is one of six school districts nationwide to be named a #GoOpen Ambassador District, to mentor other school systems in implementing the program.

• The Deep Roots of Javascript Fatigue

  When I was more active in the frontend community, the changes seemed minor. We’d occasionally make switches in packaging (RequireJS → Browserify), or frameworks (Backbone → Components). And sometimes we’d take advantage of new Node/v8 features. But for the most part, the updates were all incremental.

  [...]

  On the other hand, Brendan Eich, now the Mozilla CTO, argued for the changes. In an open letter to Chris Wilson, he objected to the fact that Microsoft was just now withdrawing support for a spec which had been in the works for years.