ownCloud has come a long way since the last time I gave it a look. What I’ve covered in this post doesn’t touch everything that ownCloud can do — such as its WebDAV support. But if you’re looking for an online storage and syncing app that keeps your files under your control, ownCloud is definitely worth a close look.

Was ist eigentlich Linux, was der Kernel, was eine Distribution, und wofür steht GNU? Dabei geht er auch auf vermeintliche und echte Stärken und Schwächen des freien Betriebssystems ein: Software, Security, Support, Spiele und mehr.
Bevor er zum Praktischen und Technischen kommt, porträtiert der Autor außerdem noch die Open-Source-Community mit ihren Mailinglisten und Konferenzen und erklärt dem Linux-Neuling, wo er sich Hilfe holen kann.

ArpON (ARP handler inspection) is a portable handler daemon that make ARP protocol secure in order to avoid the Man In The Middle (MITM) attack through ARP Spoofing, ARP Cache Poisoning or ARP Poison Routing (APR) attacks. It blocks also the derived attacks by it, which Sniffing, Hijacking, Injection, Filtering & co attacks for more complex derived attacks, as: DNS Spoofing, WEB Spoofing, Session Hijacking and SSL/TLS Hijacking & co attacks. This is possible using three kinds of anti ARP Spoofing tecniques: the first is based on SARPI or "Static ARP Inspection" in statically configured networks without DHCP; the second on DARPI or "Dynamic ARP Inspection" in dynamically configured networks having DHCP; the third on HARPI or "Hybrid ARP Inspection" in "hybrid" networks, that is in statically and dynamically (DHCP) configured networks together. ArpON is therefore a proactive Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multipoint and Multipoint based solution that requires a daemon in every host of the connection for authenticate each host through an authentication of type cooperative between the hosts and that doesn't modify the classic ARP standard base protocol by IETF, but rather sets precise policies by using SARPI for static networks, DARPI for dynamic networks and HARPI for hybrid networks thus making today's standardized protocol working and secure from any foreign intrusion.

Roundcube webmail...
...is a browser-based multilingual IMAP client with an application-like user interface. It provides full functionality you expect from an e-mail client, including MIME support, address book, folder manipulation, message searching and spell checking.

So if you believe in the principles behind UNIX and Open Source, please don't write software which requires any of the Gnome/KDE and DBus API. Writing X11 programs with xcb and proper RPC APIs like SUNRPC or Thrift should be more than good enough. So, please support choice and freedom by implementing programs the right way instead of the Linux/Gnome/DBus way.

What is FreeNAS you say? Put simply, it's is an operating system based on FreeBSD that brings with it a snazzy web interface for management, and all the protocols you need to share files between Windows, Mac and Linux. In other words, a perfect solution for your digital bookshelf. Let's get to it.

his is the home for everything about amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Use the tabs and drop-down menus above to navigate the site.

This community also created ArduPilot, the world's first universal autopilot (planes, copters of all sorts, ground rovers, boats). The ArduPilotMega autopilot hardware runs a variety of powerful free Arduino-based UAV software systems, including:
* ArduPlane, a pro-level UAV system for planes of all types.
* ArduCopter, a fully-autonomous multicopter and heli UAV system.

So what is the lesson here?  On the community side, we may have the greater challenge.  We can argue until we’re blue in the face about all of the great benefits of community development, but we can’t indemnify graphics IP vendors against lawsuits when the details of their designs are revealed in open-source drivers.  This obviously isn’t guaranteed to happen, but it only has to happen once to foul up the works.  On the vendor side, with a little help, trust and understanding you get a Linux driver stack, lots and lots of testing on a variety of platforms and an active community supporting your platforms.  This isn’t a free lunch, though, and it is important to seed the development community with engineering resources; this improves the community as well as the software it produces.

Probably the difference here is that we are taking care of a single puppy (a single Moodle installation for a single class, in a single server), and that it is running outside of the University network. It probably will be a different story if it was the service for hundreds of classes, maintained by a centralized organization.

Maybe the learning lesson here is that: there are things that are better done by distributing the load to many users. For example, it is better for all of us to have our own word processors in our laptops than to setup a University centralized server that host the "word processing" services for hundreds of users.

The difference is that with open-source, if a threat is exposed, the developers work to fix it. In closed-source, the developers work to fix it, too... but the company has a vested interest in downplaying and/or denying the problem exists. "If no one knows about this yet, just sit on it until we can hide the fix in some big patch set. That way, we preserve our image!"

That conflict between marketing / management is missing in open source works.

As for apache and other systems, boxes are as secure as the admins make them. Slapping the install disc in and leaving things at default settings seldom leaves you with a secure box. In any OS.

read and share it ...

Open source software has been a well known idea, and something of a success, for decades, open source hardware is relatively new. You can say that open source hardware was born out the of the "maker" movement, but for such an obvious idea it has been slow to take off. The one big notable exception being the Arduino.
In an effort to popularize the open hardware movement we now have the Open Hardware Journal starting with November 1, 2011 Issue 1. As it says on the cover page you are free to read it, copy it and redistribute it - as long as you don't charge a fee, of course..

So far, the Sharebro community seems pumped about the new open-source Reader alternative. "I'm definitely excited about it," Stu Watson told us in an email, "It seems like Francis is trying to preserve the elements of Google Reader that have been lost in Google+."

Richard Stallman, A free digital society ... über 2h Vortrag an der ETH Zürich

"Android ist allerdings ein gewisser Sonderfall: Die benutzen zwar einen Linux-Kernel (allerdings mit vielen Patches und Subsystemen, die so nicht im Mainline-Kernel aufgenommen werden), der Userspace ist allerdings google Android. Nix mit GNU, keine glibc, keine GNU sonstwas-utils etc. Das Framework ist Java-basiert und haben nichts mit normaler Linux-Entwicklung zu tun. Aber who cares. Linux hat sowieso schon gewonnen. Und diese Fragmentierungs-Geschichte kann ich echt nicht mehr hören. Da könnte man gleich behaupten, es gäbe kein Linux, sondern KDE, Gnome etc. und kein Windows, sondern die Lenovo Toolbox, die Dell Wireless Utilities etc. Die Apple-Gehirnwäsche wirkt, bald dürfen alle nur noch iOS verwenden."

Wenn es um Webserver geht, fällt den meisten Administratoren als erstes Apache ein, der in der globalen Statistik des Web auch an erster Stelle steht. Kleinere und schnellere Alternativen gewinnen jedoch immer mehr Anhänger, so zum Beispiel Lighttpd und Cherokee. Als zusätzlicher Wettbewerber stieg vor einiger Zeit der Nginx-Server (ausgesprochen englisch "Engine-ex") in den Ring. Er steht für hohe Performance, Stabilität, umfangreiche Features, einfache Konfiguration und geringen Ressourcenverbrauch. Das Resultat der Bemühungen des Programmierers Igor Sysoev verrichtet seinen Dienst in vielen großen Sites, zum Beispiel Wordpress.com, Hulu und Linuxquestions.org. Ungewöhnlich: Außer als Webserver kann Nginx auch als Proxy für die Mail-Protokolle IMAP und POP3 auftreten.

Agree that it is all about apps . However let's see in a year from now. Android Market already has caught up with App store on mobile. I'm sure they will also on tablets because with Google, Motorola, LG, Samsung, HTC and others pushing for this Android has a good chance to dominate the market. Robert you might want to read Clayton Cristensen books if you have not already: Innovator's dillema, Innovators solution. There you will see that history repeats itself all the time and that fully integrated solutions such as iPad, iPhone in the beginning are very successful but once the market becomes a commodity the winning strategy is where different manufacturers make components.

Now, as head of a larger organization, I check in with people and set them free to do their own thing with the expectation that their trajectory will bring them to a place we both want to be.

Open source at its roots is really about “freedom,” not about “free,” and that is a critical concept to understand for the longevity of open source business models. Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation is famously quoted as saying “Think free as in free speech, not free beer.” We all believe that sharing is good, but exploitation of the system is bad—very bad. Some might even say evil. And those participants who exploit that freedom should be held accountable to the society as a whole for those actions.

One of the benefits of using open source tools is that you can customize them to be used in ways that help your organization.

If you want to customize an open source tool, it may be simply a matter of handing it off to your IT department or hiring outside help. But what to do after you have a customized version of your software available?

The Open Source Ecosystem
The way that most proponents of open source tools hope you’ll move forward from that point is by sharing the customizations and changes your team has made and making them available for other users of that particular piece of software. Within your organization, there may be some arguments against doing just that. Some are legitimate: stripping out any information that would allow your competitors to learn about how you work from your customized software might be impractical, making it harder to protect your organization’s confidential information. Others may see the changes you made as proprietary, and that offering them for free is a waste of company resources.

Making those customizations available, however, can help you improve upon your chosen tool. The more users and developers are working on a given open source project, the less likely it is that development will stop — making it a useful investment for any organization relying on open source software.

The Core Developer Question
You could simply release your changes and customizations to the community that creates a particular tool, or you could take an active role in developing the tool in question, providing resources and help. There are certainly some benefits in taking a leadership role. You can help guide the development of your software, making it possible to implement key features that you may want. But taking a leadership role does take resources and time that you might otherwise dedicate elsewhere. It’s likely a question that only members of your organization can decide.

Of course, it’s very easy to get involved with most open source projects. The typical open source community can always use a few extra hands or a few extra dollars. If you make it clear that you’re interested in getting involved for the long haul, such communities will always find a way to bring you in and make use of whatever you can provide them with. It’s just a matter of deciding to get involved.

Does your organization actively support the open source projects it uses?

Image by Flickr user Ricardo Ferreira

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):



Enabling the Web Work Revolution
Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

Calling Lindegaard an open innovation "expert" is like saying Apple (or Google or Amazon) invented open source. Here is someone who spends 200+ pages writing about open innovation, but nowhere mentions Henry Chesbrough, who invented open innovation.

That is what the open source movement is about: using the power of collaboration to accelerate innovation.

Matthias Stürmer, einer der aktivsten Verfechter von Freier Software in der Schweiz, ist seit kurzem als Senior Consultant bei Ernst & Young tätig. In dieser Funktion hat er im September 2010 zur Lancierung von Open Work Place ein Referat gehalten, in dem es um die Eignung von Open Source Software für kleine und mittlere Unternehmen geht. Die gehaltvollen und schön gestalteten Slides sind auch online verfügbar und lohnen sich insbesondere auch wegen der zahlreichen Studien zu freier Software, die hier aufgelistet werden.

Over the last few months, the battle to define the meaning of the word "open" has intensified into one of the more interesting brand positioning exercises I've seen in the technology industry (if you aren't familiar with brand positioning and would like to learn more, consider starting here).

I thought I'd do a quick report from the front lines, diving in specifically to examine the battle for smartphone leadership, and looking at things from a brand positioning strategy perspective.

Read more...
read more

Usability work is problematic in open source software development on many levels. There is often no documentation or explicit research of user goals to drive design, no user experience vision to direct development, no usability testing, and typically no resources allocated for usability work. No usability practitioners are usually employed, and doing usability work is hard due to the community value system being focused on concrete results. An attitude of “code is cheap” leads to a tendency to skip user research, design and validation before implementation. However, developers in open source communities do get feedback from actual users. Also, software development work is iterative, as recommended in user-centered design, so there is some foundation to base usability efforts on.

This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using open source software / free software (abbreviated as OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS) is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures. This paper’s goal is to show that you should consider using OSS/FS when acquiring software. This paper examines market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership. It also has sections on non-quantitative issues, unnecessary fears, OSS/FS on the desktop, usage reports, governments and OSS/FS, other sites providing related information, and ends with some conclusions.

Three different technologies are fighting for the public's loyalty. First, you have the traditional desktop environment, which is still going strong. Then you have the new world of cloud applications, which offer access to your stuff anywhere you have a browser. And finally, mobile applications are becoming real alternatives to large-screen apps.

In the following Q&A, OSCON speaker and GNOME foundation executive director Stormy Peters discusses the risks of cloud computing, the continued importance of desktop computing, and the interesting relationship between new mobile form factors and free software adoption.

What worries you most about the cloud?

Stormy Peters: My biggest concern is that people aren't worried about the cloud in the same way they worried about the free desktop. People really worried about personal freedom when it came to the desktop space. In response, they created a free software desktop and free software server. Then the cloud came along, and maybe because it was free of cost, maybe because you can get your data out easily -- I don't really know why -- they aren't thinking about it in the same way. We don't have free cloud alternatives. And when I say "free," I don't mean free of cost. We don't have free alternatives to a lot of the web services that most of us use everyday.

What's the trade-off between freedom and things that just work?

SP: Even many of us who are supporters of free software just want something that works. But there's always been a large group of people who are willing to sacrifice a little bit of usability to make something that gives us our freedom as well.

For example, five years ago, wireless on Linux laptops was terrible because it was all proprietary cards and drivers. But because of persistence and because people were willing to keep using Linux on their laptops, we now have Linux on systems that are sold by major companies like ASUS and Dell and HP. And it just works. I don't see the same kind of push happening in the cloud space.

What is the risk to end users of cloud applications?

SP: Ideally, cloud applications should make it more obvious that you can and should back up your data somewhere else. If someone who isn't tech savvy gets locked out of their Google account tomorrow, they wouldn't have access to their email. That person isn't backing up their data. Google makes it easy to download your data if you know what you're doing, but there could be improvements there.


With products such as Android, is the open source battle moving to the mobile space?

SP: Netbooks made a big difference because they showed the general public that Linux and open source software offer a viable alternative with some advantages.

So netbooks came first, and then I think the battle moved to the mobile space. Whether it's netbooks or it's phones or tablets or handhelds, I think the shift will be big for free software in general.

New form factors mean that people are also willing to try something a little different. It's no longer a computer with a mouse and a keyboard. Suddenly, you're using your fingers and multitouch. Things are going to look different no matter what, so it's a chance for free software to come in and not have to look just like Windows.

Was Sun right? Is the network the computer?

SP: I usually end up arguing that people still do use the desktop a lot more than you think. You can run everything in your browser, and like most people, I do spend a lot of my life in my browser. But I also run Twitter and Facebook in an application on my desktop because it gives me more features and power and ways to interact. So while I think a lot of what we do will live in the cloud space, there will be a lot of desktop interaction with it.

This interview was condensed and edited.

Related:

Does the world need another programming language?
Parallel programming, Arduino and the good kind of trouble

Stormy Peters will be part of two sessions at the upcoming OSCON conference (July 19-23 in Portland, Ore.). Save 20% on registration with the discount code OS10RAD.

Speaking of trust, Facebook recently announced that information on users' profile pages—including past and present employers, alma matters, interests, even cities and towns of residence—will now be used publicly. Concerned about privacy? You can block your friends from seeing this information, but it will be available publicly to anyone visiting the "connection pages" for those places, businesses, etc. (Because clearly people are more concerned about their friends knowing where they live and work than random people from the Internet?)

... It does make a person wonder about CEO Mark Zuckerberg's short term memory, considering he reassured Facebook users just a few months ago that Facebook's "philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with."

Summary: In today's economic climate, everyone is looking for a way to reduce their expenses. In the IT sector, one way to reduce expenses is by turning to open source alternatives instead of using expensive licensed products. In this "Saving money with open source" series, learn about three open source alternatives: Ubuntu for the operating system, OpenOffice for the office application suite, and OpenChange for the Exchange groupware server. This first article explores the Ubuntu Linux® operating system and how it can help you save money by providing an excellent alternative on the desktop.

in this case the iPad can be thought of more as a home appliance then a computer. I think it is completely wrong to call it a PC. Like Jim said on a technical level yes it has a CPU, memory and all the other components which make up a computer-like device but the similarities end there. The device is a super-refined task oriented device that lives in a closed (closed does not mean limited btw) ecosystem

Regardless of how you feel about the Linux desktop, this is one area in which Linux can have a real impact, both financially and productively, and any small or home office has the potential to be transformed by just switching one application or two to their open source equivalents. So, we've put together this guide to helping people in offices switch to Linux, explaining what tools are available for different jobs and how best to maximise compatibility with other Windows users. Read on!

The office is traditionally the domain of Microsoft, a costly and sometimes frustrating environment where you have to constantly keep on top of updates, patches and the latest versions to stay in the loop. Free software offers an escape from this cycle, and more importantly, an alternative.

Linux and free software can offer a breath of fresh air, and you don't even have to jump feet-first into a new operating system: cross-platform open source applications enable you try the alternatives before you ma

So here's my request to the open source community: make a webpage for your project that summarizes your community's development resources & process. And then link the hell out of it. Link it from all over your project's documentation. Make sure you have a CONTRIBUTING file, but don't put the current information in the file.... it'll just get stale. Instead, put your contributing documentation URL in your CONTRIBUTING file. Tools and processes change, but tarballs get old, and distros are rarely bleeding edge.

Google engineers and the open source community have begun laying the groundwork to support an open social Web. The group has been working on a protocol that would aggregate conversations at the source, bring them back to any Web site related to the stream, and avoid spam and duplicate posts as well.

The Salmon protocol aims to connect social networks that today cannot share posts and information. The goal to syndicate and aggregate conversations related to the original post that live in silos across the Internet would create what Google calls a social graph.

Over 100,000 users
Feng Office is the most popular web-based Open Source collaboration platform, with more than 100,000 users to date.

Zu den Neuerungen der aktuellen Version 6.40 RC1 gehört eine Volltextsuche auf Basis von Lucene, die in der Lage ist, nicht nur E-Mails, sondern auch Anhänge zu indizieren. Eine weitere Neuerung von Zarafa Server 6.4 stellt eine Tagesansicht dar, die neben aktuellen Terminen auch die anstehenden Aufgaben und neue E-Mails zusammenfasst. Das Adressbuch wurde ebenfalls überarbeitet. Ferner soll es nun einfacher sein, Daten von einem Exchange-Server auf Zarafa zu migrieren. Zudem versprechen die Entwickler, die Geschwindigkeit des Servers erhöht zu haben.

Alfresco, an open-source enterprise content management services company, announced an integration with IBM's social collaboration products including Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr and Websphere. The integration allows people to go natively into the Lotus collaboration environments. So, for example, you can collaborate with Quickr and then write some documents and publish into Alfresco. The difference here is the ability to use open protocols like REST API's to easily make the integration, providing an open-source alternative for managing large scale content environments.

step-by-step instructions for installing EtherPad, the open-source real-time text editor recently acquired by Google

Proprietary ERP companies make connecting to ERP complex. Like Edison and Tesla, they don’t work well with competing systems. Conversely, open source is about unifying things.

While today’s open source ERP systems are good, they haven’t reached the point where replacing your existing SAP or Oracle installation makes sense. Yet, in the next few years, the reduced cost and increased benefit of a cloud enabled open source ERP system will far outweigh the benefits of a closed proprietary system.

Design patterns serve as tools to communicate ideas, solutions, and knowledge about commonly recurring design problems. User interface design patterns help designers and developers create the most effective and usable interface for a particular situation.

Patterns can be expressed hierarchically, with each level representing a different level of granularity, and there may be many different ways to (physically) implement each pattern.

At the end of this month (October 29th, 2009 to be exact), Ubuntu will be releasing its newest take on the Linux operating system. This time around, it should be obvious (even to the biggest of skeptics) that Ubuntu is making some serious inroads to the business and enterprise scene.

Interessant dürfte auch die Reaktion von Google werden. Nachdem sie erst kürzlich die veränderte Android-Version von CyanogenMod gestoppt haben, weil sie proprietäre Anwendungen von Google enthielt, dürften sie im Falle der Open Android Alliance keinen vergleichbaren Handlungsspielraum besitzen.

The more interesting question to me is why so many closed source companies aren’t opening up if it is for the benefit of their business. Don’t they understand or are there real obstacles? Why not choose an open source strategy? Why not support an open source project that helps your revenue?

Freeplane is a new open-source mind mapping software program that is an offshoot of the popular Freemind program. About two years ago, a group of developers contributing to Freemind had some different ideas about its future development, and so they split off or “forked” away from its codebase. The result is a program that is already superior in many ways to Freemind.

Calacanis ist der festen Überzeugung, dass sich das Wettbwerbsverhalten von Apple grundlegend ändern müsse, wenn man nicht von Wettbewerbern verdrängt werden wolle. Hier sieht er Microsoft und vor allem Google bereits in Lauerstellung. Gerade aus der Open-Source-Bewegung kämen viele gute, günstige und eben auch offene Angebote, die Apple das Leben schwer machen könnten.

A corporate technology infrastructure is not so much a system to control what is permissible as it is an infrastructure that needs to be co-created with end users. Apple (sort of) gets this with the App Store. Google understands this with Android and Wave. Open source software has developed largely because people are seen as participants in software creation rather than as end users.

Other impressive apps are Android exclusives. Last week, Apple refused to carry an iPhone app that lets the user route all his phone calls through Google’s new telephone service, Google Voice - but there is an Android version.

While the iPhone is produced by just one company, Android is a software standard that can be offered by many companies. Already, 30 cell carriers in 20 countries are peddling Android phones, and two of America’s biggest carriers will start selling them this year. The iPhone will easily outsell any one of these phones, but collectively, Google’s cellphone technology could end up on tens of millions of handsets, and become the global standard for smartphones. The Android invasion is just getting started.

Die wichtigsten Neuerungen von Open-Xchange 6.10

* Externe E-Mail-Accounts lassen sich integrieren.
* Adressdaten aus Social Networks können nun in das Open-Xchange-Adressbuch importiert und hier zentral organisiert werden.
* Social OX gibt auch Anwendern ohne Open-Xchange-Account die Möglichkeit, auf freigegebene Dokumente zuzugreifen.
* Durch die Verwendung von Microformaten können auch Adressen und Kalender für Teilnehmer ohne Open-Xchange-Account als HTML-Seite zugänglich gemacht werden.

Open-Xchange kann man als Testversion oder als freie Community Edition im Downloadbereich herunterladen oder in einer Online-Demo testen.

Seit September 2008 ist der Zarafa-Server freie Software unter der GNU Affero GPLv3 verfügbar. Die Komponenten von Zarafa umfassen neben dem Server Z-Merge (eine Webservice API-Plattform für Applikationseinbindungen), das Zarafa IMAP/POP3/iCAl Gateway, die Zarafa Administrations-Konsole und den Zarafa AJAX-WebAccess. Ein nativer Client existiert für Windows, jedoch nicht für Linux. Auch MS Outlook soll als Client vollständig unterstützt werden.

Die wichtigsten Neuerungen in Version 6.30.0 gab es in den Bereichen Skalierbarkeit (MultiServer, Single Instance Attachment Storage), Maintenance (Client Auto-Update), Erweiterbarkeit (Pluginsystem im WebAccess) und Standardprotokolle (CalDAV-Gateway ist verfügbar). Eine komplette Liste der Änderungen in der Version 6.30.0 findet man im Changelog.