Tag Archives: Linux Foundation

Computers

Open source is taking over the software world, survey says

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It’s been only a few weeks since the Linux Foundation released its report that enterprise use of Linux continues to rise, but on Wednesday fresh data came out that suggests the same is true of open source software in general.

Specifically, Black Duck Software and North Bridge Venture Partners today announced the results of the seventh annual Future of Open Source Survey, which found that open source software has matured to such an extent that it now influences everything from innovation to collaboration among competitors to hiring practices.

“It’s been recognized that software is eating the world,” said Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. “Our survey points to the fact that open source is eating the software world.”

With more than 800 respondents from both vendor and non-vendor communities, the 2013 survey reflects the views of the largest sample in its history. It polled respondents about open source trends and opportunities, key drivers of open source adoption, community engagement, and the business problems open source will solve now and in the future.

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From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2035651/open-source-is-taking-over-the-software-world-survey-says.html#tk.rss_all

Computers

Citrix bequeaths Xen to the Linux Foundation

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In an effort to attract a more diverse set of contributors, enterprise software vendor Citrix has donated its open source Xen hypervisor to the Linux Foundation.

Citrix announced the donation Monday at the Linux Foundation‘s Collaboration Summit, being held this week in San Francisco.

The Linux Foundation will support continued development and maintenance of Xen. As a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, the newly named Xen Project will get support infrastructure and guidance from the nonprofit foundation.

Citrix is hoping that, by donating the code to the Linux Foundation, future Xen development will get input from a wider, more diverse group of contributors. Companies such as Amazon Web Services, AMD, CA Technologies, Cisco, Google, Intel, Oracle, Samsung and Verizon have pledged to support Xen Project.

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From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034663/citrix-bequeaths-xen-to-the-linux-foundation.html#tk.rss_all

Computers

Network heavy hitters to pool SDN efforts in OpenDaylight project

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Software-defined networking, a set of technologies to help networks better adapt to user needs with less manual effort, may at last be getting the common foundation it has needed for interoperability and efficient development.

Most of the major vendors working on SDN have joined in on OpenDaylight, a project being announced on Monday that will develop an open-source SDN framework. The vendors, which include Cisco Systems, VMware, Juniper Networks and Ericsson, will contribute software and engineers to the effort, according to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, which is hosting the project.

With OpenDaylight, the networking industry will take the same approach to developing its next generation of technology as the big-data sector did with Hadoop or Web browsers with WebKit, Zemlin said. It will be a vendor-neutral group that no single member can dominate and in which “the best code can win,” he said. By pooling code and engineering effort to build core infrastructure software, vendors will free up their own research and development resources to build value-added products on top of it.

On an OpenDaylight conference call with media on Friday, Cisco committed itself to this model.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

It's an ideal time to have Linux skills, SUSE exec says

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Even as the job market has remained generally dismal for much of the working world over the past few years, there have been a few notable exceptions.

Not only have those in IT generally faced better prospects, but the outlook for those with Linux skills has been even brighter. Year after year, surveys conducted by the Linux Foundation and others have found increasing demand for Linux know-how, as talent-hungry companies have struggled to fill such positions.

Earlier this year, IT careers site Dice reported that salaries for Linux professionals underwent a huge leap in 2012. Not long afterwards, the latest Linux Foundation report uncovered a increasingly pressing need for Linux talent.

Flickr: bgottsab
Michael Miller

To investigate this trend a little further from the hiring end, I spoke recently with Michael Miller, vice president of global alliances, marketing, and product management at Linux vendor SUSE. Miller works closely with SUSE‘s engineering team, so he has plenty of insight into the Linux jobs market.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Linux use in enterprises jumps again: survey

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The past two years have already seen significant jumps in corporate Linux usage, but now it looks like that trend is continuing into a third year.

To wit: While overall server revenue grew at just 3.1 percent and Windows server revenue increased just 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 year-over-year, Linux experienced 12.7 percent year-over-year growth for the same period. Unix, meanwhile, was down 24.1 percent.

That’s according to the Linux Foundation, which on Wednesday released its 2013 Enterprise End User Report, focusing on Linux adoption. Conducted in partnership with Yeoman Technology Group, the annual study surveys members of the Linux Foundation‘s End User Council as well as other companies and organizations with sales of more than $500 million or at least 500 employees.

Dominance in the cloud

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Wind River Introduces Yocto Project Compatible Carrier Grade Linux

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Wind River Introduces Yocto Project Compatible Carrier Grade Linux

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

  • Wind River Linux Carrier Grade Profile is the first CGL registered product that is Yocto Project Compatible.
  • The new profile offers customers a turnkey CGL registered platform.
  • Compatibility with the Yocto Project allows improved cross-platform compatibility and component interoperability.

ALAMEDA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Wind River®, a world leader in embedded and mobile software, has introduced the Wind River Linux Carrier Grade (CG) Profile for the latest version of Wind River Linux. Formally registered for the CGL 5.0 specification with the Linux Foundation, the profile is the first delivery of Carrier Grade Linux functionalities on top of a Yocto Project Compatible product.

With Wind River Linux as a base, the Wind River Linux CG Profile gives customers a turnkey platform that allows them to meet their CGL requirements. Additional profiles for Wind River Linux will continue to be developed to address a variety of market specific needs. The mix and match nature of these profiles for Wind River Linux offers developers flexibility and choice to meet a diverse range of specialized needs.

Carrier Grade Linux registration requires several key requirements to be met, including compliance to standards, support for highly available hardware, serviceability, performance, high availability, clustering and security. Carrier-grade products typically require up to 5 nines or 6 nines (99.999 to 99.9999 percent) availability, translating to downtime as low as 30 seconds a year. Additionally, given rising network traffic growth and the associated need for greater security of this data, the CGL requirements designed to help make systems more reliable and resistant to attacks become even more significant. Carrier grade is a hard requirement for networking devices, but can also apply to large corporate infrastructures, data centers, and highly mobile devices.

“We’ve taken our knowledge and proven technologies for the networking industry and carrier grade requirements and extended it with Yocto Project compatibility. Carrier grade is essential as it not only establishes essential capabilities on which companies can build the next generation of intelligent network devices, but also provides a sound technology foundation for a broad spectrum of embedded Linux based solutions,” said Chris Buerger, senior director of open platform products at Wind River. “Additionally, the combination of our market leading commercial embedded Linux with world-class support …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Linux

Free Resource: How to Give a Great Tech Talk Tutorial at CollabSummit

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By amcpherson

As the head curator for content at Linux Foundation events, I work with over 500 speakers a year on technical talks. Universarly the people chosen to speak at our events have amazing technical knowledge. They know their stuff. But the actual skill in speaking, delivering an engaging and hopefully entertaining talk to an audience, is sometimes to harder to come by.

We are partnering with Josh Berkus to offer a free resource to help tech experts become better speakers. Josh will be giving a tutorial at our CollaborationSummit next month entitled “How to Give a Great Tech Talk.” If you haven’t seen Josh speak, you can view a very engaging and entertaining, tongue-in-cheek talk on how to prevent community he gave at CollabSummit in 2010 here. He knows how to get your attention so he can make his point.

If you are a tech speaker who wants to improve his or her skills, we hope you can attend this tutorial. Please request an invite and let me know you’d like to attend this talk. If you can’t attend, never fear. We are video taping it and will make it available on the Linux.com video forum and will encourage speakers accepted to speak at LinuxCons and other events to view it. We want our content to be the best technical information as well as engaging to our audiences, so we reach our goal of having the best tech conferences in the industry.

More information on the session below. You can request an invite here.

I hope to see many of you at CollabSummit next month!

Give a Great Tech Talk
======================

Summary
——-

“How was the presentation?”
“It was … um, OK. Kind of interesting.”

Don’t let the above be your talk! There’s a lot more to doing a
good talk than just knowing the code you’re presenting. Join this
tutorial to learn how to transform “um, OK” to “great!”

Description
———–

They wrote the code. It’s an interesting project. They have plenty of
slides. So why is the audience all doing their email?

You’ve seen that speaker. Maybe you’ve been that speaker. But it
doesn’t have to be that way, and this tutorial can help.

Presenting is a skill nobody is born with, but anyone can learn. The way
to become a better presenter is through training, science, and practice.
In this audience-participation tutorial, veteran conference presenter
Josh Berkus will go over his tech talk advice in detail in order to help
you improve your presentation skills, including:

Know your audience
How to prepare for a talk
Nobody cares about your slides
… but make good ones anyway
The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Speakers
Clock-watching
Audience interaction 101
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Linux Foundation

Computers

Companies are desperately seeking Linux talent, report says

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Here’s even more good news for IT professionals with Linux skills. Last month, we got word from IT careers site Dice that salaries in Linux jobs are going up, and on Wednesday the Linux Foundation and Dice jointly presented a report of more promising findings.

“The 2013 Linux Jobs Report shows that there is unlimited opportunity for college graduates and technology professionals who want to pursue careers in Linux,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at the Linux Foundation.

The report includes fresh data collected last month from 850 hiring managers and 2600 Linux professionals. The infographic below presents an overview, but here’s a quick breakdown of some of the key findings.

1. Even more hiring plans

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Two Ubuntu Linux versions can now work with Secure Boot

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After many months of painstaking effort, the problems caused by Microsoft’s Windows 8 “Secure Boot” technology are finally being solved for Linux users.

We’ve already seen major distribution updates such as Fedora 18 include technology to enable booting on Windows 8 Secure Boot hardware, but only last week—after considerable delay—did the Linux Foundation release its Linux Foundation Secure Boot System, a Microsoft-signed mini bootloader for making that possible across the board.

Now, the capability is quickly spreading, and Ubuntu 12.04 Long Term Support (LTS)—a popular choice among business users—is the latest distro release to gain Secure Boot support.

Multiple problems fixed

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Secure boot loader now available to allow Linux to work on Windows 8 PCs

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Freeing the way for independent Linux distributions to be installed on Windows 8 computers, the Linux Foundation has released software that will allow Linux to work with computers running the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware.

The Linux Foundation Secure Boot System solves a fundamental problem for many Linux distributions, by providing a way for a Linux-based OS to run on new hardware controlled by UEFI firmware, also known as “secure-boot” technology.

“The Linux Foundation wishes not only to enable Linux to keep booting in the face of the new wave of secure boot systems, but also to enable those technically savvy users who wish to do so to actually take control of the secure boot process by installing their own platform key,” wrote Linux Foundation technical advisory board member James Bottomley, who led the development of the bootloader, in a statement.

As a potential replacement to the long-used BIOS firmware, UEFI is an industry initiative to secure computers against malware by designing the computer’s firmware to require a trusted key before booting the operating system, or any hardware inside the computer, such as a graphics card.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Linux

John Baer: Ubuntu Phone – Connecting the Dots

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The thought of running Ubuntu on my phone has crossed my mind a time or two this past year and now it looks like this may be feasible in the near future.

As great as the Ubuntu Phone sounds, I have to consider how this is going to be successful in today’s mobile market.

Perspective

The good news is smart phone usage is up in many regions. Almost half (49.7%) of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones. According to Nielsen this marks an increase of 38% over last year as in February of 2011 only 36% of mobile subscribers owned smartphones. This growth is driven by increasing smartphone adoption, as more than two-thirds of those who acquired a new mobile device in the last three months chose a smartphone over a feature phone. As illustrated below, Android continues to dominate as the favorite smartphone OS.

Ubuntu Phone 1938-020

On the down side, while smartphones have gone mainstream in the US adoption among emerging countries is still developing. According to new research from Nielsen, China is the only country among the high-growth BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) markets where smartphones are predominant (as of the first half of 2012). In contrast, feature phones which are not suitable for Ubuntu are still dominant in India, Russia and there’s no clear favorite type of mobile device in Brazil with mobile ownership split between feature phones and smartphones.

Other entrants to the 2013 party

When the Ubuntu Phone becomes available it will not be the only new Linux entrant to the party.

Tizen

Tizen is an open source software platform targeted to devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, and smart TVs. The Tizen project resides within the Linux Foundation and is based on HTML5. Tizen has confirmed hardware support from Samsung.

SailFish

Sailfish is a Linux-based operating system for smartphones and other mobile devices.It traces its history to the highly praised MeeGo OS by Nokia. SailFish has confirmed support from the Chinese retailer D.Phone and Finland’s third-largest mobile carrier ST-Ericsson.

Firefox OS

Firefox OS is a mobile operating system developed by the Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko (B2G) project. It uses a Linux kernel and boots into a Gecko-based runtime engine which lets users run applications developed in HTML, JavaScript, and other open web APIs. Mozilla has confirmed hardware support from ZTE who has announced plans to offer a Firefox OS phone in 2013 with details to be unveiled at Mobile World Congress.

The Importance of Apps

There are now more than 675,000 apps available from Google Play, a figure worth noting as it means Android is within striking distance of overtaking iOS as the mobile operating system with the most apps.

For reference, Apple announced there are 700,000 apps in the iTunes App Store during the iPhone 5 launch event on September 12th.

Ubuntu Phone 1938-025

10 Most Popular iOS Apps for 2012

  • Google Drive – cloud
  • Google Chrome – browser
  • Clear – To-do list
  • iPhoto – organize and manage your photo
  • Google Maps
  • Fantastical – calendar
  • YouTube
  • Checkmark – reminder
  • Spotify for iPad
  • Tweetbot for iPad

* Source: Slash Gear

10 Most Popular Android Apps for 2012

  • Google Now
  • Google Drive
  • Flipboard
  • Catch Notes
  • SwiftKey 3
  • Xbox Smartglass
  • WhatsApp Messenger
  • TripIt Travel Organizer
  • Smart Tools
  • SlingPlayer

* Source: InformationWeek Mobility

Typical Smartphone Activities

All of these choices begs the question, what are folks doing with their smartphones? Here’s the lowdown.

Ubuntu Phone 1938-030

* Source: Compiled by AnsonAlex.com

Putting the above into perspective, other than great hardware what characteristics does the Ubuntu Phone need to exhibit to be successful at launch?

Great at its intended purpose

Although the statistics illuminate other things folks do with their smartphone the primary reason for purchasing a phone is to place and receive calls. Above all else the Ubuntu Phone must manage incoming and outgoing calls superbly. I assume this is still under development as call management was not showcased in any of the demonstrations I am aware of.

Reflecting on my own habits, here’s a distilled list of call management functions I would like to see.

  • log all accepted, missed, and rejected incoming and outgoing calls
  • link calls to my contacts if the contact is found
  • permit acceptance or rejection of incoming calls
  • manage audio such voice volume and ring tones
  • provide and manage call notifications

Contact management is an area where Ubuntu Phone can shine. Realizing Ubuntu One supports contacts I prefer to use Google as I am a Gmail user. Offering users the choice of where contacts are kept would be a plus.

In addition to a fantastic call experience the Ubuntu Phone must be able to speak all of the other communication dialects. As a communication device this includes WI-FI, BlueTooth, NFC, and USB.

Notifications, Alerts, and Replies

Notifications and alerts can come from a variety of sources; incoming calls, new emails, weather alerts, low power notifications, text messages, social networking pings or messages. I believe this is an area where the Ubuntu Phone will excel.

The Critical Mass of Apps

There is simply no way Ubuntu will build in the foreseeable future the kind of app stores enjoyed by Google and Apple. Is a 600K or 700K app store required for success? No, but there is a critical mass which must be achieved for lift off. I am going to break these down into two categories; core and enhancement.

Core Apps

By definition a core app is an app that is so closely associated with the OS it defines the OS. The orchestrated execution of core apps characterizes the user experience and as such these apps should either be developed by Canonical or under close Canonical supervision.

Contact Management

Notification and Message Management

Camera and Photo Album Management

Internet Browsing

Music Player

Video Player

Settings

Enhancement Apps

By definition enhancement apps improve the user experience by adding extra features and functionality. Pulling from the Google and Apple app store top 10, I would add the following.

Weather and weather alerts

Google Maps

Google Drive

Other Really Nice Apps

A short list of Apps I consider optional but really nice include are the following.

Google Now

Flip Board

Select Games

Wrap Up

The lesson here is the market waits for no one and Android and iOS users will not change to a user experience less than what they currently have. The concept of using your phone as a computer is certainly compelling but isn’t this functionality available today with Android and the Galaxy Nexus HDMI Portrait Desktop Doc? Granted this does not offer the type of central management a Ubuntu device will provide and this may be a compelling reason for organizations to consider this solution instead of BlackBerry.

No matter the angle you view this, the Ubuntu Phone will be Canonical’s greatest challenge. Sculpting the right mix of out of the box apps rooted in a solid Ubuntu foundation delivered at the right moment could result in an overnight success story we haven’t seen in this market for some time.

I am very excited about the possibilities.

The post Ubuntu Phone – Connecting the Dots appeared first on j-Baer.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Linux

Free Resource: A Manager's Guide to Building a Product with Embedded Linux

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By amcpherson

According to a 2012 survey of embedded engineers by both VDC Research and UBM Electronics, the use of Linux in embedded projects is increasing at a fast rate. UBM reported that some 35 percent of embedded developers are working on Linux projects and that number increases to 48 percent when Android is included.

This is not a surprise to us. Increasingly, we have been working with companies big and small who are replacing proprietary embedded OS with Linux in our training and events programs, as well as membership. Among the reasons companies elect to use embedded Linux in their projects are the availability of the source code, the strength of the Linux community, the lower costs, and the availability of Linux developer talent (even though there is a lot of competition for good developers).

There are many great resources for developers moving to Linux, but what about the managers who are in charge of the projects and development teams? To help engineering managers understand the key considerations when jumping into embedded Linux and open source projects in general, we worked with Linux expert Behan Webster to create a new tutorial for manager’s who are starting to build products with embedded Linux.

Among the topics covered in the tutorial are:

  • Balancing the proprietary and the open parts of your project
  • How best to support your engineering staff on open source projects
  • Ways you can reduce legal and management barriers

The Linux Foundation‘s training staff regularly helps companies move to using embedded Linux and as any engineering manager knows, a good plan streamlines projects, leading to faster ship dates and a happier engineering staff.

Watch A Manager’s Guide to Building a Product with Embedded Linux

If you’re considering using embedded Linux in your next project and would like advice from the Linux Foundation, apply for our free Linux Team Evaluation. One of our technical experts will talk through your project with you and help you determine what might be missing and how you can best position your team up for success. You may also want to attend or send a developer to our upcoming Android Builder’s Conference or Embedded Linux Conference next month in San Francisco.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Linux Foundation