Android Open Source Cred Questioned
September 20, 2013
As Android gains market share, eWeek ponders, “Is Android Really Open Source?” At the core of the question is the core of the Android operating system—the very ability to boot. It’s like walking out the door without your car key—you won’t get far without that little piece. Writer Sean Michael Kerner explains:
“You see, there is Google Android, the project that Google builds and shares with its handset partners, then there is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The two are not exactly the same. One of them includes proprietary technologies that are not available as open source (guess which one?)
“Jean-Baptiste Quéru, the maintainer of AOSP abruptly quit his post this week, throwing into question the viability of Android as an open-source effort.
“‘There’s no point being the maintainer of an Operating System that can’t boot to the home screen on its flagship device for lack of GPU support,’ Quéru stated in a G+ post.
“The challenge that Quéru is referring to is the ability of AOSP to boot on the Nexus 4 and 7 devices. Apparently there are some proprietary bits that silicon vendor Qualcomm is not making available as open source, without which AOSP will not boot.”
Kerner sees this as an issue that goes beyond Android. Mozilla, for example, must be considering the same thorny question as it sees the launch of Firefox OS phones. Though a legacy of proprietary components inevitably complicates the mobile OS landscape, the inclusion of proprietary code within the very kernel required to even boot the device does seem particularly egregious. Kerner hopes for the emergence of a vendor who will “build a ‘pure’ open-source hardware platform from silicon on up.” We shall see.
Cynthia Murrell, September 20, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Power Search for Open Source Developers
September 6, 2013
Open source is cutting across the world as solution revolution. It is making technology cheaper and more widely available. It could have positive far reaching consequences in education and aerospace technology, but all revolutions need a little help getting off the ground.
“Open source projects need all the help they can get. If not with funding, then with volunteers contributing to open source programming and free tools they can brandish. Search engines tuned with algorithms to find source code for programming projects are among the tools for the kit bag. While reusing code is a much debated topic in higher circles, they could be of help to beginner programmers and those trying to work their way through a coding logjam by cross-referencing their code.”
Makeuseof.com points to the article, “Open Source Matters: 6 Source Code Search Engines You Can Use For Programming Projects” that lists code search engines to help developers out in their projects. Ohloh Code is one of the largest code search engines with over ten billion code lines in its system. It allows users to search by different code classes, but currently it does not support regular expressions. SearchCode searches through open source communities such as Github, SourceForge, and CodePlex. Amazingly, a single person maintains it. For those who have code with special symbols, Google and other engines cannot cut it. That is where Symbol Hound sniffs around the Net for odd character.
There are a few more code search engines described in the article, but head on over to read it on your own. Code search engines are indicative of the open source mentality-share and spread the wealth.
Whitney Grace, September 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Open Source Says Line Them All Up
September 5, 2013
If you ever wanted to visualize data sets containing up to one million lines of code, the impossible just became a reality without a commercial license. PRWeb has the good news: “Tableau Software Extends Tableau Public To 1 Million Rows Of Data.” Tableau Software is a data specialization company that helps its users share, analyze, and visualize their data. The company has an open source end portal Tableau Public that also allows its users to share their content on blogs and personal Web sites. Users demanded to have the line limit increased and Tableau Software added the one million limit to its public end.
“ ‘Since Tableau Public launched in 2010, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of data sets available on the web for public consumption,” said Tableau Public Product Marketing Manager Ben Jones. “It’s becoming more common for these data sets to exceed one hundred thousand records, so this change allows users of our software to share interactive visualizations of these larger data sets with their readers.’ ”
Some organizations that have big data sets out in the public are: airline on-time statistics and delay causes, US Medicare payments to hospitals, and historical weather station data recorded hourly. As the Internet grows the amount of space needed will grow proportionally and perhaps even larger. Wonder when they will release a trillion lines.
Whitney Grace, September 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
True Facts about Open Source
September 2, 2013
Open source is lauded as the end all solution to all software needs and the end of proprietary software. PBS’s Idea Lab speaks to the contrary in “6 Things To Know About Successful (And Failed) Open Source Software.” Rich Gordon researched how open source software was adopted and he discovered that University of Massachusetts faculty members Charles Schweik and Robert English had already done most of the legwork. The pair analyzed open source projects hosted on SourceForge and classified them into two categories: initiation stage and growth stage. With the addition of SourceForge survey of 1400 developers, they gathered their results. Gordon summarized their results.
Rich found from the research that most open source projects are not successful, but they all share the common characteristics of a defined vision, clear goals, defined set of users, and a modular architecture for others to work on. The biggest common factor being effective leadership. Open source software really takes off when the developers are the actual end users, which comes into play with trying to find collaborators. You can be sure that if someone has a specific need, another person in the world has it too, so finding teammates is not as hard via the Internet. As the project progresses beginning features often lose their importance, just as success cannot be measured through a large-scale adoption.
One of the main factors of success for either open source stage is this:
“…[W]hether the people leading the project have demonstrated leadership by articulating a clear vision, having a professional web presence and maintaining an active bug-tracking system or other communication platform for interacting with the user community.”
Dedication, a strong team, and equally strong leaders are the key to a successful open source project. Roots only spread as far as the sun provides nourishment.
Whitney Grace, September 02, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
New Release of Apache Mahout Celebrated
August 29, 2013
LucidWorks celebrates with their open source partners anytime an Apache Foundation project makes a major announcement. The latest is a new release by Apache Mahout, and LucidWorks is encouraging people to come out and celebrate. Read more in their blog entry, “Join us to Celebrate the New Release of Apache Mahout Version 0.8.”
The announcement says:
“Mahout committer Sebastian Shelter is visiting from Berlin and will be the main speaker, with a short introduction and update from committers Ted Dunning (MapR), Grant Ingersoll (LucidWorks) and Ellen Friedman. This talk will give an overview of Mahout’s recommendation functionalities, including single machine recommenders, computing recommendations in parallel with MapReduce as well as options to deploy a recommender in a production system.”
Those who are interested in attending the Bay Area event should register online. LucidWorks creates partners across the open source community, bundling them into their award-winning solutions like LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data. The strength of the open source community lends agility to open source solutions, and ensures that open source is better suited to the fast pace of the enterprise technology world. Explore the latest on Mahout and learn about what LucidWorks can do for your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 29, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
AnsibleWorks Raises Millions
August 26, 2013
AnsibleWorks is among the latest open source based enterprise companies to raise millions in Series A funding. The five-month old company has made a name in open source IT automation. Read more in the Market Wire article, “AnsibleWorks Raises $6 Million to Grow Popular Open Source Enterprise IT Automation Solution.”
The article begins:
“AnsibleWorks, Inc., the company behind Ansible, the popular Open Source IT automation solution, announced today the completion of a $6 million dollar round of funding led by Menlo Ventures. The Series A funding, coming only five months after the company’s launch, will be used to accelerate product development, sales, and other key initiatives.”
This is yet another example of open source enterprise success. Companies are turning to open source solutions, and it is not just for the affordability. Open source is now on the leading edge of innovation and customers are pleased with the results. Just as AnsibleWorks is doing great things in IT automation, LucidWorks is doing great things in open source enterprise solutions, particularly with Big Data. Their innovative approach to Big Data combines several notable open source components, including Apache Lucene Solr and Hadoop.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Minneapolis Lucene Solr Meetup
August 20, 2013
Today LucidWorks is hosting a Lucene Solr Meetup. Don’t miss out. Catch all the details on the LucidWorks news site, “Minneapolis Area Lucene/Solr Meetup.”
The invitation states:
“Join us for refreshments, and socializing followed by presentations on What’s New in Lucene/Solr from Grant Ingersoll and presentations from Entegen and BestBuy on how they are using Solr to help their businesses. The event is hosted by Entagen and LucidWorks at 514 Studios, convienently located in the heart of the warehouse district, near the new Target Field, The Northstar Commuter Rail, and the Hiawatha Light Rail Line.”
LucidWorks has built a strong reputation on customer support and training, as well as their incomparable expertise in Apache Lucene Solr. Grant Ingersoll has been instrumental in building that reputation. Whether you are interested in maximizing the power of Apache Lucene Solr, or you want to see whether LucidWorks is the right fit for your organization, the meetup is worth the time if you are in the area. LucidWorks Big Data and LucidWorks Search form an all-star lineup that will meet any organization’s information needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 20, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
IBM: Becoming More Open or Aggressive in a Search for Revenue
August 17, 2013
You may find “IBM Opens Up Power Chip Design, Partners with Google” suggestive. The notion of “opens up” and “partners with Google” strike me as interesting if not oxymoronic. Here’s the quote I noted:
IBM is opening its Power architecture at a time when the business has been struggling. Its Power division reported a 25 percent decline in revenue last quarter, while the broader Systems and Technology Group saw revenue decline 12 percent.Against that backdrop, IBM is making some of its employees take a mandatory furlough at the end of August, an IBM spokesman confirmed Tuesday. The furlough affects workers in the STG group and its Integrated Supply Chain division, which handles areas like procurement and logistics. The employees will receive an equivalent of one-third pay, while executives will not be paid for that week, IBM said. It declined to say how many workers are affected.
Hardware sales once were the annuity type of revenue described by bow tied business school professors. Today hardware is a little different, sort of like turkey with hoisin sauce.
Are IBM and Google “open.” Aren’t large information technology companies interested in cultivating the plants in a walled garden?
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Open Source and Innovation Go Hand in Hand
August 16, 2013
Open source, in all of its iterations, drives innovation and efficiency. More than ever, information technology circles are buzzing with news about how open source software (and an emerging open source hardware market) ensures that organizations of every shape and size can get their specific needs met by open source solutions. Tom Trainer covers this very topic in his article for Network Computing, “Open Source Poised for Innovation Explosion.”
Trainer begins:
“Open source software is now a common component in most organizations’ IT infrastructure, particularly at the server OS layer where Linux has made significant inroads. Now open source software is becoming more common in other data center realms such as storage, and is poised for significant growth.”
Trainer goes on to say that open source will continue to dominate the market for many reasons, but chief among them will be cost effectiveness. Even though the economy is on the rebound, efficiencies are still being demanded as the recession proved that companies really could do more with less. However, security and customer support are still concerns. For organizations with those concerns, a value-added open source solution is often a good fit. For instance, LucidWorks offers solutions for the enterprise including Big Data, with cloud and hybrid deployments. And while the solutions are award winning, the customer service and training offered by LucidWorks is unbeatable.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Hortonworks Parts Ways with CoFounder
August 15, 2013
Eric Baldeschwieler, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Hortonworks, is parting ways with the company. There is some ambiguity as to why the leader of the major Apache Hadoop distributor is leaving. ZDNet covers the story in, “Hortonworks Confirms Co-founder and CTO’s Departure.”
The article begins:
“CEO Rob Bearden confirmed the news in a blog post on Tuesday, acknowledging he was following up on a GigaOM report on Monday already suggesting Baldeschwieler’s departure. The co-founder of the Apache Hadoop distributor appears to be leaving on good terms, but where he is going (and why) remains a mystery. While thanking Baldeschwieler in his remarks, Bearden’s only other comments were dedicated to the short history of the company with an optimistic outlook on where the market is going.”
There has been a lot of shake-up in open source leadership already this year. However, most of it is expansion, as open source companies need the manpower and expertise to fuel the continuing open source boom. But one thing is clear – open source adoption is not slowing down and does not suffer under leadership changes. LucidWorks is a company that uses Hadoop technology in their Lucidworks Big Data solution, and they have brought several new staff on board to bolster the ranks recently. Their industry-leading support coupled with the innovation and efficiency that open source is known for makes LucidWorks a leading contender in the market.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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