Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

See the following -

Linux 2017: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZD Net | January 4, 2017

In 2016, Linux turned 25. When it began, it was a student project. Today, Linux runs everything. From smartphones to supercomputers to web servers to clouds to the car, it's all Linux, all the time. Even the one exception, the end-user, is moving to Linux. Android is now the most popular end-user opearating system. In addition, Chromebooks are becoming more popular. Indeed, even traditional Linux desktops such as Fedora, openSUSE, Mint, and Ubuntu are finally gaining traction. Heck, my TechRepublic Linux buddy Jack Wallen even predicts that "Linux [desktop] market share will finally breach the 5-percent mark"...

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Linux Foundation Releases Business Open Source Basics eBook

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZD Net | February 15, 2017

Want to know how your business can get the most from open source? This free ebook can help. Developers know that open source is great. Even Microsoft is now on the open-source bandwagon. But, outside of the IT department, many companies don't understand why and how open source can help their businesses. The Linux Foundation has the answers you need in its new free Open Source Software Basics ebook. "Organizations have begun to realize that as they adopt more open-source software, they need to establish processes for everything from selecting software -- to deploying it, to ensuring license compliance," said Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin at the Open Source Leadership Summit in Lake Tahoe, Calif.

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Microsoft Azure container team releases first open-source developer tool

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZD Net | May 31, 2017

At CoreOS Fest in San Francisco, Calif., Microsoft's Gabe Monroy, lead project manager for containers on Microsoft Azure, announced the release of Draft, a tool to streamline development of applications running on any Kubernetes cluster. With Draft, which Monroy said was the first open-source program to emerge from the Azure Container group, developers can use two simple commands to begin hacking on container-based applications with no knowledge of Docker or Kubernetes. "In fact," Monroy claimed, "developers don't even need Docker or Kubernetes installed to get going"...

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Microsoft Open Sources Edge Web Browser's JavaScript Engine, Plans Port to Linux

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZDNet | January 13, 2016

Who says Microsoft doesn't get open source these days? On January 13, 2016, Microsoft made good its December 2015 promise to open source ChakraCore, the Microsoft Edge JavaScript engine. And, believe it or not, Microsoft will also port it to Linux. Edge is Microsoft's Windows 10 specific web brower. Unlike Internet Explorer (IE), which traces back its family tree to 1995 and Spyglass Mosaic, Edge is largely a new browser. It still traces some of its code to IE. For example, EdgeHTML, which powers Edge's HTML rendering engine, is a fork of IE's Trident Web-rendering engine...

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Open-Source EdgeX Foundry Seeks to Standardize Internet of Things

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZDNet | April 24, 2017

Security is the Internet of Things' (IoT) Achilles heel. One reason that's so is there is a lack of common IoT development standards. The Linux Foundation, along with 50 companies, is addressing this by building a common open-framework for IoT edge computing and an ecosystem of interoperable components under a new open-source consortium: The EdgeX Foundry. The new initiative has a common goal: The simplification and standardization of Industrial IoT edge computing, while still allowing room for vendors to add their own value-add features...

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Petya: The Poison Behind the Latest Ransomware Attack

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZD Net | June 28, 2017

First thing is first: If you're running Windows, patch your systems! The latest variant of Petya, GoldenEye, can attack if, and only if, one of your Windows PCs still hasn't been patched with Microsoft's March MS17-010. Microsoft thought patching this bug was important enough that it even patched it on its unsupported Windows XP operating system...

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The TODO Group and the Linux Foundation: Marrying Open Source and the Enterprise

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZDNet | March 29, 2016

Everyone uses open source. Almost everyone develops in open source -- yes, even Microsoft -- but getting corporations onboard with open source is still a problem. In part, Linux Foundation chairman Jim Zemlin explained in the Linux Collaboration Summit keynote speech, that's because "There is a mismatch between business's desire and capability to participate in open source." The answer? Partner with the TODO Group to bring businesses up to speed with open source...

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Why You Must Secure Your Website with TLS

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | Medium | January 12, 2017

Security isn’t an option on today’s websites. It’s a necessity. Google confers on sites that use HTTPS a higher search ranking. And who doesn’t want a higher PageRank? But, wait there’s even more reason to lock down your site. Google will soon start marking websites that don’t use HTTPS first as insecure, then as broken. You so don’t want to go there...

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​Open Invention Network Expands Open-Source Patent Protection Beyond Linux

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZD Net | May 9, 2017

Today, everyone and their uncle -- yes, even Microsoft-- use Linux and open-source. A decade ago, Linux was under attack by SCO for imaginary copyright violations, and then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was claiming that Linux violated more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. So Open Invention Network (OIN) patent consortium was formed to defend Linux against intellectual property (IP) attacks. The stakes may not be so high today, but Linux and open-source software is still under attack from patent trolls and other attackers...

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