In today's open source roundup: Get the latest version of VLC. Plus: Ubuntu MATE is now an official spin, and developers don't care if Linus is nice.

Google has open-sourced something called “gRPC” that it says represents “a brand new framework for handling remote procedure calls” using HTTP/2. The Chocolate Factory says it has dogfooded gRPC on its own microservices and that it “enables easy creation of highly performant, scalable APIs and microservices” and offers “bandwidth and CPU efficient, low latency way to create massively distributed systems that span data centers, as well as power mobile apps, real-time communications, IoT devices and APIs.”

This month, the GIMP lost its User eXperience (UX) maintainer.

GE unveiled a rugged COM Express Type 10 Mini module that runs Linux on a 2GHz Tegra K1 and offers soldered 2GB RAM and support for CUDA and VisionWorks. GE’s Intelligent Platforms business, a division of GE Energy Management headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., is primarily focused on the military/aerospace segment. The 84 x 55mm mCOM10K1 computer-on-module, which conforms to the COM Express Type 10 “Mini” form factor, is designed in part for SWaP-constrained mil/aero applications like image and video processing, sensor processing and electronic warfare. However, it also has broader applications in industrial Internet and Internet of Things applications, says GE. These are said to include industrial process automation, automotive and transportation, and medical imaging.

Writebox is a simple text editor that provides almost no features. Despite this, it's one of the simplest and most trustworthy WYSIWYG text editors around if you just want something simple for writing.

Vine Linux 6.3 (Malartic-Lagraviere). Vine Linux 6.3 has following features (highlights): update the software collection; update Linux kernel to 3.4.106 (latest LTS kernel 3.4.y); bundle newer software - Firefox 33.0, Thunderbird 24.0, Sylpheed 3.4.2, LibreOffice 4.3.5, OpenSSL 1.0.1; stability improvement; improvements of look and feel; newer hardware support; new user-friendly tools. Since this is not a commercial version (Vine Linux CR), non-free applications and fonts are not included on the CD/DVD. Instead of proprietary ATOX X/Wnn7/Wnn8/VJE Japanese inputs and Ricoh/Dynacomware fonts, this FTP edition contains Anthy and free TrueType fonts.

Red Hat's OpenShift Commons invites open-source programmers and users to work on its OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service cloud.

Juniper and Canonical have partnered on Contrail Cloud Platform, an OpenStack-based SDN and NFV solution for carriers that is based on open standards, according to the companies.

The cheapest and simplest Raspberry Pi robot you're going to find on the market. Is it a perfect entry-level kit?

Can a Linux company and a networking power join forces to make an open-source cloud and software defined network that's good enough for telecommunications data-centers? Canonical and Juniper think so.

Midokura open-sourced MidoNet in November 2014, in a bid to make it more accessible and encourage broader developer participation. In the three months since then, Midokura's development process for MidoNet has evolved somewhat.

Magicka is a very popular action/adventure game that is set to have a sequel soon, and the likelihood of Magicka 2 coming to Linux just went up.

The release this week of Docker's Machine, Swarm and Compose orchestration tools will help protect against vendor lock-in on the open source containerization platform, Docker says.

GNOME 3.16 promises to be one of the best releases made so far and numerous changes have been already announced. The new notification system is one of them and it's definitely something to look forward to.

Vagrant is an highly efficient tool for managing virtual machines via CLI. This increases your and your team's productivity and flexibility. This tutorial will cover the installation of Vagrant on Ubuntu 14.10, explain the basics of this great virtualisation tool and will guide you trough the creation of your first Vagrant instance.

KaOS is very proud to announce the availability of the February release of a new stable ISO image. This release brings the end of KDE 4 as the default Desktop Environment for KaOS. Almost ten months ago work started to fully migrate to Frameworks 5, Plasma 5-based distribution and with the release of Plasma 5.2.1 this migration is now deemed ready to bring a better user experience then KDE 4. From the unset of this migration there was never a plan to mix the two environments. What you will see on this ISO is a pure Plasma 5-based environment. As many might have noted KDE Applications 14.12 did not contain more then a handful of Plasma 5 applications. Just about all applications that users have become used to seeing in a KDE 4 version are available as a Plasma 5 port. A few are not ready yet, and those will be missing from the KaOS repositories until their ports are ready for daily use.

My two biggest dreams growing up were to be either a firefighter or a space explorer. Though I didn’t get to do either of those things, I satisfy the former via being a volunteer in prevention with Cal Fire, California’s state fire department, and the latter by reading everything I can get my hands on about space—both fiction and non-fiction. read more

The world of databases is no stranger to open source. In fact, many of the world's top companies, projects, and websites run various open source databases behind the scenes.

The highly anticipated Mobile World Congress (MWC) event will take place between March 2-5 in Barcelona, Spain, and as expected, Canonical will be present to showcase its latest Ubuntu technologies, including the Ubuntu convergence of the upcoming Unity 8 interface and the first Ubuntu-powered phones, the BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition and Meizu MX4.

I love Python, and I’ve been learning it for a while now. Some time ago, I wrote a Python script where I needed to resize a bunch of images while at the same time keeping the aspect ratio (the proportions) intact. So I looked around and found the PIL (Python Imaging Library). read more

Many hands make light work, as they say. More importantly, though – many hands come with many minds. An FOSS project consists of a lot more than just the source code that powers your application. Most successful projects consist of at least the following: Website Documentation User Support Application(s)

The “RideOn” project for augmented reality ski goggles has won its Indiegogo funding. It runs Android on a 1.2GHz ARM CPU, and offers hands-free control. The need for high-tech, Android-based snow goggles like RideOn and Recon’s Snow2 is hard to fathom for skiers like us, who expend every last Joule of mental energy on staying […]

On January 23 this year, the Santa Clara High Tech Law Journal had their annual symposium on open source in the legal field at Santa Clara University. Prominent practitioners in the open source community spoke on topics ranging from licensing and compliance to healthcare and entertainment law. For anyone newly learning about open source licensing, this is a great look at some of the issues today. This is my account of the symposium. read more

We just accomplished something very important together. Today, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted for strong net neutrality protections. This happened because millions of people — including many hundreds of thousands in Mozilla’s community — joined together as citizens of … Continue reading

LXLE is a great example of how a respin can add value to an underlying base distribution with great visual elements, better navigation and a complete set of packages.

GCompris, an educational software suite providing fun activities for kids aged 2 to 10, has been upgraded to version 15.02 and is now available for download.

This week we are joined by Simon Phipps and Patrick Masson to talk about the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a global non-profit that supports and promotes the open source movement. Among other things, the OSI maintains the Open Source Definition, and a list of licenses that comply with that definition.

In recent years, there has been a trend in which data centers have been opting for commodity hardware and software over proprietary solutions. Why shouldn't they? It offers extremely low costs and the flexibility to build an ecosystem the way it is preferred. The only limitation is the extent of the administrator's imagination.

Aaeon launched a transportation-focused “NanoCOM-BT” COM Express Type 10 Mini module based on Atom E3800 SoCs, with optional industrial temperature support. The Linux-friendly NanoCOM-BT supports a variety of automation, medical, ticketing, kiosk, surveillance, and communications applications, but is primarily being promoted for use in public transportation devices. The 84 x 55mm COM Express Type 10 […]

Those who’re new to Linux want the best distro out there for new users, which means simple things like ease of use, productivity, speed, and security. But which distros are the best for new users? Actually, there is probably no “best,” but there are many distros that are designed keeping the needs of the inexperienced Linux user in mind.