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DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is involved in a number of interesting projects, including robotic technology, and it looks like Ubuntu is playing an important role.

Dooscape is a web browser written in Qt which features a simple and clean interface and is based on the QtWebKit engine. Dooscape has some neat features and takes a different approach compared to traditional web browsers.

One of the strengths of the open source community has been its ability to bring concentrated effort to bear on big problems. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes. And when tragedy strikes, or a pressing need arises, there are groups of people who gather together to attempt to solve the problems as a community. These five projects you may not have heard of. They are attacking some of the world's biggest problems and making a true impact in people's lives.

Zentyal Server 4.0, a small Linux business server that can be configured as Directory Server, Domain Controller, Zentyal Mail Server, Gateway, Unified Threat Manager (UTM), Unified Communications Server or a combination of them, has been released with many improvements, better and easier web management console, bug fixes and is now available for download.

Lack of sufficient physical memory can significantly hamper the performance of Linux desktop and server environments. When your desktop is sluggish, one of the first things to do is to free up RAMs. Memory usage is even more critical in multi-user shared hosting or mission-critical server environments, where different users or application threads constantly compete for more memory.

Despite numerous options for passing config data to a program, there is still a need for a utility to handle complex hierarchical configuration and locate config files on distributed system. Here is one. Computer programs are made of code. However, most nontrivial programs can be configured to behave in different ways without changing the code. There are many ways of configuring a program such as: command-line arguments, environment variables, configuration files, reading configuration information from a database, and reading configuration data over the network. Each form of configuration is appropriate for certain situations. Many programs combine several forms of configuration. In this article, I explore the spectrum of configuration options for single programs, distributed processes (same program running on multiple cores and/or machines), and distributed systems (a collection of different programs running on multiple cores and/or machines). I will also present a Python package that can help with managing configuration when dealing with systems composed of multiple configurable components.

In the local food movement, open source principles are very much like the open pollinated seeds that farmers keep to grow next year’s crops. When farmers use their own seeds, they are in control of breeding and conserving for the future. In contrast, closed source and software as a service (SaaS) providers are more like the companies with patented seeds who exert control over farmers by requiring them to purchase new seeds each year, sometimes even controlling the sale of the harvested crops. Open Food Source (OFS) might be the longest running open source food hub software available today.

Linux Outlaws is not for shrinking violets — it is portrayed on its site as “very much like listening to two friends sitting in a pub, having fun and talking about things they find interesting.” However, I think that sells the show short — it is far more entertaining than that (and when they say, “Not recommended for the faint of heart or the ignorant,” they mean it). Always straightforward and honest, always informative and humorous, Linux Outlaws never met an issue they couldn’t tackle with their unique brand of wisdom, insight and jocularity.

HP's new Vertica for SQL on Hadoop product supports ANSI SQL queries for HDFS data on Hadoop, the open source Big Data platform, aiming to simplify data exploration, visualization and analysis.

Microsoft has taken its first baby steps toward integrating Windows with the Docker application containerization tech that's caught fire in the Linux world, with the release of Docker client software that runs on Windows desktops. The client doesn't let you run Windows applications in containers. Microsoft is still working with Docker on that piece of the puzzle, which it says will arrive in the next version of Windows Server.

Geometry Wars 3 is an arcade shooter with modes for single-player, multi-player and co-op. The action in Geometry Wars takes place on geometrical-shaped grids, where you control a ship and need to survive the hordes of enemies.

In this tutorial we will show you how to install osCommerce on a CentOS 7 VPS. Open Source Commerce (osCommerce) is a complete self-hosted online store solution that contains both a catalog frontend and an administration tool backend which can be easily installed and configured through a web-based installation procedure.

The Linux Foundation's initiatives suggest that free, online training for Linux development and administration will continue to have a global focus and become more important professionally.

In the quest for improved user security on the Internet, encryption is a key tool, though it hasn't always been easy to use and deploy. Today, a group of organizations—including Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai, Electronic Frontier Foundation, IdenTrust and researchers at the University of Michigan—joined with the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) to announce the Let's Encrypt initiative

In today's open source roundup: Ubuntu 15.04 might be the first version that uses systemd. Plus: The advantages and disadvantages of rolling release distributions, and eleven Linux games on sale on Steam this week.

Two well-known and experienced Debian developers, both members of the project's technical committee, have announced they will be leaving the committee.

Intel is planning to merge its struggling mobile division with its PC division, and Rockchip released an ARM mobile SoC that was developed with Intel. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich recently sent an email to employees saying the company plans to merge its mobile computing division with its PC-Client group, according to the Wall Street Journal. In mid-2015, the PC-Client and mobile groups will combine under the leadership of Kirk Skaugen, currently a Senior Vice President at the PC-Client group.

The annual Opensource.com gift guide serves up open source gadgets and gifts that kids, adults, hobbiests, and beginners are sure to love and appreciate. Get someone started tinkering with SparkFun's WeevilEye beginner soldering kit. Show your niece how cool programming can be with Adafruit's wearable bracelet. And, don't we all have at least one homebrewer in our lives? For them, check out the BrewPi temperature controller. And that's just to name a few! See the full list of our 14 best gifts for the holidays this year in the article.

Linux vendor Suse has kicked off this year's SuseCon in Orlando, Florida by announcing that it's getting into the software-defined storage business, starting early next year. The company made a new offering, known simply as Suse Storage, available in private beta beginning on Tuesday, with general availability expected for the first half of 2015.

In the latest Top500 supercomputer ranking, Linux once more totally dominates the fastest of all computers. I know, I know, what a shock right? :-)