One Small Step for NASA, One Giant Leap for Open Source

“Space: the final frontier.” These may be the opening words of the Star Trek series so loved by geeks far and wide, but lately, they’ve been on the tip of more Linux bloggers’ tongues than ever. Why? Because Linux recently scored a major victory some 230 miles up in the sky. Specifically, Windows got the big heave-ho from the International Space Station.

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Sauce Labs’ Jason Huggins: App Testing Is for the (Angry) Birds

Jason Huggins took Web browser and website testing to new levels. Pushed by several Aha! moments, he recognized a pressing need for automation in applications testing. He also discovered that no existing proprietary software provided cross-platform features. What did not exist in a marketable box, Huggins built as an out-of-the-box open source solution using the Selenium software he created.

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Ubuntu 13.04 Emerges to Less-Than-Stellar Reviews

Canonical has released Ubuntu 13.04, also known as “Raring Ringtail,” on the desktop. However, the release failed to thrill many reviewers, whose complaints included the point that Canonical had left out several features, including privacy protection and the Windows-based Ubuntu Installer.

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Lame U/P Combos Make WordPress Irresistible to Hackers

An attack of unprecedented proportions has been hitting sites using WordPress, a free and open source blogging tool and content management system that powers more than 60 million websites worldwide. It appears the hackers are trying to take over WordPress servers to give them added muscle for future attacks. Poor choice of passwords and inadequate server security are making their task easier.

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OpenStack Gives the Open Source Cloud a Lift

Since its start in the summer of 2010, the OpenStack open source cloud computing project has been the subject of a lot of hype. Today, the technology, backers and users of OpenStack are giving substance to all of that sizzle, and skepticism is giving way to service provider and enterprise use cases across the globe. OpenStack is relatively immature and still requires a high degree of technical aptitude to deploy, but its community continues to grow.

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Morphlabs’ Yoram Heller: Gearing Up to Beat Amazon

Open source technology is central to Morphlabs’ business model. The company, launched in 2007 with Yoram Heller as a cofounder, builds fully modular, scalable public and private cloud products. It takes open source software and designs architecture to run on specific hardware. Building its products on top of open source software is the main innovation that allows Morphlabs to dramatically lower the barrier of entry to cloud computing.

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Fedora Project’s Robyn Bergeron: The Linux Desktop Is Almost Ready for Its Close-Up

The Fedora Project is perhaps one of the hallmark Linux distributions. Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat, the commercial developer of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat’s investment in the Fedora community is collaborative. As such, Fedora Linux releases often provide RHEL developers with a field test environment that incubates innovative open source software technologies.

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The Impossible Quest for the Most Popular Linux Distro

Linux lacks any clear-cut system for determining which is the most popular or the best distribution, or which desktop environment is used more than others. That may be one of the major frustrations among Linux developers trying to spread the word about adopting the Linux desktop instead of Microsoft Windows or Apple’s OS X.

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The Curious Case of Adobe’s Almost-Good Move

Well, CES has come and gone for another year, and not a moment too soon! One more new phone announcement, and Linux Girl’s head would have surely exploded. There’s no doubt it was a mad, mad week — so wild, in fact, that a curious event occurring outside CES could have escaped the notice of more than a few observers.

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The Smart TV Shopping Saga: Size and Power Matter

To buy a flashy new ultra-thin framed 3D TV or not: Like many consumers over the holiday buying hustle, I struggled with that question. I finally gave in and decided to buy one. That decision was not an impulse-only submission, however. I was toying for a while with replacing my aging 42-inch plasma HD “dumb” TV set and finally bought a 55-inch 3D smart TV.

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