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If you read the technology press lately, odds are you already know about the launching of the AllSeen Alliance (a Google News search I just did produced 412 results in a wide range of languages). That's not a surprise, because this is an important and ambitious project. But there's a story behind the story that likely won't get the attention that it deserves, and that's what this blog post is about. (Disclosure: the AllSeen Alliance is a Linux Collaboration Project—the 11th so far—and I assisted in its structuring and launch.)

True story. A project team was in need of an open source tool. Following their company's policy, the team requested their Information Systems (IS) department download the tool. They were soon bombarded with a host of questions and a form that needed to be filled out, which they complied with. Not satisfied with the information provided and unable to take a decision, the IS department then forwarded the request to the Legal department. After due diligence, the Legal department allowed the use of the tool, provided that the team obtain an approval from their customer (read: the customer takes all responsibility and liability). The tool in question? The humble, unix2dos!

The GNOME2-forked MATE desktop is now officially available from the Arch Linux package repository...

Based on the success and effectiveness of the open source community, development organizations are taking a close look at the methods used within the open source world to understand how they can apply internal development to further increase creativity and accelerate development. To facilitate widespread, collaborative development, the open source world depends on a core infrastructure that enables individual developers to create, contribute and comment on the works of others. This infrastructure, combined with a widely adopted set of operating norms, enables developers to find and engage with projects that focus on common areas of interest and expertise. It also allows developers to connect with and share their skills and knowledge with other developers, bringing their specialized talents together to solve big problems.

This is an invitation to demonstrate your Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) project or organization within a dedicated village at the Med-e-Tel 2014 conference (9-11 April, Luxembourg). Either join us in Luxembourg to represent your project/organization in person or otherwise you are welcome to send in an overview in the form of a poster that will be shown at the FLOSS village.

It’s a new year and all indications are that it will be a busy one for reform of abusive patent litigation. What are some of the top events ahead in 2014?

No word on whether he's paying their server 'leccy bill forever and ever, though A mysterious Bitcoin-powered white knight is reported to have come to the rescue of the struggling OpenBSD Foundation.…

3D printing is set to disrupt multiple industries thanks to its unique position at the intersection of three important trends in technology: the Internet of Things, our growing desire to personalize our things, and the coming revolution in the way things get delivered to us. Operating at this unique trifecta, 3D printing promises to democratize the design and build process, allowing consumers to create their own stuff from scratch and take the concept of mass customization to an entirely new level. As modern consumers have come to expect very custom experiences, it’s no longer enough for manufacturers and merchants to offer products in a wide range of colors and styles. The ability to customize nearly everything is now commonplace, even expected, in products ranging from T-shirts to tennis shoes and iPods to M&Ms. 3D printing delivers the ability to customize quickly and inexpensively without worrying about minimum production runs.

NTT DoCoMo says it has scratched plans for a March launch of Samsung’s first Tizen smartphone, and the Japanese carrier offered no revised timetable. Japan’s largest mobile carrier and one of the most devoted backers of the mobile Linux OS Tizen said on Jan. 17 that it has postponed a planned March released of the […]

'Long road' ahead before they'll be sold in carriers' stores Commercial smartphones running the mobile version of the Ubuntu Linux distro probably won't be available through carriers until 2015 at the earliest, a Canonical spokesman has revealed.…

Learn the 5 critical success factors to accelerate IT service delivery in a cloud enabled datacenter

Today's organizations face an unparalleled rate of change. Cloud enabled data centers are increasingly seen as a way to accelerate IT service delivery and increase utilization of resources while reducing operating expenses.

Imagine being a high school freshman walking down the halls of your new school on the very first day. You somehow make it to first period without becoming epically lost in the unfamiliar halls. Finally, the bell rings, signaling that you've officially made it through your first high school class. Taking a look at your schedule, you see your next class is Exploring Computer Science. You think: "Wow, computers! This should be fun!"

Kids are quick learners and have great imaginations. When pursuing an electronic or hardware project with a kid, the most important thing to keep in mind is: keep things playful. As long as their hands are in gunk and they are taking things apart, or there's the possibility of blowing something up, kids will stay interested. As soon as the activity starts to seem like work, they switch off. Here are four fun and easy projects for teaching kids more about electronics and hardware in a couple hours or an afternoon. Then, they may be on to the Arduino board or Raspberry Pi before you know it! Note: For kids between 4 - 8 years old, more adult supervision may be required. First, I'll share with you three excellent businesses where you can purchase open hardware tools, kits, and electronics for these projects and more.

I’m a 15 year old programmer. I started at nine and by now have written a lot of code. To me, programming is creating, and I've created many projects—from a pure Java 3D projection engine to a web spider. Today, I'm sharing my story with you for Opensource.com's Youth in Open Source Week.

Lune van Ewijk is ten years old and already a role model for kids and adults alike. Last year, she won the Digital Girl of the Year 2013 award from the European Commision, who had this to say about her: Lune develops her own games and interactive movies, designs robots, and dreams of becoming an engineer. At ten years of age, she is already a true digital visionary and already has a track-record of getting girls her age excited about digital endeavour. Her message to the world: be you and don't give up. Lune is part of CoderDojo Belgium, where she has learned and practiced a variety of open source digital skills like programming in Scratch. In this interview find out more about CoderDojos, the work she's done, the award she's won, and what she sees in her future.

I can see the brightness of curiosity in my 6 years old niece Shuchi's eyes when she explores a mobile phone or manipulates the idiot box with its remote control or becomes creatively destructive with any other electronic device. She, like a lot of kids her age, love experimenting. This curiosity reaches its peak when she sits in front of my laptop or her father's laptop. A lot of times, however, I observe that she is lost in complicated applications that are suitable only to adults. An operating system that an adult uses and the system running it can look like a beast to a lot of kids. These  applications are beyond the comprehension of very young kids and do not provide an ideal (and playful) introduction to computers. Futher, adults' laptops and tablets do not serve as a good learning environment for any kid (younger or older) who is just onboarding into the world of computing. Besides, letting a kid run wild on a computer with an online connection can be daunting for the parents.

Ivee has begun shipping a $200, Linux-based “Ivee Sleek” home automation hub, offering voice control of WiFi-enabled devices and a Siri-like voice assistant. Linux-based home automation hubs were everywhere at CES, including Belkin’s updated WeMo devices. Ivee has an interesting twist, however. Like most of these systems, it offers smartphone access to adjusting selected WiFi-enabled […]

In Zen Buddhism the concept of Shoshin, or "Beginner’s Mind," teaches us to approach learning with openness and a lack of preconceptions. Zen Monk and teacher, Shunryu Suzuki famously wrote: "In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few." When we cast aside that which we think we know, or that which we believe to be true, we can embrace new insights and ideas. As we climb to levels of expertise in our careers and work, we sometimes disconnect from the intense experiences of unknowing and the creative discovery inherent in being a novice. Children wholly embody a beginner’s mind and naturally exhibit an inquisitiveness and passion to explore the world around them.

This article proposes a new way to construct Linux and Windows images for private clouds built with the OpenStack cloud operating system. Current image-creation methods for OpenStack environments are cumbersome and time-consuming. The authors present an online, self-service method that makes image construction faster and easier for operators and end users of private clouds.

In mid-November, the open source/open standards advocacy group, Open Forum Europe (OFE), released an "Open Cloud Declaration," which identifies ten principles to help policy makers, industry, and other stakeholders find "a global and open approach to Cloud technologies and solutions." It is not a coincidence, of course, that the Open Cloud Declaration was released during the same week that officials from the European Commission were meeting at a summit in Berlin to discuss data protection and cloud computing policy. These leaders (as well as policy makers in other countries, such as Brazil) are weighing their reactions in response to the ongoing revelations regarding data collection by the U.S. National Security Administration (NSA).