Life

3D printed fighter jet parts and open community vehicles

Smart composite parts, from carbon fiber to nanocomposites, are transforming our everyday lives. So much so, even the White House is interested.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, science advanced material structures and content to a point where, when coupled with technology, we can now produce new, advanced materials. Think of a modern prosthetic leg: Advances in smart composite parts have allowed us to combine new materials like carbon fiber with technology to create robotic limbs that a person can move and feel.

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2 CommentsPosted 15 Apr 2013 by Abukar Maalin

Freeing scientific data with CC0 and Dryad repository

Karen Cranston (@kcranstn) is an evolutionary biologist at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), a nonprofit science center dedicated to cross-disciplinary research in evolution. NESCent promotes the synthesis of information, concepts, and knowledge to address significant, emerging, or novel questions in evolutionary science and its applications. They collect new data under a Creative Commons license (CC0) to free scientific data and make it more widely available. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 12 Apr 2013 by Karen Cranston

Exploring what the su command means

Do you still prefer using the command line to accomplish tasks on your Linux or UNIX based system?

For some, navigating the filesystem and firing off commands in a terminal window can be extremely productive. SSHing from one machine to another or running scripts in the background are everyday occurences for system administrators. » Read more

10 CommentsPosted 10 Apr 2013 by Jason Hibbets (Red Hat)

The Open Book (Free Stuff Friday!)

The Open Book is an essential reference point for those interested in the culmination of a global movement for change in a time of rapid social progress.

The Open Book is

free
crowdsourced
licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
the third part of the Reaktio series

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0 CommentsPosted 5 Apr 2013 by Jen Wike (Red Hat)

Are you open source enough?

Is your project open source enough? Are you? Are you doing enough for your communities? Accusations like these are getting thrown around more and more, often in the simple form, "X isn't really open." It's a question we've even asked ourselves from time to time when we post stories on opensource.com—is this a real example of openness? But what is "open enough?" And does it really matter? » Read more

4 CommentsPosted 2 Apr 2013 by Ruth Suehle (Red Hat)

10 ways to start contributing to open source

I wonder why more open source users do not actively participate in the open source community and become committers or contributors.

After understanding a project's capabilities and roadmap, anyone is able to start directly hacking the source code and contributing useful extensions. Because open source is a distributed, participatory meritocracy, the upside benefit is high and the barrier to entry is low—you don't have to move, be employed by a Valley startup, give up your day job, or wait to obtain a 4 years for a degree. » Read more

4 CommentsPosted 1 Apr 2013 by Chris Haddad

Mini Maker Faires attract penguins

On Saturday, April 13, 2013, a free "mini maker faire" event will be taking place at the Cleveland Public Library, in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Modeled on the legendary Maker Faire of San Mateo, California, the mini maker faire will be a celebration of ingenuity and the do-it-yourself (DIY) spirit.

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0 CommentsPosted 1 Apr 2013 by Phil Shapiro

Does lyric-sharing contribute to a more open music industry?

This February marked the 50th year anniversary of the "Please Please Me" single in the US and the start of a year-long program of events to celebrate the Fab Four (The Beatles) in their hometown of Liverpool.

Throughout the year of 1963, the popularity of The Beatles had been growing steadily with fan frenzy increasing. Beatlemania was officially declared on October 13, 1963 when The Beatles performed at the London Palladium to a British television audience of 15 million. Though The Beatles have been the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act in the history of pop music, their role in fostering the open source movement is often forgotten or slighted.

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1 CommentPosted 29 Mar 2013 by Carolyn Fox

April Fools' Day pranks the open source way

April Fools' Day is not a national holiday, so no, you don't get to stay at home and play with your Raspberry Pi or read Hacker News all day. But, you do get to the opportunity to join a community of pranksters around the globe who will invariably succeed in some knee-slapping, good humor.

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4 CommentsPosted 28 Mar 2013 by Jen Wike (Red Hat)

Join the first Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam

The Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam will be held on April 26-28 in New York.

We always thought the power of open source hardware lies in the ability to build upon others’ work and, when it comes to hardware, good documentation is the key to making this happen. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 27 Mar 2013 by Simone Cicero