Toyota turns to Linux, Raspberry Pi merges with CoderDojo, and more news

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In this edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at Toyota turning to Linux in its newest Camry, the Raspberry Pi and CoderDojo Foundations merging, a new open source tool to prepare for data breaches, and more.

Open source news roundup for May 28-June 9, 2017

Linux: coming to a new car near you

Well, only if that new car is a 2018 Toyota Camry. The Japanese automaker will be including a Linux-powered infotainment system in the newest model of one of its best-selling vehicles.

The Camry's infotainment system is built on Automotive Grade Linux, the in-car platform supported by the Linux Foundation and backed by 100 automakers and tech firms. According to Motor Trend, around "70 percent of the platform on the 2018 Camry consists of mostly generic coding, while the remaining 30 percent is unique to the vehicle." Although the 2018 Camry will be the initial test bed for the system, the flexibility of that system "will help provide an easy transition to other models, including those from Lexus." The system will also soon be integrated into cars from Ford, Mercedes Benz, and Mazda.

A marriage of two foundations

In a bit of surprising news, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that it's merging with the CoderDojo Foundation (a non-profit aimed at teaching young people to code). Joining force will create what the Raspberry Pi Foundation believes to be "the biggest code-promoting organization on the planet."

This move meshes with the Raspberry Pi Foundation's "move away from major product launches and focus more on software, as well as 'doubling down' on its charitable work." Giustina Mizzoni, CoderDojo's executive director, wrote that "the CoderDojo community, Mentors and Ninjas have access to the best possible support, including access to the world's best educational materials and resources."

New open source tool to help organizations prepare for data breaches

What do you do when your servers have been compromised? If you're a large organization, you might have a dedicated security team to tackle the problem. But if you're a smaller organization, dealing with a data breach could be very difficult. Digital activist Matt Mitchell has come up with a solution to "enable organizations to prepare digital security policies, data retention policies and incident response plans."

Mitchell's brainchild is called Protect Your Org, and is a "free, open source, tool for all organizations to prepare for inevitable data breaches" that's backed by the Mozilla and Ford Foundations. Protect Your Org, which goes live in the next couple of months, is a document generator that builds custom policy documents for organizations. Those documents will allow them to "establish a precautionary rulebook for handling information, a baseline stock of data ownership and a checklist for reacting after a hack." Mitchell points out that Protect Your Org isn't a full toolkit, but is intended to help organizations think about and prepare for attacks.

TriggerTrap goes completely open source

When TriggerTrap, the makers of a popular camera remote control system, shuttered the company in early 2017, owners of TriggerTrap devices were left wondering if they'd have dead hardware on their hands. To ensure that didn't happen, the company open sourced its hardware last month. And it followed up on that move by open sourcing the code for the TriggerTrap Android and iOS apps.

The code, which you can find on GitHub will allow "code-savvy users to" update the apps, keeping them current and squashing bugs. The company's former lead iOS developer "will be taking those user-generated contributions and publishing them to the App Store for the less computer-savvy to download." The Android app, however, is still looking for a maintainer.

Company behind Brave browser raises a pile of cash

Brave, the web browser startup founded by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, just raised $35 million (USD) in funding. While the money will help power the browser's development efforts — according to TechCrunch, Brave's "pitch to consumers is faster loading times, tighter privacy controls" — a good chunk of it will go towards "developing its advertising platform."

It's not (just) that Brave raised funds for the development of a product in a niche market dominated by by a two tech giants and a non-profit foundation. It's that the money was raised in about 30 seconds. That was thanks to Brave selling its own cryptocurrency, called The Basic Attention Token, to investors. Like the browser itself, The Basic Attention Token is open source. It, and other cryptocurrencies, could be a way for startups to quickly raise funds in the future.

In other news

Thanks, as always, to Opensource.com staff members and moderators for their help this week. Make sure to check out our event calendar to see what's happening next week in open source.

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That idiot Scott Nesbitt ...
I'm a long-time user of free/open source software, and write various things for both fun and profit. I don't take myself all that seriously and I do all of my own stunts.

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