In this week's edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at the Mozilla developer browser, the European Commission commitment to open data, Google's Open Roberta program, and more!
Open source news for your reading pleasure.
November 1 - 7, 2014
First browser dedicated to developers is coming
On November 10, the same day the project celebrates its birthday, Mozilla will be releasing a new developer-dedicated browser. Web developers use a myriad of tools, and the Mozilla project is aware of this, so they decided to try to simplify the life of the developer by creating a new kind of browser just for them. It will integrate some powerful new tools too, like WebIDE and the Firefox Tools Adapter. Both InfoWorld and TechCrunch covered this news, you can follow information at the hashtag #Fx10 on Twitter, and find out as soon as it's avaliable by signing up for the Hacks newsletter.
We all work for open source companies now
An interesting article on ReadWrite from Matt Asay presents the idea that we all work for open source companies now. Asay says that every company on the planet must embrace open source now; in a world driven by developers, there is no other option and you can no longer win with closed source. Asay refers to research done on the subject by Gartner and Forrester, and he quotes MongoDB chairman and co-founder Dwight Merriman about how open source has moved from accepted to expected.
Google to introduce Open Roberta in German classrooms
At The Next Web, read about the news that Google has launched a new cloud platform, Open Roberta, that seeks to encourage kids to code using LEGO Mindstorms. The program includes using the cloud to make it easier to hack by not having to install software on your computer. This news is also covered by ZDNet.
Nogotofail, open source security testing tool
Google released a new open source tool: Nogotofail. It is used for testing network traffic security and is available on GitHub, available for anyone to use and contribute to. The purpose of the tool is to test whether the devices or applications you are using are safe against known TLS/SSL vulnerabilities. This release is a great example of a company like Google open source-ing a tool and sharing it with the community at-large, thus improving the security of the Internet.
EU commits €14.4M to support open data across Europe
Over at The Guardian, read about the European Commission's support of open data by committing €14.4M. This news was announced at the ODI Summit, held in London. This funding will be used in three separate schemes, covering startups, open data research, and a new training academy for data science. To quote the Guardian article, "This is a decisive investment by the EU to create open data skills, build capabilities, and provide fuel for open data startups across Europe," said Gavin Starks, chief executive of the ODI (Open Data Institute).
In other news
- Facebook open sources homebrewed monitoring tool and its Proxygen HTTP framework and server
- Netflix open sources Dynomite to make any datastore distributed
- Fedora 21 beta finally arrives
- ‘Hour of Code’ sets Indiegogo crowdfunding record
- Acquia to bring more intelligent personalization to your website
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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