Openwashing and FUD, Notably Microsoft

• Top 10 Open Source Licenses in 2018: Trends and Predictions [Ed: WhiteSource with connections to Microsoft continues to smear the GPL and copyleft; why does this always turn out to be Microsoft-funded/connected? They continue trying to tell people what to do based on what's perceived to be happening, even when they intentionally lie about what's happening (in an effort to alter the outcome, a self-fulfilling prophecy strategy).]

• Microsoft is telling awesome open source stories [Ed: Mac Asay is still looking for a job at Microsoft and he endlessly helps the company spread its lies]

• Pimcore Closes $3.5 Million in Series A to Expand Open-Source Data and Experience Management Platform Into the U.S.

• Pimcore expands Open-Source Data and Experience Management Platform Operations in India

• Pimcore closes 1st round of funding to expand open-source data and experience management platform operations in India

• NPR Releases Open Source Podcast Analytics Tech [Ed: openwashing of surveillance methods (for advertisers)]

• How NPR Aims to Bring Transparency to Podcast Metrics

• Bing releases Clarity, an open-source UX analytics tool [Ed: openwashing by Microsoft of surveillance tools]

Linux Foundation: O-RAN, Hyperledger, Open Source Compliance and More

• Verizon joins O-RAN Alliance board

  After announcing earlier this year that the xRAN Forum and C-RAN Alliance were merging, the O-RAN Alliance announced new board members—including Verizon—and a collaboration with the Linux Foundation on open source software. Verizon’s participation in the O-RAN Alliance isn’t a surprise given its work on Open RAN initiatives and its earlier involvement in the xRAN Forum—it was a contributor to the xRAN fronthaul specification that was released in April. That specification defines open interfaces between the remote radio unit/head (RRU/RRH) and the baseband unit (BBU) to simplify interoperability between suppliers. [...] O-RAN also said it has started collaboration arrangements with The Linux Foundation to establish an open source software community for the creation of open source RAN software. Collaboration with The Linux Foundation will enable the creation of open source software supporting the O-RAN architecture and interfaces.

• O-RAN Alliance and Linux to create an open source software community

  The O-RAN Alliance announced that Reliance Jio, TIM, and Verizon have joined the O-RAN board. AT&T CTO Andre Fuetsch says, “It’s encouraging to see the O-RAN Alliance off to such a strong start and gaining momentum as we welcome three new board members. “It’s important that the wireless industry continues to come together to drive forward O-RAN’s goals for open networking, software, and virtualisation in global wireless networks especially as 5G is closer than ever.”

• Hyperledger Onboards 12 New Members Including Alibaba Cloud, Deutsche Telekom and Citi

  Hyperledger has onboarded 12 new members, including such major firms as Alibaba Cloud, Citi, and Deutsche Telekom, according to an announcement published on Dec. 11. Launched in 2016, Hyperledger is an open source project created by the Linux Foundation and created to support the development of blockchain-based distributed ledgers. The new members were announced at the Hyperledger Global Forum in Basel, Switzerland. The latest general members that joined the initiative include Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of the e-commerce giant; financial services firm Citigroup, Deutsche Telekom, one of the largest telecoms providers in Europe; and European blockchain trading platform we.trade, among others.

• Open Source Compliance in the Enterprise

  Open Source Compliance in the Enterprise, 2nd edition, by Ibrahim Haddad outlines best practices for organizations to adopt and use open source code in products and services, as well as participate in open source communities in a legal and responsible way.

• Linux Foundation Brings the Year to a Close with 21 New Members Making the Commitment to Open Source

  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the addition of 18 Silver members and 3 Associate members. Linux Foundation members help support development of shared technology resources, while accelerating their own innovation through open source leadership and participation in some of the world’s most successful open source projects including Hyperledger, Kubernetes, Linux, Node.js and ONAP. Linux Foundation member contributions help provide the infrastructure and resources that enable the world’s largest open collaboration communities. Since the start of 2018, on average a new organization has joined The Linux Foundation every day.

Security: Linux.org and FUD

• Linux.org Redirected to NSFW Page Spewing Racial Epithets [Ed: Trying hard to make it seem like a "Linux" issue when in fact it is purely a DNS issue]

• Campaign Drops Coinminer on Linux Boxes Using Old Elasticsearch Vulnerabilities [Ed: Not about GNU/Linux. Just as holes in iTunes aren't being blamed on "Microsoft" or "Windows".]

  A malware campaign scanning the Internet for exploitable Elasticsearch instances running on Linux machines has been recently observed by Trend Micro and by ISC, in both cases dropping a variant of the XMRig cryptocurrency miner. "The attack was deployed by taking advantage of known vulnerabilities CVE-2015-1427, a vulnerability in its Groovy scripting engine that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary shell commands through a crafted script, and CVE-2014-3120, a vulnerability in the default configuration of Elasticsearch," said Trend Micro.

• Cybersecurity books recommended by top security researchers

• Intel Announces Faster Processor Patched for Meltdown and Spectre [Ed: But the company refuses to patch (remove) the back doors]

• Automatically finding new cybersecurity threats with Open Source Intelligence

iCEBreaker, The Open Source Development Board for FPGAs

The Hackaday Superconference is over, which is a shame, but one of the great things about our conference is the people who manage to trek out to Pasadena every year to show us all the cool stuff they’re working on. One of those people was [Piotr Esden-Tempski], founder of 1 Bit Squared, and he brought some goodies that would soon be launched on a few crowdfunding platforms. The coolest of these was the iCEBreaker, an FPGA development kit that makes it easy to learn FPGAs with an Open Source toolchain.