Fedora Silverblue is becoming more and more popular inside and outside the Fedora world. So based on feedback from the community, here are answers to some interesting questions about the project. If you do have any other Silverblue related questions, please leave it in the comments section and we will try to answer them in a future article.

Silverblue is a codename for the new generation of the desktop operating system, previously known as Atomic Workstation. The operating system is delivered in images that are created by utilizing the rpm-ostree project. The main benefits of the system are speed, security, atomic updates and immutability.

• Fedora Community Blog: GCI 2018 mentor’s summit @ Google headquarters

  Google Code-in is a contest to introduce students (ages 13-17) to open source software development. Since 2010, 8,108 students from 107 countries have completed over 40,100 open source tasks Because Google Code-in is often the first experience many students have with open source, the contest is designed to make it easy for students to jump right in. I was one of the mentors in this first time for Fedora program. We had 125 students participating in Fedora and the top 3 students completed 26, 25 and 22 tasks each.

  Every year Google invites the Grand-Prize winners and their parents, and a mentor to it’s headquarters in San Francisco, California for a 4 days trip. I was offered the opportunity to go and represent Fedora in the summit and meet these 2 brilliant folks in person. This report covers activities and other things that happened there.

• Fedora mulls its "python" version

  There is no doubt that the transition from Python 2 to Python 3 has been a difficult one, but Linux distributions have been particularly hard hit. For many people, that transition is largely over; Python 2 will be retired at the end of this year, at least by the core development team. But distributions will have to support Python 2 for quite a while after that. As part of any transition, the version that gets run from the python binary (or symbolic link) is something that needs to be worked out. Fedora is currently discussing what to do about that for Fedora 31.

  Fedora program manager Ben Cotton posted a proposal to make python invoke Python 3 in Fedora 31 to the Fedora devel mailing list. The proposal, titled "Python means Python 3", is also on the Fedora wiki. The idea is that wherever "python" is used it will refer to version 3, including when it is installed by DNF (i.e. dnf install python) or when Python packages are installed, so installing "python-requests" will install the Python 3 version of the Requests library. In addition, a wide array of associated tools (e.g. pip, pylint, idle, and flask) will also use the Python 3 versions.

  The "Requests" link above does point to a potential problem area, however. It shows that Requests for Python 3 III is not fully finished, with an expected release sometime "before PyCon 2020" (mid-April 2020), which is well after the expected October 2019 release of Fedora 31. The distribution already has a python3-requests package, though, so that will be picked up as python-requests in Fedora 31 if this proposal is adopted. There may be other packages out there where Python 3 support is not complete but, at this point, most of the major libraries have converted.

• NeuroFedora poster at CNS*2019

  With CNS*2019 around the corner, we worked on getting the NeuroFedora poster ready for the poster presentation session. Our poster is P96, on the first poster session on the 14th of July.

  [...]

  Unfortunately, this time, no one from the team is able to attend the conference, but if you are there and want to learn more about NeuroFedora, please get in touch with us using any of our communication channels.

  To everyone that will be in Barcelona for the conference, we hope you have a fruitful one, and of course, we hope you are able to make some time to rest at the beach too.

• Inside the Canonical Container Strategy

  Canonical continues to pursue a somewhat bifurcated approach to containers by announcing support for Kubernetes 1.15 while continuing to advance Snaps as an application container that enables software deployment via a single click.

  For example, Canonical recently announced in collaboration with DJI that Snaps will be supported on an instance of Ubuntu embedded in Manifold 2 drones manufactured by DJI. While that approach will make it easier to deploy containerized applications on a type of embedded system, Snaps—for the moment, at least—mostly only runs on Ubuntu.

  Docker, in contrast, provides what Canonical describes as “process containers,” which typically are immutable and share some libraries across all containers in execution. Docker registries are optional and typically contain a loose collection of Docker images identifiable by hash or tags. That approach makes it possible to run containerized applications across multiple operating systems. However, within organizations that have standardized on Ubuntu, Canonical is making the case for an application container in the form of Snaps.

  Canonical is trying to drum up support for Snaps on multiple distributions of Linux with mixed success. Most recently, it made available Snapd, a service that individual developers can employ to run Snaps on other Linux distributions. Support for Snaps running on Linux distributions other than Ubuntu generally is limited to what’s provided by Canonical, which tends to limit enthusiasm. It’s also worth noting that alternative application packaging technologies in the form of AppImage and Flatpak have been around longer than Snaps.

• CEO Ginni Rometty: Red Hat's open-source software 'is a play that helps all of IBM'

  IBM on Tuesday closed on its $34 billion cash acquisition of Red Hat.

• Unlocking the true potential of hybrid cloud with Red Hat partners

  Today, we announced that IBM’s landmark acquisition of Red Hat has closed and shared our vision for how our two companies will move forward together.

  You’ve heard that IBM is committed to preserving Red Hat’s independence, neutrality, culture and industry partnerships, and that Red Hat’s unwavering commitment to open source remains unchanged.

  There is a key part of that statement I want to focus on—partnerships.

  IBM has made a significant investment to acquire Red Hat, and respects that Red Hat wouldn’t be Red Hat without our partner ecosystem. Partners open more doors for open source than we can alone and are vital to our success.

• Red Hat and IBM: Accelerating the adoption of open source

  Today, IBM finalized its acquisition of Red Hat. Moving forward, Red Hat will operate as a distinct unit within IBM, and I couldn't be more excited—not only for what today represents in the history of two storied technology companies, but what it means for the future of the industry, for our customers, and for open source.

  Red Hat's acquisition by IBM represents an unparalleled milestone for open source itself. It signals validation of community-driven innovation and the value that open source brings to users.

• IBM Closes Landmark Acquisition of Red Hat for $34 Billion; Defines Open, Hybrid Cloud Future

  IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Red Hat announced today that they have closed the transaction under which IBM acquired all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of approximately $34 billion.

  The acquisition redefines the cloud market for business. Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud technologies are now paired with the unmatched scale and depth of IBM’s innovation and industry expertise, and sales leadership in more than 175 countries. Together, IBM and Red Hat will accelerate innovation by offering a next-generation hybrid multicloud platform. Based on open source technologies, such as Linux and Kubernetes, the platform will allow businesses to securely deploy, run and manage data and applications on-premises and on private and multiple public clouds.

• Q&A: IBM’s Landmark Acquisition of Red Hat

  Paul: Red Hat is an enterprise software company with an open source development model. A fundamental tenet of that model is that everything we do, from new practices that we learn to new technologies that we develop, goes back to the upstream community. By joining forces with IBM, our reach into customers will dramatically increase so we’ll be in a position to drive open enterprise technology a lot further. As for IBM, we’ve been partners for quite some time, but now existing IBM customers will have even more direct access to next-generation open source-based technologies that are at the cornerstone of hybrid cloud innovation.

• Jim Whitehurst email to Red Hatters on Red Hat + IBM acquisition closing

  Last October, we announced our intention to join forces with IBM, with the aim of becoming the world’s top hybrid cloud provider. Since then, the promise IBM chairman, president, and CEO Ginni Rometty and I made has not changed. In fact, our commitment to that vision has grown - Red Hat will remain a distinct unit in IBM as we work to help customers deliver any app, anywhere, realizing the true value of the hybrid cloud. This morning, we can share that the most significant tech acquisition of 2019 has officially closed and we can now begin moving forward.

  We will be hosting an all-hands company meeting today (Tuesday, July 9) where you will hear from me, Ginni, Paul Cormier and IBM senior vice president of Cloud and Cognitive Software, Arvind Krishna. Details on logistics to follow; I hope you will join us.

  Since we announced the acquisition, I’ve been having conversations with our customers, partners, open source community members and more Red Hatters than I can count (I’ve been following memo-list as well!). What struck me most from those conversations was the passion. It’s passion not just for a company, but for what we do and how we do it—the open source way. That’s not going to change.

• IBM Acquires Red Hat For $34 Billion

  IBM today closed the acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion, marking one of the biggest acquisition of any open source company.