In which direction is Open Source going ?

The constant war between open source and proprietary technology ceases to end, and with ever improving tools the battle grows fiercer. However, it won't be wrong to say that open source is clearly leading the way when it comes to innovative technology so much so that 2014 might just be the year of open source computing. Furthermore, it's only obvious that even proprietary technology cannot deny the tremendous functionality of oepn source for the results speak for themselves. 2014 is also the year when the battle enters an all new arena with proprietary firms pouring in their resources into open source development while open source companies shaping their revenue models.

The open source movement is undoubtedly swallowing the proprietary world. Here are 5 ways in which it is likely to tranform and shape our future in 2014:

1. Data storage clustering

-Thanks to the immense capabilities of open source technology, datacenters will cluster together their storage systems and grow rapidly.

-The technology will allow us to clone entire storage systems, bringing new database servers online within minutes.

-This ability is particularly crucial as our digital universe is expanding rapidly.

2. Proprietary software companies go open source

-You heard that right! The trend has already begun!

-Currently Oracle has at least 14 active open source initiatives. Further it has become a corporate sponsor of the OpenStack Foundation, and aims to integrate OpenStack capabilities into its products and cloud services.

-IBM has already announced that it would invest $1 billion into Linux and open source innovation.

-To add to it, mighty rival Microsoft has open sourced its Azure cloud server design through Facebook’s Open Compute Project.

-The US government's OpenSource.gov is helping departments seamlessly migrate to open source technology.

3. High performance computing

-The next generation of high performance computing clusters will be courtesy open source.

-Their high speeds will provide the ability to parse huge volumes of data in mere milliseconds.

4. Mobile development

-Joomla, Convertigo, Dream Factory, OpenMEAP, and many others already allow developers to build their product, get it to market quickly and scale.

5. Universities teaching open source

-Twenty-two prominent universities including the likes of Stanford, MIT, Berkley, and Carnegie Mellon have teamed up with Facebook and provide students with academic credit for working on open source projects. 

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Good Open Source Applications For Mac Users

Here are some open source applications for the Mac that you might not know about... 

Apple's Mac operating system may be a proprietary platform, but it isn't one that open source hasn't been able to penetrate. Just like Windows, there are open source alternatives for many Mac applications. Here are some of the lesser known ones!

1. Adium Icon

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, XMPP (Jabber), Yahoo, and more.

2. Disk Inventory X

This application can be used to view the contents of your hard drive graphically. It has a simplistic interface but with lots of features.

3. Celestia

This is an application that can be used for 3D visualisation of space in real-time, with a detailed model of the solar system. It contains 10,000 galaxies and more than 100,000 stars. You can also add more objects to it.

4. Stellarium

This is similar to Celestia and allows you explore the skies on your Mac. You can use this to get a visual representation of the skies. It shows you what you would otherwise see with telescopres, binoculars etc.

5. Seashore

This is an image editing application for Mac users. You can get a umber of features through this application, including gradients, anti-aliasing and textures.

6. Pixen

Are you a pixel artist? If yes, then this is the application for you. This application can create frame by frame animations for you to export as GIFs.

7. HandBrake

This open source application can be used in order to convert videos into favourable formats. It comes with a number of setting options that allow you to customise the ripping process for videos.

8. Inkscape

As hard as it might be for some to believe, the Adobe Illustrator isn’t the graphics tool of choice for everyone. If you aren’t quite ok with this tool, then Inkscape makes for a good replacement for Mac user. It is a vector-based graphic application that comes with a clean interface and is easily accessible.

9. Cyberduck

The name doesn’t say much about this open source application for Mac users. It is an FTP client, which is capable of supporting SFTP, FTP, Cloud Files, WebDav and some other protocols. Many would tell you that it is the best free FTP client for Apple’s Mac platform.

10. Jext

This is a text editor that is meant for the Mac operating system. You can use this to edit files from HTML to Java. It is good if you’re looking for a free and open source application, but it is quite an outdated text editor.

You will probaby be asking why VLC and some other very other obvious applications haven't been mentioned here. Well, that's exactly why, because they're two obvious. 

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

50 Open Source Software For Your Windows PC

Using a Windows PC doesn't mean that you have to be trapped within it. There are many open source applications that run on Microsoft's Windows. Here are 50 of the best of the lot!

App Collections: These are tools that contain a numbebr of open source software within them. They are complete packages that can run on Windows.

1. OpenDisc

2. PortableApps.com

3. winPenPack

Antivirus: You already know an what Antivirus is, add something get a good one, for example, use this software

4. ClamWin Free Antivirus

Astronomy: These are nifty tools that map the night sky for you and show you how the sky is looking at a particular moment from a particular point.

5. Celestia

6. Stellarium

Audio Tools: While VLC is the obviously the most popular open source audi player on Windows, there are some others that cater to musicians and audio/video editors as well.

7. Amarok

8. Audacity

9. Clementine

10. MuseScore

Backup: It is always advised that you should backup the data on your machine. This is where these open source tools can be very handy.

11. AMANDA

12. Areca Backup

13. Redo

Blogging: Wordpress is the suite of choice for those looking to develop their own websites and blogs. It contains a number of functionalities and features.

14. WordPress

Browsers: You would of course known about Mozilla's Firefox internet browser. This is the most popular open source brower used by many people all over the world. In addition, there are

15. Chromium

16. Firefox

17. Tor Browser

CAD

18. BRL-CAD

Groupware: These are software that help you track and manage group projects where you are collborating with a lot of other people.

19. Collabtive

20. Feng Office

Compression:

21. PeaZip

Content Management Content Management Systems are computer programs that allow the publishing, editing and modification of content from a central source. Best examples of this would be Drupal and Jhoomla.

22. DNN (formerly DotNetNuke)

23. Drupal

24. Joomla

25. Plone

Customer Relationship Management: These software aid companies in future and current customer relationship maintenance.

26. Sugar Community Edition

Databases: Windows may not exactly be a friend of open source, but no one can deny its contributions to the tech world. Many programmers have created the best of programs while using the Windows OS. For this they needed databases and many of them used open source databases.

27. Firebird

28. MySQL

29. PostgreSQL

Data Destruction: Recycing it just as important on your computer as it is in real life. There comes a time when you need to get rid of data. This is where this software comes in handy.

30. BleachBit

31. Darik's Boot And Nuke

Desktop Enhancements: These are software that add various elements to your desktop. This could include sticky notes, screensavers and a bunch of other interactive components.

32. Electric Sheep

33. PNotes

34. VirtuaWin

Desktop Publishing: These are page layour publishers. Other examples of this would be QuarkExpress, Adobe Indesign etc.

35. Scribus

Email Client: These clients can manage your email, especially the one mentioned here, which integrates beautifully with the Firefox internet brower

36. Thunderbird

Encryption: These software can make encrypting files so easy that you sometimes have to do nothing more than make a simple mouse click.

37. AxCrypt

38. Gpg4win

39. TrueCrypt

Enterprise Resource Planning: As the name suggests, these software aid enterprises in their planning purposes.

40. ADempiere

41. Apache OFBiz

42. Compiere ERP + CRM Business Solution

43. Openbravo

44. Postbooks/xTuple ERP

Games: Windows has been the better platform for games, but open source games have still penetrated this platform and made a name for themselves.

45. 0 A.D.

46. Alien Arena

47. AssaultCube Reloaded

48. FlightGear

49. Frets on Fire

50. GCompris

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

This Year's Top 5 Linux Distros For Beginners

Linux will reach places in the year 2014. So, if you don't wish to miss the opportunity, get started today with any of these top five Linux distros for beginners. 

Amongst the hundreds of Linux distros available in the market, there are just a few that cater to beginners. The factors that have been kept in mind while selecting the distros are out-of-the-box support, user friendly UI, easy installation and great online support.

Let’s take a look at the five best distros for beginners below -

1. Ubuntu 13.10 – This is the most popular one having a rigorous release cycle with more bleeding edge features implemented in each release. As Ubuntu is not equipped with a load of software and codecs pre installed like Linux Mint, users might face trouble playing certain media formats and require a few command line installations. Ubuntu comes equipped with its own user interface known as "unity".

2. Linux Mint 16- This is the second most popular Linux distribution as its user friendly. It comes equipped with tons of software. The distro functions quite well out of the box with no time trouble wasted in troubleshooting. Mint stresses on what is best for its users and offers what the mainstream linux users demand.

3. Zorin OS – This has been optimized for users who are switching from windows. It is very similar to Windows 7 and has "zorin look changer" which can make your desktop appear similar to older Windows versions and Mac OS X. Zorin OS also has four premium versions (Ultimate, Business, Multimedia, Gaming).

4. Peppermint OS 4 – This is a very light distro equipped with LXDE desktop envioronment. LXDE is quite simple to use and most people will find it to be a straightforward DE. The OS gets booted quite quickly making it ideal for older computers or netbooks.

5. Pinguy OS 12.04 LTS – This is an Ubuntu based distribution coming with a lot of preinstalled software. It is good for users who wish to find out more about the extensive software which Linux offers. It is quite convenient as it has almost all the software that a user might require.

10 Operators In Linux To Learn And Remember

There are often times when you need to execute or not execute multiple commands on the command line. Alternatively, you may want to place conditions on the execution of commands. That is when operators come in handy

Chaining operators in Linux allow the user to automate processes and streamline the working of a system when it is left unattended. Operators help in placing conditions and combining various commands together. Knowing the operators and using them at the right time can reduce your work by a lot.

1. Ampersand (&): This command is used in order to make a command run in the background. All you need to do is type in your command followed by a white space and then the operator. This leaves the command to operate in the background. You can also use this to run multiple commands in the background.

For one command,

xyz@localhost:~$ ping ­c5 www.xyz.com &

Two commands,

root@localhost:/home/xyz# apt-get update & apt-get upgrade &

2. semi-colon (;): This command is used in order to run several commands in one go. The commands are executed sequentially.

root@localhost:/home/xyz# apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade ; mkdir test

This command will start with the update part, then execute the upgrade command and then the mkdir command.

3. AND (&&): This is the logical and operator. This executes the second command if and only if the first command has been executed. It is often used to check the exit status of the last command.

root@localhost:/home/xyz# ping -c3 www.xyz.com && links www.xyz.com

In this case you are trying to visit xyz.com if using the links command. But you want to check if the host is available first.

4. OR (||): The logical OR operator executes the second command if the execution of the first command has failed.

xyz@localhost:~$ apt-get update || links xyz.com

In this, the ‘links xyz.com’ command will be executed since the user is not allowed to update the system.

5. NOT (!): This is the logical NOT operator that executes all statements except the one exception that you have provided.

6. AND – OR (&& – ||): This operator acts like an if-else statement. So, if you want to ping xyz.com and echo ‘Success’ if successful and ‘Fail’ otherwise.

abc@localhost:~/abc$ ping -c3 www.xyz.com && echo "Success" || echo "Fail"

7. PIPE (|): This operator is used when the output of the first command is to be the input for the second command.

xyz@localhost:~$ ls -l | less

We are pipelining the output of the ls-l command to less.

8. Command Combination {}: When you want to put in a combination of multiple commands.

Combine two or more commands, the second command depends upon the execution of the first command.

For example, check if a file ‘xyz.txt‘ and ‘xyz1.txt‘ is available under my Downloads directory or not, and output corresponding output.

xyz@localhost:~$ [ -f /home/xyz/Downloads/abc.txt ] || echo “The file not available”

xyz@localhost:~$ [ -f /home/xyz/Downloads/abc1.txt ] || echo “The file not available”

Here you are checking if the files abc and abc1 are available in the Downloads directory.

9. Precedence (): As the name suggests, use this if you want to execute a command in the order of precedence.

(comm_x1 &&comm_x2) || (comm_x3 && comm_x4)

In this the second part in parantheses will be executed if the first one fails.

10. Concatenation (\): This operator is used to concatenate large commands over a number of lines in the shell.

xyz@localhost:~/Downloads$ nano test\(1\).txt

10 Top Open Source Projects That Emerged Last Year!

Open source technology reached newer heights in 2013. CodeKill Group brings ten greatest open source projects that made news in the year gone by. 

The sixth annual Black Duck Open Source Rookies of the Year awards have shortlisted the ten leading open source projects which commenced in 2013. This year's contenders range from cloud computing, software virtualization, privacy, social media, and the Internet of things. The selection has been done based on the statistics from Black Duck’s Ohloh site, which is the leading open source software directory.

1.Appium – This is an open source test automation framework that can be used with native as well as hybrid mobile apps. It runs iOS and Android apps through the WebDriver JSON wire protocol. With mobile apps becoming core to our operating infrastructure, agile development methodologies need automated testing for delivery. Appium had initially begun as a tool for SauceLabs to assist customers in building a scalable, automated test environment and now has taken on a life of its own with a rapidly expanding, diverse developer community.

2.Docker – This has created the kind of excitement which is rare for a rookie open source project. Its aim is to enable the easy creation of lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers via any application. Docker was begun by a small, commercial firm called dotCloud, but the project has grown roots and turned the heads of the big names, which include Red Hat and Google.

3.Exercism – This is a collaborative educational tool for people learning programming languages. It was initiated by Katrina Owen, an instructor who works at a small technical school in Colorado. It was started as an effort to assist students learn more collaboratively.

4.Ghost – This is solely for publishing content on the Web. It's completely customizable and completely open source. It permits you to write and post your own blog, offering the tools that make it easy and fun to do.

5.InfluxDB – This is a time-series, events, and metrics database which is written in Go without external dependencies. It is created for distribution and scale horizontally, but it can be handy even if you're running it on a single box. It also comes with a SQL-like query language created to be used with time series and analytics.

6.OpenDaylight – Its aim is to offer a fully functional SDN platform which can be used directly without the need for other components. It's aimed at making an open, standards-based SDN controller platform which is ideal for deployment in a range of production network environments.
7.OpenIoT – This started as a research project which is partly funded by the European Commission with the aim of enabling a new range of open, large-scale, intelligent Internet of things applications with the use of a cloud computing delivery model.

8.Serverspec – This offers a simple approach to testing your server configurations without any configuration management tools. By using this, you can write RSpec tests for checking your servers' configuration.

9.Tox – This project is a secure instant messaging and video chat application aimed at replacing AIM, Skype, etc. It is aimed to be a user-friendly, all-in-one communication platform for text, audio, and video chatting, and is committed to complete privacy backed by "leading class" encryption.

10.XPrivacy – This is created for preventing applications from leaking sensitive data. It can limit the categories of data that an application can make use of by feeding an app fake data or no data at all. Many data categories can be restricted, which include contacts and locations.