Linux Foundation Newsletter: March 2023

In this edition, we're excited to share new reports from LF Research on the Economic Value of Open Source and Why the World Needs Digital Wallets, new LF Training & Certification deals, news about our participation on Mastodon, and updates on the latest community developments.

Contents

• The Linux Foundation is now on Mastodon!
• Training & Certification Deals

• Call for Sponsors & Partners for World of Open Source Global Spotlight 2023 Survey

• New Research on Measuring the Economic Value of Open Source, Open Source and the Recession, and Digital Wallets
• Latest blogs: Open source fact versus fiction, and what the LF’s new VP John Walicki learned about community building
• Careers at the Linux Foundation
• LFX Mentorship
• Upcoming events
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Linux Foundation project news and updates
• LF in the Media
• Follow us

The Linux Foundation is now on Mastodon!

• The LF and many projects are now communicating through Mastodon. OpenSSF, PyTorch, OpenJS, Node.js, Electron, and Delta Lake are among the projects currently available. Mastodon enables a decentralized and open environment for sharing updates on projects. If you're an LF project interested in adding Mastodon to your social channels, contact Jason Perlow at jperlow@linuxfoundation.org.
• Join us in sharing open source innovation and collaboration!

Training & Certification Deals

• Level up to your next career reward by saving up to 40% on Training and Certification!

Interested in reading our Training newsletter? Click here to subscribe.

Call for Sponsors & Partners for World of Open Source Global Spotlight 2023 Survey

Linux Foundation Research is calling for sponsors and partners for a new research study on open source trends and opportunities on a global scale. Following the success of the 2022 Europe Spotlight survey and report, the Global Spotlight 2023 project will greatly expand our view of open source participation in different regions, with valuable insight to better understand and support open source participation worldwide.

The 2023 survey will generate insights into regional open source trends, including:

• The size and scope of open source programs across organizations and industries
• Opportunities and challenges in private and public sector engagement in open source
• The value proposition of open source
• The landscape for the use and adoption of open source technologies and best practices

Read more about becoming a sponsor or partner here.

New Research on Measuring the Economic Value of Open Source, Open Source and the Recession, and Digital Wallets

Open source technologies are difficult to value in purely economic terms since they are free to use. While reasons for contributing to open source have been studied, the value of adopting open source has received less attention. Professor Henry Chesbrough surveyed the economic value of open source adoption, finding that companies experience cost savings, faster development, open standards, and interoperability. The full report provides an evidence-based insight into the economic value of supporting open source adoption. Read “Measuring the Economic Value of Open Source” today.

On November 15 and 16, 2022, the 9th Annual World Open Innovation Conference convened experts from academia, industry, and government in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Linux Foundation led a challenge session on “Open Source Innovation as a Potential Lever for Economic Recovery.” As digitization is an attractive strategy to combat economic pressures, Hilary Carter invited participants to discuss the role that open source could play during the current economic downturn. This short report captures the key takeaways from the session: the potential of OSS in the public sector, the need to invest in OSS-like digital infrastructure, and the need for more education about the value of OSS to increase adoption across the economy, amongst others. Read “Open Source Innovation as a Potential Lever for Economic Recovery.”

As our physical wallets are digitized to support the transfer of digital assets, the design and development fragmentation of competing systems causes a lack of interoperability and functionality amongst services and potentially weaker security. The Open Wallet Foundation (OWF) aims to support the development of portable and secure digital wallets that can be used on any device, operating system, app, or service and with any currency. The whitepaper explores the origins, opportunities, and obstacles in digital wallets and how OWF can address these challenges. Read “Why the World Needs an Open Source Digital Wallet Right Now.”

Latest blogs: Open source fact versus fiction, getting started with open source development, and what the LF’s new VP John Walicki learned about community building

Open source software is very common and forms the backbone of many important systems we use daily, like our phones and the internet.

• As people pay more attention to ensuring open source software is secure and sustainable, it's important to separate fact from fiction. Check out this blog by Ashwin Ramaswami for more information.
• Are you eager to improve your development skills and get involved in open source? Check out the informative guide, Getting Started with Open Source Development, authored by Dr. Ibrahim Haddad, GM of LF AI & Data.
  

John Walicki, who has recently joined the Linux Foundation as VP of Community Operations, is a name that many former IBMers recall with admiration. While many of us knew John as the IBM Linux desktop guy, his career spanned over 30 years at Big Blue. To learn more about his background, we asked him to recount his time at the company, his lessons learned over the decades, and how they have informed his understanding of open source. Read the blog here.

Careers at the Linux Foundation

If you're seeking a career in technology that makes a difference and want to be part of a supportive community, apply to join the Linux Foundation today! With over 100 open source projects, you'll collaborate with leading developers and companies, receive essential tools, training, and support, and work in a virtual workforce with employees in 36 states and four countries.

We offer stipends for home office setups, encourage collaboration using online tools, and provide employee-first benefits like 100% paid healthcare, unlimited paid time off, and 12 fully paid weeks of parental care for primary and secondary caregivers. Check out some of our posted jobs:

• Senior Manager, Marketing Operations
• Chief Architect, OpenSSF
• Standards Program Manager
• Customer Support Specialist
• Event Manager

LFX Mentorship

• One of our Linux kernel mentorship program graduates, Gautam Menghani, has written a primer on masim, the Linux Memory Access Workload Simulator, for The New Stack.
• The Linux kernel Bug Fixing Spring 2023 has begun, with 25 mentees participating in the project to learn and fix kernel bugs. The program received 300+ applications, and 25 mentees have been selected for the challenge. 
• LF Live: Mentorship Series is hosting a webinar titled "How to Report and Handle Linux Kernel Regressions" with mentor Thorsten Leemhuis of Linux Kernel Regression Tracker.

Upcoming events

Register for Open Source Summit North America 2023, May 10 -12, in Vancouver, Canada!

• KubeCon+CloudNativeCon Europe (April 18-21, Amsterdam)
• Cephalocon (April 16-18, Amsterdam)
• ArgoCon (April 18, Amsterdam)
• CiliumCon (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Cloud Native Telco Day (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Cloud Native Wasm Day (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Istio Day (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Kubernetes Batch + HPC Day (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Kubernetes on Edge Day (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Linkerd Day (April 18, Amsterdam)
• Observability Day (April 18, Amsterdam)

To register (for in-person attendance or virtual), please view our full calendar of events here, and be sure to subscribe to our events newsletter. Check out our Flickr stream for photos of past events!

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Image via UNDP Ukraine flickr. CC-BY-ND 2.0

In honor of Women's History Month, the Open Mainframe Project invited community and project leaders to share their personal stories.

• Sarah Juliar Kriesch discusses her academic and professional journey in the tech industry and the importance of mentorships and male advocates.
• Sudharsana Srinivasan shares her journey with COBOL and how she turned a missed opportunity into a passion she shares with others.
• The latest episode of the "I Am a Mainframer" podcast features Megan Conklin, who led the global team responsible for the unprecedented adoption and growth of the LinuxONE brand at IBM.
• Additionally, game industry veteran Sheri Graner Ray shares her insights on promoting diversity and inclusion in gaming at the Open 3D Foundation.

Linux Foundation project news and updates

CHIPS Alliance

• The latest addition to CHIPS Alliance is the Caliptra project, led by AMD, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Marvell. The project aims to develop a secure Root of Trust macro for each semiconductor in datacenter servers to prevent security intrusions by authenticating other silicon members in a server. CHIPS Alliance will host the project's RTL, design verification bench, firmware, and a reference open source hardware implementation flow in the future. Exciting times ahead!

Delta Lake

• Check out the latest episode of Delta Lake Discussions, where Denny Lee talks about massive data processing in Adobe Experience Platform using Delta Lake.
• There's also a new blog on how to get started contributing to Delta Lake Spark. 
• The recent deltalake 0.7.0 release includes new features like a cleaner API for file listing operations, manual checkpoint creation, and fetching all the add actions of a Delta table. Learn more about these updates.

Dronecode Foundation

• Discover why 2022 was "The Year of the Drone" in the Dronecode Annual Report. Get insights, ecosystem updates, and statistics about the growing open-source drone developer community. 

ELISA Project

• Philipp Ahmann, Chair of the ELISA Technical Steering Committee and Technical Business Development Manager at Robert Bosch GmbH, gave a presentation at FOSDEM about ELISA.
• The Safety-Critical Software Summit, sponsored by the ELISA Project, will take place on June 27-30 in Prague, Czech Republic, and virtually for open source leaders and developers to advance safety-critical applications.   

LF Energy

• LF Energy has announced the schedule for the LF Energy Summit on June 1-2 in Paris. Registration is open for the LF Energy Embedded Summit on June 30 in Prague.
• OperatorFabric v. 3.13.0.RELEASE is now available.
• Shapeshifter Protocol v3.0.0 is now available, adding submetering messaging.
• RTDIP has released the Ingestion Pipeline Framework.
• Check out videos on LF Energy's open specification around carbon accounting and their efforts to help companies generate energy for self-consumption.
• Missed the Energy devroom at FOSDEM? You can check out the recap and session recordings.

FinOps Foundation

• Microsoft joined FinOps Foundation as a premier member and joined the Governing Board. The partnership will focus on defining specifications and evolving best practices, aligning collective guidance, improving products and services, advancing training and certification programs, and engaging with the community.
• FinOps X is an event where you can learn from 23+ speakers about best practices such as cloud budgeting, empowering engineering teams, measuring FinOps, and increasing reservation coverage with leadership buy-in.
• The State of FinOps 2023 report is live and focuses on performance across key capabilities. Compare your FinOps maturity against global peers and improve your FinOps practices.

Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS)

Get ready for these exciting events, some of which are exclusive to FINOS members:

• GAAD Hackathon, Virtual - April 24 through May 18
• Member Hackathon, NYC - May 3 & 4 (Members Only)
• Member Meeting, London - June 14 & 15 (Members Only)
• Open Source in Finance Forum (OSFF) - November 1st: Marriott Marquis, New York City
• Open to all with limited space per member
• Sign up here, and we'll send updates on registration, schedule, and more!
• Want to sponsor OSFF? Download the Sponsorship Prospectus and see how you can support the FINOS community all year long. For sponsorship inquiries, email osff@finos.org.

OpenJS Foundation

• Living Spec focused on keeping product specifications current for effective collaboration, is now a Silver member of the OpenJS Foundation. We look forward to their contributions.
• Node.js Security Progress Report: The March report is live, showcasing the Permission Model merge, security support role, issue resolutions, and engagement with working groups.
• OpenJS Collaborator Summit: Scheduled for May 9 before OpenJS World, the summit is a chance to connect with peers and learn about their work. Call for proposals and registration is open.

Hyperledger Foundation

• Daniela Barbosa, the Executive Director of Hyperledger Foundation, participated in two panels at the Mobile World Congress. She spoke on the main stage for the session on De-fining Opportunities and addressed the audience at the 4YFN conference about Recentralizing Identity for a Decentralized Future.
• TechCrunch highlighted the growing role of hybrid networks in the enterprise blockchain market based on an interview with Daniela Barbosa.
• The Untold Stories behind the Hyperledger Community podcast was launched, and the first interview was with Tracy Kuhrt, chair of the Hyperledger Technical Oversight Committee from Accenture.
• Hart Montgomery, the CTO of Hyperledger Foundation, was a guest on the Encrypted Economy podcast, discussing Hyperledger and how it works.

Open Mainframe Project

• Open Mainframe Project’s 2022 Annual Report is now available - download it to learn more about the milestones achieved last year!
• How successful is Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe, the integrated and extensible open source framework for z/OS? Trevor Eddolls, CEO of iTech-Ed Ltd, shares results in the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2023, which surveys mainframe users to see what technologies are growing in adoption. 69 percent of respondents are already using Zowe or have plans to adopt it in their enterprise solutions by the end of this year. 
• In the latest “I Am a Mainframer” podcast, Open Mainframe Project host Steven Dickens chats about his unconventional career path with Benjamin Daniels, Cloud Solutions Engineer at Oracle. 

MLflow

• New release alert: MLflow 2.2.0 is now available! This latest version comes with several major features and improvements. Check out the release notes to learn more!

LF Networking 

• Stream session videos or review slides, and check out this recent blog post for more details and an event overview.
• LFN will host a “ONE Summit Regional Days - Vancouver” event on May 9, co-located with Open Source Summit North America, May 10-14. The half-day event will feature lively educational discussions about the importance of networking technologies to the entire tech ecosystem. Add it to your main Open Source Summit event registration for only $20 USD.
• Networking & Edge CTO, Ranny Haiby, graced the MWC Barcelona stage as part of a panel discussion entitled “Metaverse Ready Networks.” You can watch the full session on-demand on the LFN YouTube channel.
• Check out our new series, “LFN Community Voices,” featuring recent interviews with LFN ecosystem developers to learn more about working on the fringes of open source networking.

LF Edge

• LF Edge kicked off its first webinar this year. Community members from 50+ organizations gathered on LinkedIn and Zoom to learn how LF Edge projects securely and accurately monitor the Carbon Footprint in the world’s first BioGas Plant.
• LF Edge is collaborating with Open Grid Alliance on accelerating innovation for reimagining the Edge. Check out how we work together to advance the future of Edge Computing.
• LF Edge breaks down siloed solutions that retailers often get, such that each application has to have its own cameras and other specific hardware. For example, they do this by allowing a feed from one camera in this use case.
• Equinix and Aarna Networks collect and support multi-cloud strategies connecting the edge to public clouds with LF Edge. They explain how to build Edge solutions with LF Edge Akraino blueprints & ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) APIs.
• Join LF Edge and be part of a community dedicated to unifying edge compute projects, IoT frameworks, and blueprints to serve various markets. Telecom, Cloud, Enterprise, User, and Industrial Edge - they’ve got it covered! Become a member today.

Nephio

• With 70+ companies participating in Nephio, the project is gaining momentum in the telco world. Check out the latest update on the Nephio community and what telcos are most excited about.

Open 3D Engine (O3DE)

• O3DE is gearing up for an eventful year with new code releases, mobile gaming, and deeper connections with the metaverse and academia on the horizon. Game development and advancing human rendering remain a top priority, with O3DE's first jam on the calendar.
• Meanwhile, O3DE is making strides in the world of robotics with the addition of Robotec.ai as a new member. The company is contributing two new robotics plug-ins, O3DE ROS2, and O3DE RGL, to the platform. In a recent podcast, Robotec.ai shared how O3DE is helping to develop and validate the next generation of robots.
• To stay up-to-date on O3DE's plans for the year, learn more about their exciting developments on their website.

Open Metaverse Foundation (OMF)

• Open Metaverse is forging ahead with establishing clear priorities and actionable steps to build an interoperable infrastructure for the open metaverse, as Executive Director Royal O’Brien shared in a recent blog and interview.
• In a VentureBeat article, the Linux Foundation's Ranny Haiby and other experts weigh the importance of edge computing and automation for metaverse applications and experiences. 
• In a recent blog, Open Metaverse addresses Web3 topics such as blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, and non-fungible tokens.
• If you're interested in learning more and connecting with the Open Metaverse community, join them for their BoF discussion at KubeCon/CloudNativeCon in Amsterdam on April 18-21 or for over 15 sessions at the Open Metaverse Summit (co-located with Open Source Summit) on May 10-12 in Vancouver.

Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF)

• OpenSSF welcomes eight new members from technology firms, including Amesto Fortytwo, Code Intelligence, Kusari, Privado, Scotiabank, Technology Innovation Institute (TII), Open Source Business Alliance – Bundesverband für digitale Souveränität e.V. and Python Software Foundation.
• Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) draft of version 1.0 is available for comments.
• OpenSSF Day is happening on May 10th at Open Source Summit North America to discuss securing the OSS supply chain. Registration is open now.
• The OpenSSF hosted a Town Hall on March 16th, discussing recent project updates and how to get involved.
• The Atlantic Council released a report on OSS infrastructure, noting some OpenSSF work.
• A guest blog by John Speed Meyers of Chainguard explains how to make high-quality SBOMs.
• In the news, OpenSSF is tackling open-source security incidents, the future of security, and solving open-source security from Alpha to Omega.

PyTorch

• PyTorch has released version 2.0, which offers faster performance and support for dynamic shapes and distributed computing. Check out the new features and join the community!
• PyTorch also hosts live Q&A webinars with its engineers, virtual meetups for its global community and participates in the Open Source Summit in Vancouver in May 2023. 

TODO Group (OSPOs)

• The upcoming OSPOlogy event on March 29th will focus on OSPOs and transition paths for regulated environments. The panelists will discuss strategic considerations in three key areas: Procurement, Internal Culture, and External Affairs, which can aid in successfully adopting OSPOs. 

• We've announced the 2023 OSPO Survey and have invited organizations to partner with us to facilitate survey outreach, generate sample, and maximize the impact of this research. The survey will generate insights into the adoption and impact of OSPOs, balancing openness and control in OSPOs, and the security and sustainability of open source ecosystems. 
• Don't miss out on the chance to attend the OSPO BoF and Happy Hour at KubeCon Europe on April 20th! 
• The Employee Open Source Engagement Working Group is dedicated to creating a comprehensive guide that outlines various models for incentivizing and recognizing employee contributions to open source. This is an opportunity for anyone to get involved and contribute to this valuable resource.
• Thanks to the community's contributions, the OSPO Mind Map has been translated into Chinese and Japanese versions. These translations are intended to aid practitioners in comprehending the various components and structure of an OSPO.

RISC-V

• RISC-V Summit Europe will occur in Barcelona from June 5-9. The event will feature a single track of keynotes and selected talks, with an exhibition showcasing the latest developments across industry and research. Sponsorship packages are available on the event website. 
• Additionally, the RISC-V Foundational Associate (RVFA) Certification is now available for those seeking entry-level RISC-V roles or transitioning from another architecture. 
• Check out their March newsletter with the latest RISC-V news, blogs, and technical updates.

US GOV OPS

• The Linux Foundation recently announced the open sourcing of two new 5G projects, ProD3 and SEDIMENT, from Peraton Labs as part of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA’s) Open Programmable Secure 5G (OPS-5G) program. Both projects aim to improve 5G security through a portable, standards-compliant network stack that is open, plug-and-play, and secure by design.

Zephyr

• The Zephyr Project has welcomed new companies Blues Wireless, IRNAS, and Sternum to its open-source ecosystem as it achieves widespread adoption in products such as Google Chromebooks, Oticon hearing aids, and T-Mobile's DevEdge kits. 
• Benjamin Cabé has joined the project as a Developer Advocate, bringing over 15 years of experience in IoT, embedded, and AI communities. 
• Zephyr RTOS also powers GPS trackers for pets, called Lildog and Lilcat, which track location and monitor various health metrics.

LF in the media

• VentureBeat covers the 2.0 PyTorch release.
• According to O'Reilly analysis, PyTorch is pulling away from TensorFlow in developer interest, with PyTorch increasing by 20% and TensorFlow decreasing by 4.8% in usage of content. Keras, a frontend library that uses TensorFlow, dropped by 40%.
• CAMARA project developed and published the Open Gateway APIs announced at Mobile World Congress
• LF Energy mentioned in an article about using software for energy grid management based on nuclear fusion experiments
• 80% of organizations increased their use of open-source software over the last 12 months, according to OpenLogic's State of Open Source Report
• FINOS gained three new gold members and one new silver member
• Discover launches open-source-focused site, joins FINOS Foundation, and pledges to send developers to 50 events
• Asus switches from ARM to RISC-V for its Raspberry Pi competitor, the Thinker V.
• RISC-V coverage at Embedded World
• Article on the dynamics of the RISC-V market and Alibaba and Ant's joint venture to launch RISC-V chips for payments.
• Smart commentary on potential benefits and barriers to RISC-V adoption, with RISC-V potentially penetrating open-source prevalent environments first
• Another semiconductor company building its business on RISC-V experiences fast growth
• Semiconductor analyst's article on the rise of ARM, with RISC-V mentioned as the primary threat
• OpenWallet Foundation launch receives solid coverage from TechCrunch, and other sources
• Coverage of CloudNativeSecurityCon 2023, including top takeaways, Priyanka's talk, and Brian's talk
• Mentions of OpenSSF's scorecard program
• An article on the genesis of VEX, a vulnerability exploit data exchange format, a companion to software bill of materials (SBOM).
• SBOM and SPDX coverage in this SBOM 101 article
• RedHat donates Kepler power measurement tools for Kubernetes to CNCF.

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