Articles by Jack M. Germain

Google on Wednesday announced the rebranding and expansion of its Cloud Launcher platform. Going forward, it will be known as the "Google Cloud Platform Marketplace," or "GCP Marketplace." It will offer production-ready commercial Kubernetes apps, promising simplified deployment, billing and third-party licensing Google's goal is to make containers...

Pinguy OS 18.04 is an Ubuntu-based distribution that offers a non-standard GNOME desktop environment intended to be friendlier for new Linux users.

Ascensio System SIA recently released its free office suite upgrade -- OnlyOffice Desktop Editors -- with a ribbon and tab interface plus numerous updated features. The refresh makes version 5.1 a potential alternative to Web versions of the Microsoft Office suite and Google Docs for Linux users.

Peppermint 9, released June 22, accomplishes something most other Linux distros don't: It melds the best components from other desktop environments and integrates them into a solid operating system....

Suse on Monday launched Suse Linux Enterprise 15, its latest flagship operating platform. SLE 15 bridges traditional infrastructure technologies with next-generation software-defined infrastructure, the company said. It will be fully available to existing customers for download or upgrade on July 16 The company also released enhancements to Suse Ma...

The 2018 Open Source Technology Jobs Report shows rapid growth in the demand for open source technical talent, with Linux skills a must-have requirement for entry-level positions The seventh annual report from The Linux Foundation and Dice, released Wednesday, identifies Linux coding as the most sought-after open source skill. Linux-based container...

Crate.io on Tuesday introduced a commercial Machine Data Platform, along with a new version of its open source SQL database for the Internet of Things and machine data. The company also announced an US$11 M Series A funding round The Machine Data Platform is Crate.io's first major commercial venture following last year's initial steps toward sellin...

Every once and a great while I stumble on a Linux distro that makes me sit up and smile. Modicia O.S. is one of them....

News flash: Private cloud economics can offer more cost efficiency than public cloud pricing structures Private (or on-premises) cloud solutions can be more cost-effective than public cloud options, according to "Busting the Myths of Private Cloud Economics," a report 451 Research and Canonical released Wednesday. That conclusion counters the notio...

Microsoft sent tremors through the open source world last week, when it announced that it would acquire the popular developer platform GitHub for US$7.5 billion in company stock Microsoft will acquire GitHub subject to closing conditions and completion of regulatory review. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the calendar year....

Red Hat on Monday launched its Fuse 7 cloud-native integration solution and introduced Fuse Online, an alternative integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) Red Hat Fuse is a lightweight modular and flexible integration platform with a new-style enterprise service bus (ESB) to unlock information. It provides a single, unified platform across hybrid...

SparkyLinux is experiencing growing pains. You could say that this very capable Linux distribution was just too much of a great thing to last....

WhiteSource on Tuesday launched its next-generation software composition analysis (SCA) technology, dubbed "Effective Usage Analysis," with the promise that it can reduce open source vulnerability alerts by 70 percent The newly developed technology provides details beyond which components are present in the application. It provides actionable insig...

RoboLinux is a unique distro that focuses on incorporating Windows versions XP through 10 within a fully functional Linux operating system You might never need the Stealth VM features that let you easily install and run Microsoft Windows within almost any Linux distro. Still, RoboLinux is a top-notch general-purpose Linux computing platform that co...

Black Duck by Synopsys on Tuesday released the 2018 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis report, which details new concerns about software vulnerabilities amid a surge in the use of open source components in both proprietary and open source software. The report provides an in-depth look at the state of open source security, license compliance an...

Microsoft and Red Hat on Tuesday introduced OpenShift on Azure at Red Hat Summit 2018 in San Francisco. This release is the first fully managed, easy-to-use version of OpenShift in the cloud, the companies said. The fully managed integration of OpenShift on Azure means that Microsoft and Red Hat will join to engineer, operate and support the plat...

If you have yet to try the developing Budgie desktop, the latest release of Ubuntu Budgie is a perfect opportunity to experience a classy and user-friendly computing platform....

The Fedora Project on Tuesday announced the general availability of Fedora 28, which introduces a new software delivery system based on a modular repository The new system provides alternative versions of the software and updates that come with the default release, according to Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller. It enables users to update specif...

Canonical last week released the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS platform for desktop, server, cloud and Internet of Things use. Its debut followed a two-year development phase that led to innovations in cloud solutions for enterprises, as well as smoother integrations with private and public cloud services, and new tools for container and virtual machine operations.

Canonical on Thursday released Ubuntu Linux 18.04, which utilizes live patching and a new metric data collection system. Notably missing is the Unity desktop that had distinguished the distro but was poorly received. Canonical last year made the switch from Unity 7 to upstream GNOME as Ubuntu's default desktop environment. Unity is not an option i...