Steve's News

3 key open source challenges in developing countries Ahmed Sobeh Thu, 04/27/2023 – 03:00 When I go back home and talk to people in the tech industry, or any other industry for that matter, about what I do and the topics I’m involved in daily, I’m usually met with bemusement at the idea of an Open Source Programs Office (OSPO). The concept of a company contributing to an open source project without obvious immediate financial benefit can be culturally strange to understand or explain. As someone born and raised in a country that has been trying to develop for quite some time, I understand and relate to that. There was a point in time when my only understanding of open source was that it was software that I could use without paying and without needing to wait for a specific issue or additional feature to be released. I could just do whatever I needed myself, locally. Open source faces many struggles in developing countries that make how it’s perceived and its associations inaccurate and out of touch. I will discuss these struggles in this article. Open source challenges in developing countries The challenges that open source faces in these regions can be divided into three main areas: Society and culture Resources and infrastructure Governance Society and culture It’s no secret that the culture of tech in general, and specifically the open source part of it, feeds off the culture of the society where it exists. That’s why, in today’s world, open source has a better chance of being sustained and maintained in the more developed parts of the world. But imagine a perfect society, optimal for open source to grow, be sustained, and maintained. What does the culture of that society look like? What are its main characteristics? Open and transparent For open source to thrive, the society’s culture must be as open and transparent as possible. Information must be freely and publicly accessible, which

Run a virtual conference using only open source tools mairin Thu, 04/27/2023 – 03:00 The Fedora Design Team discovered that using open source tools to run a virtual conference can be quite effective by hosting the first Creative Freedom Summit in January 2023. In this article, I’ll share some background on the conference, why using open source tools to run it was important to us, and the specific tools and configurations our team used to make it all work. I’ll also talk about what worked well and what will need improvement at our next summit in 2024. What is Creative Freedom Summit? The Creative Freedom Summit was an idea Marie Nordin came up with after reviewing talk submissions for Flock, the annual Fedora users and contributors conference. She received many talk submissions for the August 2022 Flock relating to design and creativity in open source—far more than we could possibly accept. With so many great ideas for open source design-related talks out there, she wondered if there would be space for a separate open source creativity conference focused on creatives who use open source tools to produce their work. Marie brought this idea to the Fedora Design Team in the fall of 2022, and we started planning the conference, which took place January 17-19, 2023. Since it was our first time running a new conference like this, we decided to start with invited speakers based on some of the Flock submissions and our own personal network of open source creatives. Almost every speaker we asked gave a talk, so we didn’t have room to accept submissions. We will need to figure out this next year, so we don’t have an open source CFP (Call for Papers) management tool for that to tell you about yet. Skip to bottom of list More Linux resources Linux commands cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Free online course: RHEL technical overview Linux networking cheat sheet SELinux cheat sheet

5 open ways to help UX designers and developers collaborate better kriker Wed, 04/26/2023 – 03:00 Ideally, designers have a good relationship with their product team and users. However, the relationship between designers and developers is more difficult to build and maintain. The lack of a close relationship makes it difficult to solve problems or improve. In my experience, the open source Open Decision Framework can overcome many of these obstacles. The Open Decision Framework asserts that open decision-making is transparent, inclusive, and customer-centric. It involves clearly sharing problems, requirements, and constraints with affected parties. It enables collaboration with multiple stakeholders to secure diverse opinions and comprehensive feedback. Most importantly, it manages relationships and expectations across competing needs and priorities. These principles probably resonate with anyone involved in the many decisions around designing a product, feature, or service. For a designer, developers are key stakeholders in making the best design decisions. If you’re a designer, it’s time to embrace the opportunity to get diverse opinions. The backend and the user experience Developers are key stakeholders because a user’s product or service experience is more than just the pixels on the screen or the workflow designs. It encompasses the service’s performance, the speediness of API calls, the way user data is treated, and even the design of the data for scalability. When they’re considered full stakeholders in the design, developers can contribute their expertise on the backend and architecture of services to assist the overall design of the experience. A user experience (UX) designer is a stakeholder for the items the dev team is responsible for. A performance deficit, or the effects of an architecture on what data is available, can hinder the user experience. An open, collaborative relationship between dev and design allows for trust and transparency in all areas. Skip to bottom of list Our favorite resources about open source Git cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Open source alternatives Free online course: RHEL