OPEN SOURCE
BUSINESS: Giving Open-Source Projects Life After a Developer’s Death. You’ve probably never heard of the late Jim Weirich or his software. But you’ve almost certainly used apps built on his work. Weirich helped create several key tools for Ruby, the popular programming language used to write the code for sites like Hulu, Kickstarter, Twitter, and countless others. His code was open source, meaning that anyone could use it and modify it. “He was a seminal member of the western world’s Ruby community,” says Justin Searls, a Ruby developer and co-founder of the software company Test Double. When Weirich died in 2014, Searls noticed that no one was maintaining one of Weirich’s software-testing tools. That meant there would be no one to approve changes if other developers submitted bug fixes, security patches, or other improvements. Any tests that relied on the tool would eventually fail, as the code became outdated and incompatible with newer tech. Read more
[WIRED.COM]
OPEN STACK: Next Mission – Bridging the Gaps Between Open Source Projects. OpenStack, the massive open source project that provides large businesses with the software tools to run their data center infrastructure, is now almost eight years old. While it had its ups and downs, hundreds of enterprises now use it to run their private clouds and there are even over two dozen public clouds that use the project’s tools. Users now include the likes of AT&T, Walmart, eBay, China Railway, GE Healthcare, SAP, Tencent and the Insurance Australia Group, to name just a few. Read the rest
[TECHCRUNCH.COM]
REPORT: Open Source Software Projects are Maturing. Electronic design automation company Synopsys released the findings of its 2017 Coverity Scan Report, which shows an increased of “project maturity” in the over 4,600 open source software projects analyzed based on certain secure development strategies. Find out more
[SDTIMES.COM]
FEDERAL NEWS: How One Contractor Belittled the White House’s IT Modernization Strategy. The White House is busily reviewing more than 90 comments on its draft IT modernization strategy. The comments came from industry associations, specific companies and individuals, including federal employees, and most were pretty vanilla, offering basic support for the initiatives in the draft strategy and insights, both generally and specific to the organizations’ or vendors’ area of expertise. But none was more fascinating then the flames Oracle decided to throw about the entire IT modernization effort over the last nine years. Read more
[FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM]
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NOW ON SLIDESHARE: Tech Update Summary from Blue Mountain Data Systems October 2017 https://www.slideshare.net/BMDS3416/tech-update-summary-from-blue-mountain-data-systems-october-2017.
IT SECURITY SUPPORT: Blue Mountain Data Systems is actively involved in implementing FISMA and NIST standards with Federal Civilian Agencies. Due to our extensive experience in this area, Blue Mountain has developed processes and organizational techniques to help ensure security deliverables are completed on time, and performed in the most efficient manner possible. We ensure that NIST-800-53 control requirements are treated consistently during definition, analysis, implementation, auditing, and reporting phases of a system. Find out more about Blue Mountain Data Systems IT Security Support Services. Call us at 703-502-3416.
BLUE MOUNTAIN DATA SYSTEMS HAS THE EXPERIENCE: 1994 to Present – U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration. Responsible to the Office of Technology and Information Systems for information systems architecture, planning, applications development, networking, administration and IT security, supporting the enforcement of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act — ERISA. Within the EBSA, Blue Mountain is responsible for design, development and support for its various enforcement database management systems, as well as all case tracking and customer service inquiry systems. Blue Mountain also provides IT security services to the EBSA, in the form of FISMA Assessment and Authorization, System Security Plans, Risk and vulnerability assessments, monitoring and investigation support. Read more.
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