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Mar 11, 2016 

SourceForge Hosted Projects to Participate in This Year’s Google Summer of Code

It’s an exciting time for open source as once again, Google Summer of Code brings together numerous open source organizations and students from all over the world. Google Summer of Code is an annual program that introduces students to open source software development through the course of the summer. Each student is paired with a mentor organization, and we’re proud to report that among the 180 open source projects chosen to be mentors this year, many of them are also SourceForge projects. These include but are not limited to:

ArchC – an architecture description language based on SystemC
Ascend – equation solving software for engineering system modeling
Blender – a free/open source 3D creation software
BRL-CAD – a powerful cross-platform constructive solid modeling system
Chapel – an emerging parallel programming language
Civicrm – web-based Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) software for non-profit and other civic-sector organizations
Gambit – software for analysis of game theory models
ModSecurity – an Open Sourced Web Application Firewall
Moodle – a learning management system designed to create personalized learning environments
MuseScore – free and open source music notation software for Windows, Mac and Linux
OpenCV – Open Source Computer Vision and Machine Learning Library
ScummVM – a cross-platform interpreter for many point-and-click adventure games
Strace – a diagnostic, debugging and instructional system call and signal delivery tracer
SymPy – Computer algebra system in Python
XWiki – generic platform for developing collaborative applications on the wiki paradigm

Also among the roster of mentor organizations is the Apache Software Foundation. This is the community behind Apache Allura, which powers all the developer tools on SourceForge.

The organizations were selected from more than 360 applicants, and over the course of the summer will be aiding students in contributing to open source. We applaud all of these projects for earning their role as mentors and wish them well with their endeavors.

Google Summer of Code will officially commence with mentoring on April 23, 2016. For more information visit https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/

Mar 7, 2016 

Projects of the Week, March 7, 2016

Here are the featured projects for the week, which appear on the front page of SourceForge.net:

Process Hacker
Process Hacker is a free and open source process viewer. This multi-purpose tool will assist you with debugging, malware detection and system monitoring. It includes powerful process termination, memory viewing/editing and other unique and specialized features.
[ Download Process Hacker ]


libjpeg-turbo
libjpeg-turbo is a JPEG image codec that uses SIMD instructions (MMX, SSE2, NEON) to accelerate baseline JPEG compression and decompression on x86, x86-64, and ARM systems. On such systems, libjpeg-turbo is generally 2-4x as fast as libjpeg, all else being equal. On other types of systems, libjpeg-turbo can still outperform libjpeg by a significant amount, by virtue of its highly-optimized Huffman coding routines. In many cases, the performance of libjpeg-turbo rivals that of proprietary high-speed JPEG codecs. libjpeg-turbo implements both the traditional libjpeg API as well as the less powerful but more straightforward TurboJPEG API. libjpeg-turbo also features colorspace extensions that allow it to compress from/decompress to 32-bit and big-endian pixel buffers (RGBX, XBGR, etc.), as well as a full-featured Java interface.
[ Download libjpeg-turbo ]


SMPlayer
SMPlayer is a free media player for Windows and Linux with built-in codecs that can also play YouTube videos. One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave… don’t worry, when you open that movie again it will be resumed at the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume… SMPlayer is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the award-winning MPlayer, which is capable of playing almost all known video and audio formats. But apart from providing access for the most common and useful options of MPlayer, SMPlayer adds other interesting features like the possibility to play YouTube videos subtitles.
[ Download SMPlayer ]


Hugin
With Hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete immersive panorama, stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more.
[ Download Hugin ]


NAPS2 (Not Another PDF Scanner 2)
NAPS2 has a new home page! Visit www.naps2.com. NAPS2 is a document scanning application with a focus on simplicity and ease of use. Scan your documents from WIA- and TWAIN-compatible scanners, organize the pages as you like, and save them as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, and other file formats. Requires .NET Framework 4.0 or higher. NAPS2 is currently available in over 20 different languages. Want to see NAPS2 in your preferred language? Help translate! See the wiki for more details. This is a fork of the NAPS project with many improvements.
[ Download NAPS2 (Not Another PDF Scanner 2) ]


antiX-Linux
antiX is a fast, lightweight and easy to install linux live CD distribution based on Debian Testing for Intel-AMD x86 compatible systems.
[ Download antiX-Linux ]


PCGen :: An RPG Character Generator
PCGen is a free open source RPG character generator (d20 systems). All datafiles are ASCII so they can be modified by users for their own campaigns. Please join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pcgen/. Support email: help@pcgen.org
[ Download PCGen :: An RPG Character Generator ]


WinBOLT
This tool is created by a Technician for the Technicians. This will simplify your job on the Windows Operating System. Working with these systems, more often than not tasks like maintenance becomes perpetual. With that in mind, my ultimate goal and function of WinBOLT was simple, fool proof secure automation. WinBOLT automats the standard process of annoying Windows Updates, Malware Scans, running CCleaner etc. This tool is simple, effective and powerful.
[ Download WinBOLT ]


GeoServer
GeoServer is an open source software server written in Java that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards: WMS, WFS, WCS, WPS and REST
[ Download GeoServer ]

Mar 4, 2016 

Lessons We Can Learn from the Linux Mint Hack

It’s been two weeks since the Linux Mint hacking incident was first reported. It was no doubt a major blow to the project but thankfully, the people behind it have pulled through and taken every measure to ensure this never happens again. It was certainly a learning experience for the developers of the distro, and for the rest of us as well.

So what can we all learn from this? A few things:

1. Anyone can be hacked.
In response to the generally negative views towards Mint and the hacking, many redditors have commented that this event was actually not that shocking. Many of them pointed out that if large companies like Sony experience being breached multiple times despite tight security, how much more distros like Mint? This is not to downplay the issue, but to inform the general public that it’s really a situation that can happen to anyone. Unlike Sony however, Mint had to deal with more negative press than they could handle, which brings us to the next lesson:

2. Manage your press.
Many Mint users agree that although the situation was bad, it received far more bad press than it should have, with plenty of vitriol along with it. It’s difficult to handle such things, but if the entire Linux community gave their full support and Mint had acknowledged and addressed the situation sooner, then perhaps the negative press would have been minimized. Unfortunately, this wasn’t entirely the case.

3. Always be aware.
According to Silviu Stahie of Softpedia, though the Linux Mint team claimed the hacking to be a recent event, they were already given a warning about it a month prior. On January 16 Pieter Vlasblom, a freelance Information Security Engineer and Developer informed the team of the breach via Twitter, and even had an image to prove it. But as we all know now, the team only publicly recognized the existence of hacked ISOs over a month later. Stahie suggests that this may be because the Mint team simply didn’t check their Twitter account often. This just goes to show that it pays to check on all sources of project-related information especially those served on a silver platter, like your own social media pages.

4. Strengthen security.
This is perhaps the most crucial and pertinent lesson of all. Although it started out as a small project, Mint undoubtedly became a very popular distribution. When distros reach this level of popularity it’s crucial for the developers to have the necessary security structures in place. There’s no room for compromise here, especially for a serious distribution like what Mint turned out to be.

Anything else you’ve learned from this series of unfortunate events? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Mar 3, 2016 

March 2016, “Staff Pick” Project of the Month – WinPython

For our March “Staff Pick” Project of the Month, we selected WinPython, an open-source portable distribution of the Python programming language for Windows XP/7/8. Pierre Raybaut, creator and developer of WinPython, and his current maintainer Big Stone shared their thoughts about the project’s history, purpose, and direction.

SourceForge (SF): What made you start this project?
Pierre Raybaut (PR): In 2008, I was getting tired of working around MATLAB limitations and looking for an alternative to this language/IDE for signal and image processing software development. Apart from the required scientific features that almost all candidates had (MATLAB, IDL, Python, Ruby, F#), it had to be a modern fundamentally-object-oriented high-level language (exit MATLAB, IDL), with advanced GUI features (exit MATLAB, IDL) and a strong scientific community (exit Ruby, F#). Python was the best choice. And, for various reasons, I had to develop applications on Windows. So, I was rapidly confronted with the distribution issue: how to install all Python material necessary to develop my scientific applications? That’s why I’ve created the Python(x,y) project (https://sourceforge.net/projects/python-xy/): a single Windows executable for installing an all-in-one Python-based scientific development environment (Python official distribution plus tons of third-party libraries, the Spyder IDE, compilers like MinGW, and so on). But Python(x,y) was quite invasive in the Windows OS (registry entries, start menu entries, …) and like the official Python distribution, it did not allow to install more than one Python distribution (let’s say Python 2.7 and Python 3.4 for example) without messing with the environment variables. So, in 2012, I’ve decided to act by creating WinPython: a portable distribution of Python, allowing to install a complete functional scientific Python environment without modifying any Windows system setting (registry entries, environment variables, file type associations and start menu shortcuts are not affected ; unless you want to: there is an option for that, allowing to switch easily from a WinPython folder to another) to install multiple Python versions without any interference whatsoever or to run Python from a removable device.

SF: Has the original vision been achieved?
PR: Absolutely. Of course, the distribution process has been improved since 2012 and other interesting features have been added since then but the original vision has been achieved almost since the first release.

SF: Who can benefit the most from your project?
PR: Scientific Python users working on Windows looking for a complete developement environment that can be executed from anywhere with any requirement.

SF: What core need does WinPython fulfill?
PR: Providing a full-featured scientific Python distribution packaged in an all-in-one installer. Installing Python everywhere with or without administrative privileges. Allowing multiple Python installations on a Windows single machine without any interference.

SF: What’s the best way to get the most out of using WinPython?
Big Stone (BS): When you see an error or a missing feature, contribute ‘ideas’/’error report with sample tests’/’patches and pull request’ to the relevant project.

SF: What has your project team done to help build and nurture your community?
BS:WinPython is trying to grow the number of Python-stack satisfied users:

– on Windows also, where most beginners are, by making installation easy,

– on standards (Python 3, pip), where most beginners should be headed to.

It’s about what Jessica Mc Kellar is describing here : https://youtu.be/fhv-4QLGsso?t=1207

SF: Have you all found that more frequent releases helps build up your community of users?
BS: Each project has a pertinent pace of releases, and that seems between 6 and 12 weeks for WinPython.

SF: What was the first big thing that happened for your project?
BS: It survived a bus factor of 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor), and remembers it.

SF: What helped make that happen?
BS: Pierre did create a good enough documentation to allow a User to step-in.

At least one user had no better choice than to step in, because of strong investment in WinPython Deployment.

As result, the current maintainer:

– ensures users can even more easily replicate/fork the project, by improving the build documentation and simplifying WinPython

– tries to improve “Python 3 stack on Windows” as a whole, so the specific cost to achieve “WinPython” experience is going down to “feather price”

SF: How has SourceForge and its tools helped your project reach that success?
BS: Sourceforge is well-suited to WinPython because of the following:

– its capacity to propose and distribute quickly the big WinPython distributions,

– its popularty (downloads) follow-up,

– its asked price (free), for this not-easily-sustainable kind of service.

Thank you, Sourceforge.
(You’re very welcome. :-) )

SF: What is the next big thing for WinPython?
BS: A “Feature-complete” WinPython 3.5.

SF: How long do you think that will take?
BS: Between 2 and 6 months, but that’s just a guess.

SF: Do you have the resources you need to make that happen?
BS: NumFocus provides the support to mingwpy “corner-stone” project that is needed for that.

SF: If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently for WinPython?
BS: Dropping dying technologies sooner rather than later.

Users don’t move away from dying technologies until you stop maintaining them.

SF: Is there anything else we should know?
BS: Dream:

– Python 3+ is the preferred user-script system on all Windows,

– Python 3+ “full stack” for non-admin users is on all Windows,

– Winpython is just a “check list of features” over that, if ever it is still needed.

[ Download WinPython ]

Mar 1, 2016 

March 2016, “Community Choice” Project of the Month – SparkyLinux

For our March “Community Choice” Project of the Month, the community elected SparkyLinux, a lightweight and fast Debian-based Linux distribution. Pawel Pijanowski, founder and developer of SparkyLinux, shared his thoughts about the project’s history, purpose, and direction.

SourceForge (SF): Tell me about the SparkyLinux project please.
Pawel Pijanowski (Pijanowski): SparkyLinux is an open-sourced project, which provides a Linux distribution slightly customized from the Debian GNU/Linux for end users. The ‘slightly customized’ means that it’s a pure Debian base with a special Sparky touch to make it as beginner-friendly as possible. This is a very short description of Sparky, but I hope it gives the Sparky spirit.

SF: What made you start this?
Pijanowski: The project started as a personal experiment in 2011. My hunger for knowledge pushed me to get more experiences around Linux distributions in general, but testing and using existing ones wasn’t enough for me. I needed something else that could make me work on top of the power and give possibilities to create something that could make other guys happy.

SF: Has the original vision been achieved?
Pijanowski: Yes, it has. All versions starting from No. 2 are archived on the SourceForge server. Older ones – Sparky 1 and its parent ue17r (Ubuntu Enlightenment 17 Remix – my first project) are still stored on my local drive. If someone would be interested in that, they can be re-published, no problem.

SF: Who spearheaded this project?
Pijanowski: Most of the job is [done] by me. A few things are made by MoroS, and many of the most important ideas and solutions have been made and used thanks to his consulting.
On the other side, without our forums and fan pages run by our community members (The Black Pig, Liz Mills, Albedo 0.64, and others), contact with our users and helping them could be difficult. So the one guy who put all the software pieces into an iso image is nothing without the strong backup given by many guys working [behind the scenes].

SF: What core need does SparkyLinux fulfill?
Pijanowski: The main purpose of Sparky is, as somebody already said: “to make Debian more easy to manage, configure and use, specially for new Linux and/or Debian users.” Pre-installed Wifi drivers, multimedia codecs and applications for any task makes Sparky the perfect choice for home and small business users that want to replace other, proprietary driven operating systems with the open-source.

SF: What’s the best way to get the most out of using SparkyLinux?
Pijanowski: There are a few ways to do so, for example:
1. Simply try it out without making any changes on your existing hard drive structure – run Sparky from a CD/DVD or USB drive in live mode
2. Try it out in a virtual machine software
3. Add Sparky repository to an existing Debian testing/Sid based operating system and try Sparky solutions/tools
4. Install Sparky to a hard drive to get all the benefits available from the live/installation media.

SF: What has your project team done to help build and nurture your community?
Pijanowski: The most important is activity and sharing knowledge (does not matter how small) to others, especially to new Sparky and general Linux users. The next one is the Linux and open-source popularity. The third one is cooperation between others, similar projects, sharing the knowledge and finding solutions. All these things are [being done] by the team and our community members.

SF: Have you all found that more frequent releases helps build up your community of users?
Pijanowski: No… Due to Sparky using the rolling release model and also, if it is already installed on a hard drive, there is no reason to download a newer iso image and reinstall the system. New iso images provide an up-to-date installation media for new users to test it and install on a hard drive. Creating new iso images more often (one per month/two months) could only confuse users and [require unnecessary work]. It’s much better to focus on new features and fix reported bugs. That’s what really makes [people] happy, than releasing another iso image.

SF: What was the first big thing that happened for your project?
Pijanowski: Don’t know… There were a few big steps in the past which pushed the project forward.

SF: What helped make those happen?
Pijanowski: A few things, for example: we kept improving Sparky, adding new features and versions, added Sparky’s own site (in English, before it was only a Polish page), added forums, added to the biggest Linux services data base around – DistroWatch, listing Sparky as a candidate to the project of the week and month of SourceForge. All together, every one of these things made Sparky more recognized than before. Even if some of the guys will not stay with us, some of them will find something interesting in the Linux and the open-source world. That’s a really good point to keep Sparky running.

SF: How has SourceForge and its tools helped your project reach that success?
Pijanowski: I found in SourceForge a few very useful things for me and my project.

1. The file hosting – my server usage is limited so putting the iso files would stop it quickly
2. The git repository – all the Sparky tools are open-sourced so it is good place to keep and share them
3. Bug tracker, Wiki pages, Forums and other tools [make] SourceForge useful as a project page
4. SourceForge is well-known, so keeping the project page here is good point in general to find more users and contributors

SF: What is the next big thing for SparkyLinux?
Pijanowski: I received many emails asking me to make more Sparky spins with other desktops. Unfortunately, there are too many Sparky spins already existing to make more now.
After [some] consulting and looking at the forum discussions (still open), the next move is to find a compromise between the other spins/desktops requests and keeping the same number of Sparky versions (no bigger number, better if smaller). It’ll be made via a minimal iso image with re-configured systems installer which will give a choice to install any desktop environment/window manager with as small a number of additional applications as possible, to give users the possibility to configure any desktop as they wish.

SF: How long do you think that will take?
Pijanowski: It’s already in progress, should be available for testing very soon.

SF: Do you have the resources you need to make that happen?
Pijanowski: All I need to finish it, is the time and a lot of testings.

SF: If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently for SparkyLinux?
Pijanowski: Nothing. I still believe that I’ve chosen right and the present way is correct.
But all the things change depending on the time, so the time will show.

SF: Is there anything else we should know?
Pijanowski: The biggest Sparky problem, as with similar projects is finding money.
Even I ask the community every year for donations to cover the VPS and domains fees, [but] what always happens is, the rest of the year is usually empty (of money). The best way to fix it, would be to find a sponsor/sponsors that could be interested in helping the project, or donations from community members every month. It could be really helpful to keep the Sparky project alive as long as possible.

[ Download SparkyLinux ]

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