Technical Committee Highlights March 21, 2016

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Long time, no see!

Poppy and our Open Core discussion

The Poppy team applied to add the project under OpenStack governance. Poppy, for those of you not familiar with it, provides CDN as a service. It’s a provisioning service – like other projects in OpenStack, such as Nova – but for CDNs. The overall proposal seemed to be fine except for one thing, there are no open source solutions for CDNs. This means Poppy provisions CDNs based on other commercial services and it requires consumers of Poppy to have an account in one of those CDN services to be able to use it.This presents several issues from an OpenStack perspective. One of them is the one mentioned before, which is that using Poppy requires clouds to rely on other CDNs. Another issue is that there is not good way to test the service in OpenStacks gates as there’s no open source solution for it. The OpenStack infra team won’t be subscribing to any of those CDN services for testing Poppy and nor is the Poppy team either.

There were quite a few discussions on this topic and the TC voted on whether the open core “issue” was critical enough to allow or reject Poppy from the big tent. In the review, there are different points of views on whether Poppy is actually Open Core or not and whether it should be allowed into OpenStack’s big tent regardless of the lack of an open source CDN solution. Ultimately the TC decided to reject the Poppy proposal in a close vote, 7-6.

Mission statement, take 2

As Russell Bryant puts it well in this Foundation mailing list thread, the OpenStack mission statement has held up pretty well for the life of the project. Discussions started about updates to ensure we include some key themes as focus areas for our growing community: interoperability and end users needs. The OpenStack technical committee has created an iteration on the mission statement, and the board is discussing as well. Take a look at the revisions so that our modifications can get buy-in across the community.

New projects

The OpenStack big tent welcomes the following projects:

  • Dragonflow, a distributed control plane implementation of Neutron that implements advanced networking services driven by the OpenStack Networking API.
  • Kuryr, a bridge between container framework networking models and the OpenStack networking abstraction.
  • Tacker, a lifecycle management tool providing Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Orchestration services and libraries.

New tag: stable:follows-policy

This new tag allows for indicating which deliverables follow the stable policy. The existing `release:has-stable-branches` tag that had been used so far ended up only describing if a deliverable has a branch called “stable/something”, and therefore did not properly indicate that stable policies are being followed. The new tag aims to cover that area and should eventually completely supersede the existing tag. You can read more about this tag in the tag reference page.

Animation software used to make Futurama and Studio Ghibli films is now free

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GoodNewsEveryone
Fans of Japanese anime will almost certainly have heard of Studio Ghibli, the firm behind iconic titles like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Studio Ghibli used a piece of animation software called Toonz […]

Small Business Tools: What I Use

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Russell Smith provides a rundown of the software he uses to manage his small business.

The post Small Business Tools: What I Use appeared first on Petri.

Anti-Hack: Free Automated SSL Certificates

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You want to put your credit card number into a web site. You know to look for a secure web site. But what does that really prove? And now that so many electronic projects have Web servers (ok, I’ll say it… the Internet of Things), do you need to secure your web server?

There was a time when getting a secure certificate (at least one that was meaningful) cost a pretty penny. However, a new initiative backed by some major players (like Cisco, Google, Mozilla, and many others) wants to give you a free SSL certificate. One reason they can …read more

Licence-Exempt Network Has High Ambitions

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It’s safe to say that the Internet of Things is high on the list of buzzwords du jour. It was last seen rapidly ascending towards the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the Gartner Hype Cycle, and it seems that every startup you encounter these days is trying to place an IoT spin on their offering. Behind all the hype though lie some interesting wireless technologies for cheaply making very small microprocessors talk to each other and to the wider world.

Today we’d like to draw your attention to another wireless technology that might be of interest to Hackaday readers working …read more

Chromium OS for All SBC Crams Chromium Onto a Raspberry Pi

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You can already install Chromium onto just about any computer out there, but that doesn’t include single board computers, like the Raspberry Pi or C.H.I.P. While it’s still early in development, Chromium OS for All SBC seeks to fix that oversight.

Read more…



OpenStack Developer Mailing List Digest March 12-18

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SuccessBot Says

  • Bknudson: we got rid of keystone CLI [in favor of OpenStack Client]
  • jrichli: it has been shown that Swift encryption can pass all functional tests.
  • Bauzas: only a very few Nova changes were missing a reno file, the team is now super-trained on getting them.
  • Odyssey4me: OpenStack-Ansible now has a Designate role ready for testing [1].
  • ttx: Glance is the first project to issue RC1!
  • Mugsie: mlavalle completed the Nova/Neutron/Designate DNS Integration along with docs + clients.
  • Odyssey4me: OpenStack-Ansible has released Kilo 11.2.11. It’s the first time that we’ve used the release team for a release and we love it!
  • Odyssey4me: OpenStack-Ansible Liberty 12.0.8 has been released.
  • Tell us yours via IRC with a message “#success [insert success]”.
  • All Successes

Current PTL Election Status

  • Important dates:
    • Election open: 2016-03-18 00:00 UTC
    • Election close: 2016-03-24 23:59 UTC
  • Projects with only one candidate: 41
  • Projects with no PTL candidates:
    • EC2-API
    • Stable Branch Maintenance
    • Winstackers
  • The TC will appoint a new PTL for projects without a candidate [2]
  • Confirmed Candidates [3]

Quotas – Service vs. Library

  • There is a spec for cross-project Quota work [4] that is seeking feedback to move ahead as a service or library.
  • Service:
    • New project to manage quotas for all projects that use the service.
    • It will be responsible for handling the enforcement, management and DB upgrades of the quotas logic for all.
    • However, all projects would have a big dependency on this one service.
  • Library – two ways:
    • Does not deal with database models
      • Maybe a ABC or even a few standard implementation vectors that can be imported into a project space.
      • The project will have it’s own API for quotas and the drivers will enforce different types (e.g. flat quota driver or hierarchical quota driver) with custom/project
      • Project maintains it’s own DB and upgrades.
    • A library that has models for DB tables that the project can import from.
      • Projects will have a handy outline of what the tables should look like.
      • Project has it’s own API and implements drivers in-tree by importing this semi-defined structure.
      • Project maintains it’s own upgrades but will be somewhat influenced by the common repo.
  • Or just avoid all this simply give guidelines.
  • A service has been proposed in the past with projects like Boson [5].
  • Tim Bell raises initially a library would be good.
    • If we can’t agree on a library, we’re unlikely to agree on a service.
    • Would allow for consistent implementation of nested and user quotas.
  • For projects like Trove that need a consistent lock on quotas of all projects, there are race condition issues for projects like Nova that need to be solved first.
  • The main issue with doing a library that was raised in a previous summit was how to tie in database table management with the existing tables owned by a project. While this is not impossible to solve, we need to think about which tools can help with that.
  • Full thread

Create a VNet-to-VNet VPN in the Azure Management Portal

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Learn how to create two virtual networks (VNets) and link them together using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) in the new Azure Management Portal.

The post Create a VNet-to-VNet VPN in the Azure Management Portal appeared first on Petri.

What Lies Beneath: The First Transatlantic Communications Cables

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For some reason, communications and power infrastructure fascinates me, especially the long-haul lines that move power and data over huge distances. There’s something about the scale of these projects that really gets to me, whether it’s a high-tension line marching across the countryside or a cell tower on some remote mountain peak. I recently wrote about infrastructure with a field guide that outlines some of the equipment you can spot on utility poles. But the poles and wires all have to end at the shore. Naturally we have to wonder about the history of the utilities you can’t see – …read more

Understanding ARM Chips for Servers, the Cloud and IoT

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Docker Container Orchestration: What You Need to Know

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IEEE delivers Ethernet-for-cars standard

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802.3bw, aka 100BASE-T1, is optimised for wire weight

The march of Ethernet into motor vehicles continues, with the IEEE launching the first automotive standard for 100 Mbps Ethernet over single twisted pair cables.…

Whatever happened to Green IT?

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When low energy levels are a good thing

Call it green computing or sustainable IT, ten years ago it was all the rage. The IT press was filled with articles about it. Today, it’s hard to find a headline that mentions it. What happened?…

Amazon Web Services Turns Ten Years Old

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Mechanic computers used to pwn cars in new model-agnostic attack

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Proof-of-concept gets shiny sharp new teeth.

Nullcon Hacker Craig Smith has designed an attack whereby a car bearing malicious code could infect computers used in mechanics’ workshops. The workshop computers emerge capable of infecting nearly any other vehicle that arrives for service.…

Oops! Microsoft says its ‘Bitcoin ban’ was a bug, not a feature

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Some twit put the wrong thing on the web and – silly us! – we took it at face value

Yesterday, we reported that Microsoft had stopped accepting Bitcoin in its digital tat bazaars.…

Skyhook Wireless brings location services to wearables in a petite package

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Table with glass of water, fitness wearable and smartphone on it. Skyhook Wireless has been working on location technology for longer than many of the biggest names in smartphones have been around. Today it launched a new SDK aimed at bringing location to wearables in an extremely small code footprint. The challenge with wearables when it comes to location is that there isn’t a lot of real estate inside them and thus they tend to have underpowered… Read More

LG builds a DAB+ digital radio radio into a smartmobe

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Not everyone has Spotify, or the download allowance to use it

Here’s an oddity: LG has launched a smartphone with a built-in DAB+ broadcast digital radio.…

A simple typo stopped a $1 billion bank heist

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typo
Typos happen, and it’s not usually the end of the world. Worst case: you just go back and fix them. A typo has probably never cost you money, and even if it has, […]

Phonvert has a plan to convert old smartphones into IoT nodes

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pic While many retired smartphones still work and have usable sensors like cameras, accelerometers, touch screens and bluetooth radios, large swaths of them remain unused or, worse yet, end up in landfills. The team at Phonvert created an open source software platform that can convert old smartphones into usable IoT (Internet of Things) nodes. Read More

WD’s PiDrive gives your Raspberry Pi 314GB of storage

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Sure, you can already add storage to your Raspberry Pi, but it’s usually an exercise in trade-offs: SD cards don’t hold much data, and USB drives (even the portable ones) tend to be too big and power-hungry for a mini PC. WD doesn’t think you should have to compromise, though. It’s shipping a new PiDrive that stuffs 314GB into a slim design that won’t overwhelm the Pi’s power system, but is fast enough to make full use of the USB connection. It even has a special version of BerryBoot (a multi-operating system tool) to help you load your platform of choice and fill that abundant space with apps.

The PiDrive is relatively expensive. Its normal $45.81 (£39.50) price is higher than that of the Raspberry Pi itself, and even a "limited-time" cut to $31.42 (£27.09) may have you thinking carefully before pulling the trigger. If you have a media server or another Raspberry Pi project that simply can’t get by on a few dozen gigs, though, it might be worth shelling out a little extra.

Via: Western Digital (PR Newswire)

Source: WD PiDrive (US), (UK)

Google adds support for Microsoft Office, Facebook at Work, Slack and others to its single sign-on solution

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unnamed Google doesn’t just offer its own web-based productivity apps, but it also offers a service for business users who want to use Google as an identity provider for accessing other online services using the widely used SAML standard. Today, Google is adding a few new options to this program, which now includes a number of Google competitors. Among the 14 new pre-configured options are the… Read More

Zubie makes your car part of the Internet of Things

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Zubie connected car device It seems like I talk about connected cars and V2X and autonomous vehicles like it’s my job. Probably because it is. But like a lot of people, I do not yet own a car that’s connected in any way. There are a lot of new companies that want to rectify this situation for us by using the OBD-II port to bring Wi-Fi and connected apps to the cars we already drive. If you’re wondering… Read More

Google joins Facebook’s effort to reinvent the data center

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Facebook and Google aren’t the best of friends, but they’re willing to make exceptions for the right causes: Google has joined Facebook’s Open Compute Project in a bid to improve data centers everywhere. It’s starting off by contributing a new server rack spec that both improves power handling and lets project members’ racks slip into Google computing farms. The move isn’t entirely surprising, even though it involves an arch-rival. Google is no stranger to building its own hardware — it’s just offering some of that know-how to the tech industry in hopes of getting some upgrades in return.

It’s not the only company making moves, either. Microsoft is contributing SONiC, or Software for Open Networking in the Cloud. The code should help companies build switches and other networking gear using open source, widely compatible technology. While you probably won’t see a lot of these collaborations first-hand, you might just notice the difference if your favorite cloud services run that much faster or supply you with more storage.

Source: Google Cloud Platform Blog, Microsoft Azure Blog

OpenStack Developer Mailing List Digest March 5-11

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SuccessBot Says

  • Ajaeger: All jobs moved from bare-trusty to ubuntu-trusty.
  • Clarkb: Infra is running logstash 2.0 now
  • Tell us yours via IRC with a message “#success [insert success]”.
  • All Successes

Cross-Project

  • API guidelines ready for review:
    • Header non proliferation [1]
    • Client interaction guideline for microversions [2]

Election Season, PTL and TC

  • PTL elections:
    • Important dates:
      • Nominations open: 2016-03-11 00:00 UTC
      • Nominations close: 2016-03-17 23:59 UTC
      • Election open: 2016-03-18 00:00 UTC
      • Election close: 2016-03-24 23:59 UTC
    • Every project team must elect a PTL every 6 months.
    • More info and how to submit your candidacy [3].
  • TC elections:
    • Important dates:
      • Nominations open: 2016-03-25 00:00 UTC
      • Nominations close: 2016-03-31 23:59 UTC
      • Election open: 2016-04-01 00:00 UTC
      • Election close: 2016-04-07 23:59 UTC
    • Under the rules of the TC charter [4] we renew 7 TC seats. Seats are valid for one year.
    • More info and how to submit your candidacy [5].
  • Full thread

The stable:follows-policy Tag Is Official, Projects Need To Start Applying For It

  • This is official in the governance documents [6].
  • Projects that follow the stable branch policy [7] should start applying.
  • Full thread

 

Release Countdown For Week R-3, March 14-18

  • Focus:
    • Projects teams following cycle-with-milestone model:
      • Preparing their first Mitaka release candidate this week.
      • This should be tagged using (X.Y.Z.0rc1) as soon as the pressure to unfreeze master is stronger than the cost of backporting bugfixes.
      • The release team will create stable branches from the release candidate tag points.
    • Project teams following the cycle-with-intermediary model
      • Ensure you have at least one mitaka release.
      • Determine if you need another release before the end of the Mitaka cycle.
    • All feature freeze exceptions that haven’t landed at this point should wait until Newton.
  • General Notes:
    • The global requirements list is frozen. If you need to change a dependency, for a bug fix, please provide enough detail in the change request to allow the requirements review team to evaluate the change.
    • User-facing strings are frozen to allow the translation team time to finish their work.
  • Release Actions:
    • The release team has started creating the stable/mitaka branches for libraries.
    • Follow-up on the mailing list thread [8] to acknowledge and approve the version number to use to create the branch.
      • This only includes projects with release:managed tag.
      • Other projects can post on the thread of request their own branches.
  • Important Dates:
    • RC target week: R-1, March 28 – April 1
    • Mitaka final release: April 4-8
    • Mitaka release schedule [9].
  • Full thread

Reminder: WSME Is Not Being Actively Maintained

  • Chris Dent and Lucas Gomes have been actively verifying bug fixes and keeping things going with WSME, but are no longer interested or have the time to continue. It was also found it never really reached a state where any of the following are true:
    • The WSME code is easy to understand and maintain.
    • WSME provides correct handling of HTTP (notably response status and headers).
    • WSME has an architecture that is suitable for creating modern Python-based web applications.
  • There’s a suggestion for the 24 different OpenStack projects that are using it to move to something else.
  • One big reason for choosing WSME earlier was that it had support for both XML and JSON without application code needing to do anything explicitly.
    • The community has decided to stop providing XML API support and some other tools have been used instead to provide parsing and validation features similar to WSME:
      • JSONSchema
      • Voluptuous
  • Full thread