JiHu GitLab gets Series A round of financing

JiHu GitLab, an open source startup, has completed the Series A round of funding for hundreds of millions of yuan. This round of funding will be utilised for product development, market expansion, open source ecological construction, and independent intellectual property research.

This batch of funding was split into two parts. Temasek led the first stage, with Alpha Prime, GGV Capital, Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Industry Fund, and Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) Fund following. Taikang Insurance Group led the second stage, followed by Cheers Fund, Lenovo Capital, and Incubator Group. Sequoia Broadband Cross-border Digital Industry Investment Partnership and Gaocheng Capital, among others, increased their investments in the company during this round.

JiHu GitLab is a DevOps firm founded by GitLab Inc., a US-based open source platform, and supported with Chinese funds. It began operations in March 2021, with its US parent providing technology and branding. The company is run by local staff that is separate from the rest of the operations. GitLab Inc.’s shareholding ratio will be decreased to less than 50 per cent following this round of funding, and China’s own independent operating system will be implemented.

The firm independently investigated, created, and launched the ‘GitLab Integrated Security DevOps Platform’, ‘GitLab SaaS’, and ‘GitNative DevOps Integrated Machine’, which are more tailored to the demands of Chinese developers; the company’s infrastructure and data are stored in China.

Open Robotics to provide open source simulator for maritime contest

Open Robotics will provide the open source simulator for the simulation phase of the MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge, according to ASPIRE, the technology programme management arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC).

For the upcoming part of the competition, semi-finalists will conduct inspection and intervention tasks in simulation, and the technology will combine previous weather data from the Swiss firm meteoblue. Competitors will be able to access historical Abu Dhabi weather data from the past 20 years to replicate realistic weather conditions.

The simulation platform will be built on Gazebo and Robot Operating System by Open Robotics, a global leader in software for robotics simulation and application development. Gazebo is an open source 3D robotics simulator that simulates robots for a variety of applications, including marine robotics.

Dr Ray O. Johnson, ASPIRE’s acting chief executive, stated, “With Open Robotics and meteoblue, we have selected two organisations that are both at the pinnacle of their respective fields. The MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge will push the boundaries in maritime robotics. We are providing the competitors with a world-class simulation environment with Open Robotics and meteoblue.”

“We are making all the software open source,” Dr Johnson continued. “Our mission is to drive the creation of transformative technologies and encourage global collaboration to help stimulate innovation across the field of maritime robotics. Sharing the technology to help make innovation easier was our goal.”

Airbyte acquires Grouparoo

Airbyte, an open source data integration platform, has acquired Grouparoo, an open source startup that helps businesses sync data between data warehouses and cloud-based applications. This compliments Airbyte’s products in many respects, as Airbyte concentrates on loading data into data warehouses, whereas Grouparoo focuses on operationalising that data.

“It’s an open source reverse ETL [extract, transform, load] company,” Airbyte co-founder and CEO Michel Tricot said. “They focus exactly on the other direction [from Airbyte]. They have a very strong technical team and they’ve already built a part of the product; it’s going to be about how we can leverage everything that they’ve done and get them into the team to expand the Airbyte product for reverse ETL.”

Airbyte isn’t so much buying the product as it is the team’s knowledge, according to Tricot. He stated, “We are not integrating their technology. It’s more about their knowledge and experience.” Tricot also mentioned that the Grouparoo team has always focused on making its service accessible to a non-technical audience, which is something Airbyte has also been focused on for a long time (though it also offers a command-line tool for technical users that want more flexibility, too).

Brian Leonard, Grouparoo’s CEO and co-founder, wrote: “Thank you to our users and investors for your continued support. Grouparoo certainly had a set of early believers and users that saw what we were trying to accomplish.

They deployed Grouparoo in their infrastructure or on our cloud, and some even built their own plugins to extend the platform. When we really took a hard look at it, though, we were not on the right path to have the impact that we wanted to have in the world.”

He felt Airbyte was on the right track, because in order to operationalise data, practically every organisation today must extract and load it into their warehouses.

ForAllSecure contributes US$ 2 million to improve the security of open source software

ForAllSecure has contributed US$ 2 million to improve the security of open source software. The firm also announced that a free version of its flagship game, Mayhem, will be available. Mayhem, the winner of the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge and a Smithsonian Institution AI display, will now be available for free to anyone incorporating the product into any GitHub project.

Although open source software is mission-critical, it is chronically under-tested in terms of security. OSS developers, according to the Linux Foundation, desire free security assessments and the incorporation of security to their continuous integration pipeline. With its Mayhem Heroes program, ForAllSecure is donating up to US$ 2 million to help satisfy these demands. Anyone who successfully integrates Mayhem into a qualifying OSS GitHub project will be awarded US$ 1,000.

“We’re on a mission to automatically find and fix the world’s exploitable bugs before attackers can succeed. OSS developers need help, and don’t have access to the tools they need to quickly and easily find vulnerabilities,” said David Brumley, chief executive officer and co-founder of ForAllSecure. “Our Mayhem Heroes program democratizes software security testing; it will make tens of thousands of OSS projects safer, and ultimately impact the security of systems used by everyone around the world.”

Mayhem for Code and Mayhem for API, both versions of the Mayhem security tools, are now available for personal use for free. Mayhem’s unique algorithms were developed at Carnegie Mellon University and were rated groundbreaking in the Cyber Grand Challenge by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Start gaming platforms directly from Steam Deck with this games manager

The Lutris games manager’s recent upgrade, which comes with an open source solution, allows you to start a variety of top gaming platforms directly from your Steam Deck, all from a single, unified UI.

According to Computer Base, the software uses proprietary scripts

to get runtime environments and compatibility layers like Wine to function via a subsystem. The Epic Games Store, Humble Bundle, Dolphins emulator, GOG launcher, and, of course, Steam, are all supported by these programs, commonly known as runners. It’s compatible with both Steam for Windows and Steam for Linux.

Lutris also allows you to integrate local installations from a variety of sources into your game collection. Origin, Ubisoft Connect, and the Bethesda launcher should all operate well as long as the client is running in the background. Not that installing the latter is really useful right now, given Bethesda’s decision to discontinue its launcher in May 2022.

Lockheed Martin releases open source spacecraft docking standard

Lockheed Martin, the aerospace company, has released an open source, nonproprietary mission augmentation port (MAP) interface standard for on-orbit spacecraft docking, which may be downloaded from its website. The company thinks that the standard will hasten the development of technology that allows docking satellites to communicate with one another.

The Lockheed Martin standard includes data that can be used by designers to develop their own MAP-compliant docking adapters, such as the dimensions of plates and petals required for a compliant physical mate of docking port halves; suggestions for electrical interfaces and docking profiles; and data that can be used by designers to develop their own MAP-compliant docking adapters.

Lockheed Martin is working on its own Augmentation System Port Interface (ASPIN), which will be MAP-compliant. Between a host spacecraft and a satellite augmentation vehicle, the ASPIN adapter provides an electrical and data link (SAV).

“Just like USB was designed to standardise computer connections, these documents are designed to standardise how spacecraft connect to each other on orbit,” said Paul Pelley, senior director of Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space. “We believe it’s in the best interest of the nation for the industry to have common interface standards to provide mission agility and enterprise interoperability.”

Trezor is being targeted for phishing attacks

Phishing assaults are particularly prevalent in the crypto and NFT industries. Trezor, a Bitcoin wallet service, is now being targeted by hackers. Trezor’s email list was used to target customers and fool them into downloading a fraudulent version of the program aimed at stealing their crypto assets, according to Bleeping Computer.

The original Trezor software is open source. When the software is installed, it prompts the user for a recovery phrase, which they should have entered when

they first set up their wallet. This recovery phrase serves as a key to regaining access to the wallet if it is misplaced. It’s game over once the user enters the key. The scammers will receive the recovery phrase and will be able to claim all your crypto assets.

When it comes to phishing scams, distinguishing a reputable site or program from a phoney can be quite difficult. Due to the usage of unusual characters, even the websites related with the download for this fraud appeared authentic. It’s usually a good idea to double-check anything that requests a security key or password; there are definitely dragons lurking about.

Trezor believes that this particular dragon was co-opted for malevolent motives and targeted one of its newsletters hosted on the automated email provider Mailchimp. Mailchimp admitted that an insider had targeted crypto firms, according to Trezor, but the company has yet to publish a statement on the matter.

MHKiT gets updated for modelling marine energy

The Marine and Hydrokinetic Toolkit (MHKiT) is a massive, searchable, open source knowledge hub that provides developers with the code needed to analyse how well their technology might perform in various ocean and river sites. The toolbox has been upgraded to include data on tidal and river energy resources as well as high waves, elements that affect how equipment works underwater (such as turbulence and sediment), and more.

Developed in 2019 with funding from the US Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office, MHKiT is accessible in Python and MATLAB. For each platform, the MHKiT team is releasing increasingly robust versions.

MHKiT now has data about tidal and river resources on its Python platform, including how much energy is available at which areas, how fast and turbulent the waves are at certain sites, and what underwater barriers, such as sand and stones, might obstruct a device’s performance.

In addition, wave energy producers can now simulate the extreme waves that their machines may encounter at their chosen deployment location. Unprepared devices may not survive the waves; with MHKiT, engineers can improve their chances of survival.

The MHKiT team uses the MATLAB platform to import a large amount of data from a fleet of buoys, such as wave heights, current speeds, and ocean temperatures. The team has also included historical wave data to help predict the weather and climates that marine energy technology may encounter offshore. This so-called hindcast data set will eventually encompass the whole of United States.

MHKiT is a popular tool that has been downloaded over 4,000 times in just four years (although some of those downloads are repeat customers coming back for more).

Google and Linux Foundation release Nephio for telecom market

The Linux Foundation has extended its push to bring open source projects into the telecom market by partnering with Google Cloud to develop the Kubernetes based Nephio project. This project aims to make it easier for telecom operators to deploy and manage multi-vendor cloud infrastructure and network operations across large-scale edge deployments by providing Kubernetes based cloud-native intent automation and automation templates.

Nephio sits on top of a Kubernetes substrate, either directly handled by an operator or via a hyperscaler-based platform such as Google Config Connector, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Kubernetes Controllers, and Azure Service Operator.

Kubernetes’ cloud-native orchestration capability is used to enable operators to roll out and manage new services in their 5G and edge deployments. This will allow for a speedier on-boarding of network functions into a production environment, similar to how hyperscalers employ the DevOps process.

“We believe that true cloud nativeness lies in the fact that Kubernetes can actually automate all the way down from describing a network function or a service to the infrastructure including all the underlying networking components,” stated Gabriele Di Piazza, senior director of product management for telecom at Google Cloud.

The project is open about the fact that it does not provide end-to-end service orchestration, cloud infrastructure, or network operations.

The project’s largest hurdle appears to be providing a “carrier-grade” option for telecom operators as they build up their 5G networks. This has long been an issue since telecom operators compete in a highly regulated market with government and public safety regulations that often exceed those of traditional cloud based operators.

Oracle makes Solaris 11.4 CBE available

Oracle has started making a new version of Solaris. Oracle Solaris 11.4 CBE was announced in early March this year, and is the ‘Common Build Environment’ for open source developers and strictly non-production personal use, which is required if you want Solaris for new installations after 2022.

The new Solaris 11.4 CBE is effectively a rolling release, and Oracle hopes that by doing so, it will make it easier to integrate the open source software that Solaris relies on, rather than being locked onto the dated 11.4.0 GA release.

An Oracle account is required to download the new Solaris 11.4 CBE. The CBE builds are sometimes defined as “pre-release builds of a particular SRU, analogous to a beta.” The Oracle Technology Network Early Adopter License Agreement for Oracle Solaris grants the non-production usage licence.

Under Oracle support contracts, users will be able to upgrade from these free CBE releases to paid SRU releases. The Oracle Solaris blog has more information for people interested in Oracle Solaris 11.4 CBE.

Cocos raises US$ 50 million to develop its game engine further

Cocos Technology, the Beijing based digital interactive content development platform founded in 2010, has announced a US$ 50 million funding round to support the development of its open source Cocos Creator game engine. Cocos is a platform for creating 2D games for mobile and other devices that has been around for a long time. With a new version of the Cocos game engine, which traces its roots back a decade to Cocos2d-x, it also included its first all-in-one 3D engine and editor last year.

To-date, Cocos has been used by over 1.4 million developers in over 100,000 games available in app stores, and by over 1.6 billion users.

CCB Trust, GGV Capital, Agora, and others are among its investors. Cocos will use this round of funding to continue to expand the engine’s fundamental technology and push the engine’s greater integration into numerous industries, including gaming, autos, education, XR, home design, architectural engineering design, and other future ventures.

Baidu released its product ‘Xi Rang’ toward the end of 2021 to speed up the formation of the metaverse. Cocos has recently joined Baidu as a partner, offering a technical basis for the metaverse. Over time, the two companies will work together to create a metaverse universe.

Intel takes over the Open Networking Foundation’s development team

Intel has purchased the Open Networking Foundation’s (ONF) development team as well as Ananki, an independent venture-backed company that was recently spun out of the ONF to supply open source based software-defined private 5G as a commercial service, according to a release. The financial details have been kept under wraps.

Guru Parulkar, the ONF executive director, has joined Intel as vice president of the Network and Edge Group, reporting to Nick McKeown, the founding ONF board member and senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Network and Edge Group. In addition, the majority of ONF’s internal development team will join Intel’s workforce.

As it transitions away from code development by an internal team, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), which was founded in 2011 with the mission of transforming networking by championing software-defined networking (SDN), disaggregation, and open source, has released all of its projects to open source with permissive software licences. ONF has made its full portfolio of production-ready platforms open sourced, including solutions for public 5G (SD-Core, SD-RAN), private 5G networks (Aether), software-defined broadband (SEBA/VOLTHA), and P4 programmable networks (SD-Fabric, PINS).

“ONF has made important contributions to the industry with its software-defined development projects, and I am confident that its move to a community-sourced model as part of its next stage of growth will fuel further contributions as the industry and its needs advance,” said Nick McKeown. “As a result of ONF’s shift in direction, we are pleased to welcome ONF’s development team to Intel.”