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WYWO Open Source: SoC, FOSDEM, Vert.x and more

Published 15:31, 16 January 13

Your While You Were Out guide to the open source links that have caught my eye in the last week.

To get a flavour of the difference Google's Summer of Code can make to an open source project, take a look at the diversity and reach of the activities mentored by the LibreOffice project last summer.
While previous iterations have relied on Windows, the new Lego Mindstorms EV3 used Linux and aims to be hackable. This is just the sort of education-enhancing approach that the Raspberry Pi takes (at much, much lower cost).
Stanford University has released a fascinating new open source system for computational analysis and design, called Stanford University Unstructured (SU2).
Europe's most important open source developer event, FOSDEM, is just around the corner. I'm speaking on two tracks and the agenda is packed with speakers you really should hear, like Jacon Applebaum, Eben Moglen and Amelia Andersdotter.
OSI's FAQ about the terms "open source" and "free software" is worth bookmarking for those times when someone tells you they are polar opposites.
I was pleased to see that Jan Holesovsky has added a playful personalisation feature using Firefox Personas to the next release of LibreOffice 4.0. It's a sign of a community that's not taking itself so seriously it can't have fun.
There are some interesting choices in lawyer Mark Radcliffe's top ten legal issues for FOSS of 2012.
Finally, I wrote for InfoWorld about the dust-up in the Vert.x open source community.