RoboCyberWall has launched its proprietary precision firewall solution bearing the same name. RoboCyberWall is designed to protect HTTP and HTTPS ports on Linux-based Apache2 and NGINX Web servers. The patent-pending firewall blocks all known exploits and zero-day attacks on Apache2 and NGINX Web servers, according to the developer. The Linux server firewall solution targets small and mid-sized business users.

Microsoft this week became a premium sponsor of the Open Source Initiative, adding more financial heft to its growing commitment to the open source software movement. The company's new financial support will not translate into any special influence in the organization's decision making, noted OSI General Manager Patrick Masson. "OSI Corporate Sponsors have no role in OSI governance," he said.

Red Hat on Thursday announced major enhancements to the Patent Promise it first published 15 years ago, with the intention of providing new protections to innovation in the open source community. In its 2002 Patent Promise, Red Hat vowed not to pursue patent infringement actions against parties that used its covered Free and Open Source Software, or FOSS, subject to certain limitations.

The Online Trust Alliance on Tuesday released its 2017 Online Trust Audit & Honor Roll. Among its findings: Consumer services sites have the best combined security and privacy practices. FDIC 100 banks and U.S. government sites are the least trustworthy, according to the audit. The number of websites that qualified for the honor roll is at a nine-year high.

GitHub has released the results of its survey on open source software development, practices and worldwide communities. Responses from more than 6,000 participants reveal some of the problems missing or poorly done documentation can have on users and project adoption. The survey also reveals an ongoing concern about nasty interactions among community members and negative attitudes toward women.

Crate.io on Tuesday announced an upgrade to its open source CrateDB, and introduced a commercial version. The database now is available as a managed service as well. CrateDB 2.0 features clustering enhancements and SQL improvements. The enterprise edition adds authentication and authorization features for enhanced security, which are not provided in the open source version.

Kingsoft had announced an expansion to its WPS Office suite to include WPS Cloud. The upgrade enables users to work in a cross-platform office suite environment with added storage, file roaming and sharing capabilities. The cloud-enhanced version is available for PCs and mobile as a fully functional free release and with premium subscriptions. It runs on Linux, Windows, Mac and Android devices.

Red Hat on Monday announced a new Application Platform Partner Initiative at its North America Partner Conference in Las Vegas. The goal is to provide a more robust ecosystem for companies engaging in digital transformation. The company has started conducting tests in a pilot program with a small number of solutions-oriented consulting partners in North America.

SnapRoute, a developer of open source networking software, announced that it has raised $25 million in Series A financing led by Norwest Venture Partners with new support from AT&T and Microsoft Ventures. SnapRoute, founded by CEO Jason Forrester and other former Apple engineers, plans to use the funding to speed up the development of open source networking software for Fortune 500 firms.

While not quite at the level of a parting of the waters, the news that Microsoft has joined The Linux Foundation may seem miraculous to those aware of the past enmity between the company and the open source community. Microsoft has joined The Linux Foundation as a platinum member, it announced Wednesday at its Microsoft Connect conference in New York.

The Linux Foundation earlier this week announced the addition of the JS Foundation as a Linux Foundation project. The move is an effort to inject new energy into the JavaScript developer community. By rebranding the former JQuery foundation as the JS Foundation and bringing it under the Linux umbrella, officials hope to create some stability and build critical mass.

Red Hat and Ericsson on Wednesday announced an alliance meant to speed adoption of open source solutions in the information and communications technology space. The alliance will help promote a range of fully open source and production-ready cloud solutions, spanning OpenStack, software defined-networking and software-defined infrastructure, the companies said.

GE and Bosch Software Innovations have partnered to jump-start the development of an open source Internet of Things platform. Open source will encourage greater interoperability and application development, the companies said. Both firms have sought help from the Eclipse Foundation to speed up the process. The companies will create a core IoT stack comprised of open source software.

The Linux Foundation on Wednesday announced that it has taken the OpenSwitch Project under its wing. OpenSwitch last year began as a joint project of Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Broadcom, VMware, Accton, Intel and Arista. OpenSwitch is an open source, Linux-based network operating system, or NOS, that works with enterprise-grade switches from multiple vendors.

Mirantis on Wednesday announced that Volkswagen Group has selected Mirantis OpenStack to power its cloud applications. The selection process involved a series of cloud-to-cloud performance trials between Red Hat and Mirantis, one of the last pure-play OpenStack companies. It's ideally positioned to pursue and win large-scale deals like the Volkswagen project, analyst Charles King said.

Facebook on Sunday at the 2016 Mobile World Congress announced its Telecom Infra Project, an engineering initiative aimed at developing new technologies and approaches to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure. TIP will bring together telecommunications companies, infrastructure providers, system integrators and other technology companies, according to Facebook's Jay Parikh.

SourceForge on Tuesday announced that it has pulled the plug on its DevShare program amid growing rebellion from software developers and a change of ownership. SourceForge Media announced the termination notice with a promise of other policy changes coming soon. DevShare was an opt-in revenue-sharing program for developers that was started in 2013.

Walmart on Tuesday announced that it has posted the code for its OneOps cloud application life cycle management platform on GitHub. The company developed OneOps for building and launching cloud applications across frequently changing storage environments. It lets e-commerce vendors deploy apps on platforms from Microsoft, Rackspace and CenturyLink to OpenStack private or hybrid environments.

Slack this week announced its participation in an $80 million investment campaign to fund startups that build software that integrates with its own apps. The company also announced the availability of an app directory and a new development framework. The goal is to position Slack as a hub for connecting users to other cloud business software. Slack is partnership with six other investors.

Open source is driving an ever-expanding market. The notion of community-driven development is a growing disruption to proprietary software controlled by commercial vendors, and the free open source software concept has become a major disruption in industry and technology. Open source is so pervasive that people overlook how it's the glue of modern communication and enterprise business models.

Microsoft this week announced at its Connect conference in New York City an expansion of its developer tools with a focus on Linux, Android and open source. The move is an effort to help close the gap between Microsoft's developer platforms and the open source world. The programs include free access for developers who are getting started, updates to .NET, and the renaming of Visual Studio Online.

Microsoft and Red Hat on Wednesday announced a deal that bridges their cloud technologies, which have been separated by the competing Windows and Linux platforms. The partnership lets customers migrate their data to either Microsoft Azure or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It also integrates features in both cloud systems so customers can use them interchangeably.

Element14 on Tuesday revealed an exclusive agreement to offer OEM customers bespoke designs based on the Raspberry Pi platform. Raspberry Pi -- which has seen success in the educational and maker fields -- is targeting commercial manufacturers and the Internet of Things, signing up Premier Farnell through the latter's element14 brand to customize its boards.

The Linux Foundation has announced a strategic partnership with ON.Lab and its ONOS project community to develop open source network services. They will build infrastructure for software-defined networking and network function virtualization technology. The foundation will provide its global reach, experience and infrastructure to seed ONOS' growing community.

The Linux Foundation has released a white paper that puts the estimated value of development R&D costs of its Collaborative Projects at $5 billion. The foundation has provided independent funding for the collaborative software projects since 2008 to fuel innovation across industries and ecosystems. Open source is changing the world in which we live, according to the report.

Google and Twitter reportedly are collaborating on an open source project that focuses on helping publishers bring instant articles to mobile phone subscribers. Facebook launched its Instant Articles feature earlier this year. Apple and Snapchat reportedly have similar tools in development. The Google and Twitter team-up "is a very important development," said Zebra Social CEO Jordani Sarreal.

As part of a new strategic collaboration, Intel will lead a $100 million funding round in Mirantis, the companies announced earlier this week. Intel is a long-time investor in Mirantis. This round includes existing investors August Capital, Insight Venture Partners, Ericsson, Sapphire Ventures and WestSummit Capital, as well as new investor Goldman Sachs.

Red Hat and Samsung Business Services on Tuesday announced a strategic alliance to deliver the next generation of mobile solutions for the enterprise. The alliance, announced at the Red Hat Summit 2015, combines the strengths of each company -- Samsung's mobile device portfolio and Red Hat's open source middleware, mobile and cloud technologies.

OpenStack, a free and open source cloud controller package that has been struggling to gain acceptance in the enterprise, took a giant stride forward when IBM and Cisco opened up their wallets last week. IBM announced it would buy hosted OpenStack private cloud provider Blue Box Cloud. Cisco announced plans to purchase Piston Cloud Computing, developer of the CloudOS operating system.

The community around Docker and containers is drawing interest from large enterprise and service provider end users, as well as involvement from dozens of vendors, including those pursuing various container alternatives. 451 Research has published some new research and analysis on this nascent open source software community in its latest long-format report.