A New Business Model for Open Source Projects

Storj is a fully open source and decentralized storage solution that brings an Airbnb-like business model to users who have extra storage and bandwidth. At the Open Source Summit North America, Storj announced a new program that extends the revenue generation model to open source projects.

The newly announced Open Source Partner Program enables open source projects to generate revenue every time their users store data in the cloud.

"Our Open Source Partner Program will help open source companies to remain open and free and invest in growth," said Storj CEO Ben Golub.

The program can in fact be a boon for those open source projects that are often constrained by budget.

"It will also enable them to achieve more within their budgets, supporting them in becoming profitable, accelerating roadmaps, or meeting other financial-related goals," Golub added.

Storj tracks usage on the network and returns a significant portion of the revenue earned when data from an open source project is stored on the platform.

Ten new open source players are joining Storj and integrating it with their products. These projects include Confluent, Couchbase, FileZilla, InfluxData, MariaDB, Minio, MongoDB, Nextcloud, Pydio, and Zenko.

On a side note, if you have extra storage and networking bandwidth, you can also join Storj as an individual.

Source: https://storj.io/#waitlist

Linux Mint Debian Edition 3 Released

The Linux Mint project has announced the release of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 3. What's the need for LMDE, when there is already Ubuntu-based Linux Mint? Isn't it a waste of resources? Not really. LMDE has been created as a backup for Ubuntu-based Linux Mint in the event that Ubuntu ceases to exist.

"Its main goal is for the Linux Mint team to see how viable our distribution would be and how much work would be necessary if Ubuntu was ever to disappear," according to the project.

Since the Linux Mint community controls the UI of Linux Mint (Cinnamon), LMDE creates an experience almost similar to Linux Mint, minus the Ubuntu base. LMDE 3 (Cindy) is based on Debian 9 (Stretch).

In fact, LMDE could be the best distribution to use stock Debian with some fine-tuning. Since Debian is supported for a long time and there are no time-based releases, LMDE follows the same cadence. According to the project, there are no point releases in LMDE.

Those users who are running LMDE 2 can easily upgrade to LMDE 3. LMDE 3 comes in two versions – 32 bit and 64 bit. You can download LMDE 3 from the official page: https://linuxmint.com/release.php?id=33

Zorin OS 12.4 Released

The Zorin OS project has announced the release of Zorin OS 12.4. It's based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Zorin OS is known for being one of the most polished Linux-based distributions that's targeted at those who plan to move away from Windows or Mac OS.

According to the project, "Zorin OS 12.4 is the final point release of Zorin OS 12 before the launch of the next major version of Zorin OS. It will be based on Ubuntu 18.04.1 and will be released later this autumn."

In a previous interview, the Zorin OS founder, Artyom Zorin, told me that the goal of the project is to make it extremely easy for a user to use Linux (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-X1syAGzT8). Users should not have to choose between convenience and Linux.

Zorin OS has created a very loyal user base. Zorin OS 12 was reportedly downloaded more than 1 million times (https://zoringroup.com/blog/2017/11/01/one-million-downloads-for-zorin-os-12/). According to a blog post, "We're also pleased to see that over 60% of these downloads were coming from Windows and Mac OS, reflecting our mission to bring the power of Linux to people who've never had access to it before."

Zorin OS 12.4 comes with the newly-included Linux kernel 4.15, as well as an updated X server graphics stack and compatibility for newer computers and hardware in Zorin OS.

Zorin OS comes in four versions – Core, Lite, Ultimate, and Business. While Core is available for free, other versions are available for a fee and come with extra packages, settings, and official support.

Download Zorin OS: https://zorinos.com/download/