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The volume of new open source projects is staggering. In years past, it was sometimes difficult to find enough quality projects to fill a lenghthy list, but this year there were more than enough—so many, in fact, that it’s likely we overlooked some deserving projects.
If you know of any open source projects first released in the last year or two that you think should have been on our list, feel free to note them in the Comments section below.
Bitcoin
1. OpenBazaar
Formerly known as DarkMarket, this project allows users to trade BitCoin for goods and services freely. Based on BitTorrent technology, it emphasizes privacy and requires no fees for trades. It is currently in beta trials. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
Cinema Camera
2. AXIOM Beta
Made by a company called Apertus, the AXIOM Beta is the world’s first open source cinema camera. Beta prototypes began shipping in August, and the company has a well-developed road map for eventually shipping a complete device based on a modular open source hardware concept. Operating System: Linux
Containerization
3. cAdvisor
Short for “Container Advisor,” cAdvisor is a Google project that monitors container performance and resource usage. It is intended for use with Docker. Operating System: Linux
4. Kubernetes
In July 2105, Google released the 1.0 version of this container orchestration solution and then donated it to a brand new organization called the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. It’s also available as a hosted service through Google Container Engine. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
Continuous Integration
5. Drone
This tool continuously examines code for bugs. It integrates with other development tools and services including GitHub, Bitbucket, Amazon, Heroku and Google App Engine. It’s available as a paid hosted service that is free for open source projects. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
Database
6. CockroachDB
The team behind this project is working to create a database that is just as hard to kill as a cockroach is—in other words, it’s extremely resilient. It also spreads like cockroaches—in other words, it’s highly scalable. Operating System: Docker
7. Terraform
Terraform describes itself as “a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.” With it, DevOps teams can easily set up and replicate infrastructure configurations. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
Educational Games
8. Code Combat
Suitable for ages 9 and up, Code Combat is a multi-player game that teaches players how to code. You can play online through the website or download it from GitHub. It offers more than 110 free levels, and tutorials and other levels are available with a subscription. Operating System: OS Independent
GPU
9. MIAOW
MIAOW (pronounced “me-ow”) is the world’s first open source GPU. It was created by a team led by Professor Karu Sankaralingam at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an academic project, and it has interesting implications for open source hardware in the future. Operating System: OS Independent
Humanitarian Efforts
10. Commodity Tracking System (CTS)
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) built this monitoring system to make sure that goods donated to humanitarian efforts, like medical supplies shipped to Syria, actually reach their intended recipients. It is said to be the first digital tool of its kind. Operating System: OS Independent
Internet of Things (IoT)
11. KinomaJS
This JavaScript-based application framework helps developers build IoT apps for embedded and mobile devices. It also includes an XML programming interface. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
12. Libsecurity
Part of IBM’s developerWorks Open effort, libsecurity is a set of security modules that can be used by IoT application developers. It includes tools for secure storage, authentication, and more. Operating System: OS Independent
Job Scheduler
13. Aurora
This Apache Incubator project schedules jobs to run on clusters of machines that are being managed by Apache Mesos. Twitter is a key contributor to the project. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
14. Fenzo
This Java library helps schedule Apache Mesos jobs. Developed by Netflix, it is highly scalable and allows users to set a wide variety of criteria for job scheduling. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
15. Salene
Developed by LinkedIn, Selene is an iOS library for scheduling background tasks in iPhone and iPad apps. It allows the developer to set the priority and average response time for how often tasks should be completed. Operating System: iOS
16. FeaturFu
LinkedIn first released this project earlier this month. According to the company it is “a new open source toolkit designed to enable creative and agile feature engineering for most machine learning tasks such as statistical modeling (classification, clustering, and regression) and rule-based decision engines.” Operating System: Linux
Mobile Apps
17. Inkspace
This app creates one-of-a-kind 3D art that becomes an animated gif. Simply draw on the screen with your finger then tilt your phone to move your drawing in 3D. Operating System: Android
18. Landmarker
Featured on the Android Experiments website, this app allows users to point their phone at the landscape around them and see the name of key landmarks. It also integrates with Google Maps so that users can get directions to places they are seeing from far away. Operating System: Android
19. SmartNavi
Turn-by-turn directions are great, but relying on GPS all the time can eat up battery life. SmartNavi relies on internal sensors instead of GPS to provide directions. Note that it can be used only while walking, not while driving. Operating System: Android
Project Management
20. Taiga
Still in beta trials, Taiga is a project management platform designed to support agile development principles. In addition to the open source download, the company also offers a hosted service that is currently free; they plan to begin charging subscription fees in January 2016. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
Security
21. SIMP
The National Security Agency (NSA) isn’t exactly known for its openness, but the organization did release a project on GitHub this year. Short for “Systems Integrity Management Platform,” SIMP helps organizations ensure that their security posture lines up with standards and best practices. Operating System: Linux
Social Media
22. Lunchbox
NPR created this suite of tools to make it easier for journalists to share images on social media. It includes three tools: Waterbug, which creates watermarked, attributed images; Factlist, which creates a bulleted list of points about news stories; and Quotable, which turns newsworthy quotes into images. All can be customized to suit different organizations. Operating System: Windows, OS X
Storage
23. CoprHD
CoprHD is an open-source version of EMC’s ViPR Controller. According to the website, it “enables management and automation of storage resources for block and file storage platforms.” Operating System: Linux
24. IPFS
Short for “Interplanetary File System,” IPFS is an unusual project that uses peer-to-peer technology to connect all computers with a single file system. According to the project owner, “In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository.” Operating System: OS Independent
Announced at this year’s LinuxCon event, Kinetic is a Linux Foundation project that aims to create standards for open architecture cloud-based storage. So far, the project has created API libraries for C, C++, Java, Python and OCaml. Operating System: OS Independent
26. Storj DriveShare and MetaDisk
Storj (pronounced “Storage”) is a new type of cloud storage built on blockchain and peer-to-peer technology. The DriveShare app allows users to rent out their unused hard drive space for use by the service, and the MetaDisk Web app allows users to save their files to the service securely. It is currently in beta testing. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X
Systems Administration
This IBM tool helps monitor log data for cloud and containerized environments. It provides visibility into what is happening with systems and enables analytics. It’s one of the many projects include in IBM’s developerWorks Open website. Operating System: Linux, OS X
28. OSQuery
Developed by Facebook, OSQuery makes it possible for sysadmins to monitor hardware performance using interactive SQL queries. It’s ideal for intrusion detection, tracking infrastructure reliability or ensuring compliance. Operating System: Linux, OS X
Typeface
29. Hack
Released earlier this year, Hack is an open source typeface designed for use in writing source code. It aims to make it easy to distinguish between similar characters like 0/O and 1/l, event at very small sizes. Operating System: OS Independent
30. Roboto
Roboto is the font that Google uses for Android and ChromeOS, and the company released it under an open source license earlier this year. It’s also the recommend font for developers who want to build apps that support Google’s Material Design. Operating System: OS Independent
Virtualization
31. MidoNet
Released under an open source license last November, MidoNet is highly scalable network virtualization software. It is designed for use in cloud computing environments, particularly those running OpenStack. Operating System: Linux
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
