Credit: Steven Fruitsmaak, Wikinews

Summary: How big a role Free/Open Source software (FOSS) is playing at the top of the Internet stack (server side, not just client side, i.e. Web browsers)

BLOGGING platforms and content management systems are totally the area of Free/Open Source software (FOSS). It is not often mentioned that a huge proportion of Web sites started to be powered by (mostly) GPL-licensed code, and not just PHP-based software (the "P" in LAMP can be many things). This mostly happened over the past decade. With Free/libre and popular frameworks like Node.js, it is no surprise that there is an explosion and expansion of the number of Free software options [1]. It's not just WordPress and Drupal, there is also the excellent Joomla [2], which now has a new release [3]. There are also some more business-oriented CMS options like Squiz and Nuxeo [4], ticketing systems, CRMs, ECMs. VLEs and so forth. They're all about managing content online. It's an area dominated by Free software.

Drurpal now powers a lot of Web sites, which even write about it [5] because they're so pleased. Drupal 8 is just around the corner [6,7] (it will run the next-generation Techrights and Tux Machines) and Germany studies its security/quality because it plans migrations in the public sector [8]. The European authorities, which use Drupal and like to use it as an example of European entrepreneurship (Buytaert is Belgian), are starting to take such matters seriously [9]. According to to Wikipdia, Drupal now has over 30,000 developers/developer accounts. WordPress is not far behind, perhaps even ahead. Microsoft, for example, has already surrendered to WordPress. A seldom spoken-about success story of FOSS is the area of CMSs. The Web is increasingly dominated by FOSS at all levels, even the client side (Android, Chrome, Firefox and more). ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. What is the best blogging platform built atop Node.js?





2. Joomla 3 Review

   In this article we’re going to take a closer look at the latest version of Joomla, an open-source content management system.





3. Joomla! 3.2 Stable Is Here





4. Nuxeo releases major platform update

   This week Nuxeo, the open source content management system for business, announced a major release that brings together several, earlier smaller releases.





5. Achieving Continuous Integration with Drupal





6. What’s New In Drupal 8

   Drupal 8 Stable is not yet released, but its features are frozen and it’s in the process of stabilization. All this allows us to dive deeper into Drupal 8 new features and changes. So, here is what’s new in Drupal 8 for front and back-end, for users and developers.





7. Drupal 8 And Symfony 2 Framework





8. Germany's security experts rate open source website systems

   Public administrations can turn to open source content management systems, concludes Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, BSI). In June it published a study looking at the safety of five of the most popular open source systems, Drupal, Plone, WordPress, Joomla and TYPO3. In functionality and the resulting complexity, these CMSs are 'a good choice for a service provider'.





9. Making Europe the natural home of safe cloud computing

   As I set out in Bonn this week, revelations about the scale of online spying are shocking, and privacy is a fundamental right. But I am ultimately I'm a pragmatist; maybe it's my Dutch blood. We should take those revelations seriously. But equally let's not be naïve: spying will not be stopped by creating new laws. We need the right technology to protect ourselves effectively.