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Interview with Daniel Scales, Chief Brand Counsel, Linux Foundation

Jason Perlow, Director of Project Insights and Editorial Content at the Linux Foundation, spoke with Daniel Scales about the importance of protecting trademarks in open source projects.

JP: It’s great to have you here today, and also, welcome to the Linux Foundation. First, can you tell me a bit about yourself, where you are from, and your interests outside work?

DS: Thanks, Jason! It is great to be here. I grew up in Upstate New York, lived in Washington and London for a few years after college, and have been in Boston for the last 20+ years. Outside of work, I coach my daughter’s soccer team, I like to cook and play my bass guitar, and I am really looking forward to getting back to some live music and sporting events. 

JP: And from what organization are you joining us?

DS: I have been with the Boston law firm Choate, Hall & Stewart since 2011. In addition to advising The Linux Foundation and other clients on trademark matters, I helped clients with open source license questions, technology licenses, and IP-focused transactions.  Before Choate, I worked as IP Counsel at Avid Technology, where I managed their trademark portfolio through a global rebranding and supported the engineering team on technology licenses. 

JP: So, how did you get into Intellectual Property law?

DS: Great question.  I studied economics in college and took a fantastic senior seminar on the economics of intellectual property.  After graduation, I worked in the economics consulting group at Ernst & Young.  A big part of my job there was determining the value of a company’s intangible property, which in many cases were its brands. I went to law school intending to study trademarks and the new field of “internet law” (this term probably dates me) and started my legal career at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, which had a cutting-edge trademark and open source group.

JP: We typically think of IP and Trademark law as it applies to consumer products and commercial entities. What is the difference between those and when open source projects and organizations use brands?

DS:  On one level, there really isn’t a difference.  A trademark signifies the unique source of a good or service. Trademarks help consumers, developers, and users distinguish various offerings, and they communicate the specific source and quality of those offerings.  Software developers and users need to understand what code they have and where it came from. Trademarks help communicate that information.  Of course, the specific issues that every brand and brand owner faces and how they address them are different, but many of the core principles are the same.

JP: What are some of the trademark issues you’ve seen come up in open source communities?

DS: While it happens in every industry, I see many “helpful” people apply to register projects’ trademarks when they are not the rightful owner.  Sometimes they have good intentions, sometimes not, but it can be a lot of work to sort it out either way.  I’ve also had the opportunity to work with many different people and companies on project branding. It is amazing how many different philosophies there are regarding branding, even within the software industry.  Much of what we do is to bring these folks together to determine the best approach for the specific project.  I also spend a lot of time debating the scope of trademark rights with opposing counsel, but that isn’t really unique to open source:  one lawyer tried to convince me that his client had the exclusive right to use a picture of a hop flower on a beer label. 

Other common issues are helping companies register a mark for their company or product and then used the same mark for an open source project. The neutrality of those situations is imbalanced, and the Linux Foundation has worked with organizations making this transition. Sometimes it involves rebranding the open source project, and we assist in finding and clearing a new name for the community to use independent of the company that started it.

JP: Why is the Linux Foundation a good place for open source projects to protect their brands?

DS: We have worked with many open source projects on their trademarks, and we learn something with every new experience.  We can help them name the project at the beginning, take steps to protect their trademarks across the globe, and show them how trademarks can be a tool to build their communities and increase participation and adoption.  We also recognize the importance of our neutral position in the industries we serve and how that is fundamental to open governance.

Also Read: Open Source Communities and Trademarks: A Reprise

JP: Trademark conformance can also protect a project from technical drift. How can a trademark conformance program be used to encourage conformance with a project’s code base or interfaces? 

DS: Great point. As in most areas of trademarks, clarity and consistency are key. Trademarks used in a conformance program can be a great tool to communicate quickly and accurately to the target community.  Projects can develop specific and transparent criteria so that users understand exactly what the conformance trademark symbolizes.  This can be much more effective and efficient for projects and users alike than everyone deciding for themselves what a term like “compatible” might mean.  

Also Read: Driving Compatibility with Code and Specifications through Conformance Trademark Programs

JP: Do projects at the Linux Foundation give up all control of their trademark? How do you decide what enforcement to pursue or not pursue?

DS: On the contrary — we work very closely with project leadership throughout the lifecycle of their trademarks.  This includes trademark enforcement.  Typically, the first step is to figure out whether the situation requires enforcement (in the traditional legal sense) or if it is simply a matter of educating another party.  More often than not, we can reach out to the other party, discuss our project and our trademarks, discuss our concerns, and work out a solution that works for everyone and strengthens our brands.  But like any brand owner, we do sometimes have to take other action to protect our projects’ trademarks, and we work closely with our projects in those situations, too.

JP: Thanks, Daniel. It’s been great talking to you today!

The post Interview with Daniel Scales, Chief Brand Counsel, Linux Foundation appeared first on Linux Foundation.

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Linux Foundation Kubernetes Certifications Now Include Exam Simulator

 New tool will enable those registered for a certification exam to experience the test environment before sitting for their exam

 SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 2021The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, have announced that their three Kubernetes certification exams will now include access to an exam simulator, enabling those registered for an exam to experience the exam environment before actually sitting for the exam. 

Those registered for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), and Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) exams will have access to two attempts, provided by Killer.sh. Each attempt grants 36 hours of access starting from the time of activation. The exam simulations include 20-25 questions similar to the ones candidates can expect to encounter on the real exam. 

The questions presented in the simulator are the same for every attempt and every user, unlike those found on the actual exams, but are graded to give candidates an idea of how they are performing. The expectation is this offering will help candidates become comfortable and familiar with the environment in which they will sit for their certification.

“We have heard from the community that it can be stressful to jump into a certification exam without knowing exactly what to expect, especially one that is performance-based and simulates real world environments and problems,” said Chris Anisczcyk, CTO of CNCF. “Providing this exam simulator will ensure candidates know what to expect going into their exam, helping to ensure they are being tested on their skills without an environmental learning curve.”

Anyone who registers for CKA, CKAD, or CKS beginning today will have immediate access to the simulator. Individuals who have an existing, non-expired registration for one of these exams who have not yet sat for both of their two exam attempts will receive access on a rolling basis – beginning with those who have the earliest registration expiration dates – as follows:

June 02, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 1 month of June 2, 2021
June 08, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 2 months of June 02, 2021
June 15, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 3 months of June 02, 2021
June 22, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 4 months of June 02, 2021
June 29, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 5 months of June 02, 2021
July 06, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 6 months of June 02, 2021
July 13, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 7 months of June 02, 2021
July 20, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 8 months of June 02, 2021
July 27, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 9 months of June 02, 2021
Aug 03, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 10 months of June 02, 2021
Aug 10, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 11 months of June 02, 2021
Aug 17, 2021 – All open eligibilities expiring within 12 months of June 02, 2021

About Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open source software stack in public, private, and hybrid clouds. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. CNCF brings together the industry’s top developers, end users, and vendors, and runs the largest open source developer conferences in the world. Supported by more than 500 members, including the world’s largest cloud computing and software companies, as well as over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, please visit www.cncf.io

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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Attached – Preview of the Kubernetes Certification Exam Environment:

The post Linux Foundation Kubernetes Certifications Now Include Exam Simulator appeared first on Linux Foundation – Training.

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3 essential sysadmin soft skills you need to learn right now

3 essential sysadmin soft skills you need to learn right now

There’s no time like the present to learn some new sysadmin skills. Soft skills, that is.
Joachim Haller
Tue, 6/1/2021 at 8:09pm

Image

Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay

In order to get the job you want, or keep the job you like, much focus is often around what experience, certificates, and accreditations you have picked up as a sysadmin. However, once you have the job you want, it isn’t just the hard skills that make you enjoy it. There are also some soft skills that, when applied correctly, can turn your working situation from stressful and uncomfortable to challenging and inspiring. In this article, I focus on the three top soft skills that I believe are most useful for a sysadmin to bring along on the journey towards a great working environment.

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Soft Skills  
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Super Blueprints Integrate the 5G Open Source Stack from Core to Door

There is an exciting convergence in the networking industry around open source, and the energy is palpable. At LF Networking, we have a unique perspective as the largest open source initiative in the networking space with the broadest set of projects that make up the diverse and evolving open source networking stack. LF Networking provides platforms and building blocks across the networking industry that enable rapid interoperability, deployment, and adoption and is the nexus for 5G innovation and integration. 

LF Networking has now tapped confluence on industry efforts to structure a new initiative to develop 5G Super Blueprints for the ecosystem. Major integrations between the building blocks are now underway–between ONAP and ORAN, Akraino and Magma, Anuket and Kubernetes, and more. 

“Super” means that we’re integrating multiple projects, umbrellas (such as LF Edge, Magma, CNCF, O-RAN Alliance, LF Energy, and more) with an end-to-end framework for the underlying infrastructure and application layers across edge, access, and core. This end-to-end integration enables top industry use cases, such as fixed wireless, mobile broadband, private 5G, multi-access, IoT, voice services, network slicing, and more. In short, 5G Super Blueprints are a vehicle to collaborate and create end-to-end 5G solutions.

Major industry verticals banking on this convergence and roadmap include the global telcos that you’d expect, but 5G knows no boundaries, and we’re seeing deep engagement from cloud service providers, enterprise IT, governments, and even energy.

5G is poised to modernize today’s energy grid with awareness monitoring across Distribution Systems and more.

This will roll out in 3 phases, the first encompassing 5G Core + Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) using emulators. The second phase introduces commercial RANs to end-to-end 5G, and the third phase will integrate Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN). 

The 5G Super Blueprint is an open initiative, and participation is open to anyone. To learn more, please see the 5G Super Blueprint FAQ and watch the video, What is the 5G Super Blueprint? from Next Gen Infra

Participation in this group has tripled over the last few weeks! If you’re ready to join us, please indicate your interest in participation on the 5G Super Blueprint webpage, and follow the onboarding steps on the 5G Super Blueprint Wiki. Send any questions to superblueprint@lfnetworking.org

The post Super Blueprints Integrate the 5G Open Source Stack from Core to Door appeared first on Linux Foundation.

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Exploring ARM64 runtime patching alternatives

IntroductionSome of today’s modern CPUs come with dedicated instructions to optimize specific operations. For example, ARMv8 has CRC32 instructions to accelerate CRC calculations. The problem is that those instructions can only be executed by a processor that supports them. Although the CPU has a feature register to identify its capabilities, checking the register before executing an instruction is time-consuming. Fortunately, the Linux kernel has…

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