Simulating the sound of stars, Acquia buying Mautic, open source at the VA, and more news

Catch up on the biggest open source headlines from the past two weeks.

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Opensource.com

In this edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at Acquia buying Mautic, using open source at the Veteran's Administration, simulating the sounds of stars, and more!

Acquia buys Mautic

What happens when two open source companies come together? In the case of Drupal service provider Acquia buying marketing automation firm Mautic, it's the creation of the first open marketing cloud.

The deal brings together "open source content management with open source marketing automation," said Acquia CTO Dries Buytaert. DB Hurley, Mautic's founder, added that "open source is poised to transform marketing in the same way it has every other function in the enterprise." According to Buytaert, with the acquisition of Mautic, Acquia "can help marketers reach customers on their preferred channel, in ways that are personal and relevant to them."

Veteran's Administration builds applications with open source framework

With budgets being cut back, more and more government departments are being forced to do more with less money. To help keep costs down, the Veteran's Administration (VA) in the U.S. is using an open source framework it developed to create "a range of applications and platforms."

The framework, called the Light Electronic Action Framework, is in use at over 100 VA medical centers. It enables any employee of the VA to "request to create a site, which takes just minutes to stand up." So far, those sites have included ones for "hiring, business management, and employee training." Blake Henderson, the VA's Innovation Coordinator, said that he hopes "the framework will become a common fixture across VA for the rank-and-file to design and implement solutions for problems facing their workflow."

Using open source to simulate the sound of stars

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras talked about the Music of the Spheres, which were the tones that celestial bodies made while moving past the Earth. It turns out that Pythagoras might not have been too far off. Astronomers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have created software to developed open source software to "simulate the complex vibrations that stars produce."

Called GYRE, the software "simulate diverse stars and their frequencies" to give astronomers an idea about "the connection between the structure of stars and their vibrations." Jacqueline Goldstein, a researcher on the project, said that using GYRE she can "refine her model (of stellar vibrations) and improve the process of how scientists can study the surface of stars to survey the subtle sounds they produce."

Norway and publisher Elsevier strike open-access deal

One of the biggest obstacles to sharing knowledge is the high cost of access to academic journals. In early 2019, a number of countries cancelled their subscriptions to publisher Elsevier's journals in protest against those costs. One of those countries was Norway which, in a surprising turnaround, "established a new nationwide licensing agreement" with the publishing giant.

The deal runs for two years, and Norwegian institutions will pay Elsevier €9 million per year. In return, Norwegian researchers can "publish open access in around 90 percent of Elsevier’s journals." Nina Karlstrøm of the Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research said that Norway is the first country to have this kind of deal. Karlstrøm added that Norway hopes to "continue on the road to full open access of Norwegian research output by 2024, which is our government’s policy."