Community
Technology matures through the community around it. Non-profit organisations, such as user groups and other community-based initiatives, play an important role in the development of technology.
For example, they may perform research and develop new ideas not yet commercially viable, help new technologies to reach critical mass, or find new applications for existing technologies. Competa actively and enthusiastically supports and sponsors community-based technology initiatives. We like to get involved in all aspects of technology and we know that ideas developing in the community today will have useful applications in business tomorrow.
Currently we are supporting the following community projects:
Open Solaris
Open Solaris is an Enterprise Operating System based on Solaris, but openly and freely developed and distributed. Many new operating system technologies are developed in Open Solaris. Competa staff actively participate in a number of Open Solaris development projects. Competa also supports the local Dutch Open Solaris User Group (NLOSUG), for example by providing facilities for meetings at our offices in Rijswijk.
CAcert
Digital identity certificates are an important internet security technology. CaCert is the only non-commercial authority to issue certificates, which are available to the public for free, based on a web of trust. This is an important service, and Competa supports the community by assisting with assurances. Competa also supports the CaCert foundation directly, by providing consultancy services, and by maintaining CaCert systems in the Dutch datacenter with our On-Demand support service.
The NLUUG FTP server
One of the oldest and most active technology user groups in the Netherlands is the NLUUG (Netherlands UNIX User Group). The NLUUG supports Open Systems and Open Standards users in the Netherlands by organising bi-annual conferences and other events, and by operating one of the largest FTP archives in Europe. Competa staff sit on the NLUUG Board, and regularly give presentations at conferences. Competa helps with the FTP archive by providing server maintenance through the Competa On-Demand support service.
Soleus Hosting Foundation
Soleus is a non-profit organisation providing Xen-based Virtual Private Servers for foundation members at an extremely low cost. By doing this Soleus provides facilities for people to experiment with different operating systems and other technologies. This is an important service to the tech community as it provides an excellent training ground and an opportunity for technology innovation. Competa is an active member of the foundation and supports Soleus with engineering manpower.
Wireless Leiden Foundation
Wireless Leiden is the largest Wireless Community network in the Netherlands and one of the largest in the world. The ambitious project has lead to innovation in many areas including embedded systems and new routing schemes for wireless networks. One such innovation is the development of an authentication system for closed groups over open infrastructures, run by Competa in partnership with Hogeschool Leiden. Competa also provides consultancy for systems architecture, and management and training of Hogeschool students.
Xenerix
Xenerix is an Open Source Content Management framework. The research project, run by Hogeschool Zeeland, develops software for a new type of Content Management System. Unlike other CMS, Xenerix uses a data model which treats each individual item of data as "atomic" rather than storing related information together. Competa assists Hogeschool Zeeland with Training Workshops and Software Development services for architecture, including support for developers such as code reviews.