The New Stack Makers

The Linux xz utils backdoor exploit, discussed in an interview at the Open Source Summit 2024 on The New Stack Makers with John Kjell, director of open source at TestifySec, highlights critical vulnerabilities in the open-source ecosystem. This exploit involved a maintainer of the Linux xz utils project adding malicious code to a new release, discovered by a Microsoft engineer. This breach demonstrates the high trust placed in maintainers and how this trust can be exploited. Kjell explains that the backdoor allowed remote code execution or unauthorized server access through SSH connections.The exploit reveals a significant flaw: the human element in open source. Maintainers, often under pressure from company executives to quickly address vulnerabilities and updates, can become targets for social engineering. Attackers built trust within the community by contributing to projects over time, eventually gaining maintainer status and inserting malicious code. This scenario underscores the economic pressures on ope

Suman Debnath, principal developer advocate for machine learning at Amazon Web Services, emphasized the advantages of using Python in machine learning during a New Stack Makers episode recorded at PyCon US. He noted Python's ease of use and its foundational role in the data science ecosystem as key reasons for its popularity. However, Debnath highlighted that building generative AI applications doesn't necessarily require deep data science expertise or Python. Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s generative AI framework introduced in September, exemplifies this flexibility by allowing developers to use any programming language via an API-based service. Bedrock supports various languages like Python, C, C++, and Java, enabling developers to leverage large language models without intricate knowledge of machine learning. It also integrates well with open-source libraries such as Langchain and llamaindex. Debnath recommends visiting the community AWS platform and GitHub for resources on getting started with Bedrock. The episode

Nathan Peck, a senior developer advocate for generative AI at Amazon Web Services (AWS), shares his experiences working with Python in a recent episode of The New Stack Makers, recorded at PyCon US. Although not a Python expert, Peck frequently deals with Python scripts in his role, often assisting colleagues in running scripts as cron jobs. He highlights the challenge of being a T-shaped developer, possessing broad knowledge across multiple languages and frameworks but deep expertise in only a few.Peck introduces Amazon Q, a generative AI coding assistant launched by AWS in November, and demonstrates its capabilities. The assistant can be integrated into an integrated development environment (IDE) like VS Code. It assists in explaining, refactoring, fixing, and even developing new features for Python codebases. Peck emphasizes Amazon Q's ability to surface best practices from extensive AWS documentation, making it easier for developers to navigate and apply.Amazon Q Developer is available for free to users w

Mike Fiedler, a PyPI safety and security engineer at the Python Software Foundation, prefers the title “code gardener,” reflecting his role in maintaining and securing open source projects. Recorded at PyCon US, Fiedler explains his task of “pulling the weeds” in code—handling unglamorous but crucial aspects of open source contributions. Since August, funded by Amazon Web Services, Fiedler has focused on enhancing the security of the Python Package Index (PyPI). His efforts include ensuring that both packages and the pipeline are secure, emphasizing the importance of vetting third-party modules before deployment.One of Fiedler’s significant initiatives was enforcing mandatory two-factor authentication (2FA) for all PyPI user accounts by January 1, following a community awareness campaign. This transition was smooth, thanks to proactive outreach. Additionally, the foundation collaborates with security researchers and the public to report and address malicious packages.In late 2023, a security audit by Trail of

The name "Falcon" for the UAE’s large language model (LLM) symbolizes the national bird's qualities of courage and perseverance, reflecting the vision of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi. TII, launched in 2020, addresses AI’s rapid advancements and unintended consequences by fostering an open-source approach to enhance community understanding and control of AI. In this New Stack Makers, Dr. Hakim Hacid, Executive Director and Acting Chief Researcher, Technology Innovation Institute emphasized the importance of perseverance and innovation in overcoming challenges. Falcon gained attention for being the first truly open model with capabilities matching many closed-source models, opening new possibilities for practitioners and industry. Last June, Falcon introduced a 40-billion parameter model, outperforming the LLaMA-65B, with smaller models enabling local inference without the cloud. The latest 180-billion parameter model, trained on 3.5 trillion tokens, illustrates Falcon’s commitment to

Crash-level bugs continue to pose a significant challenge due to the lack of memory safety in programming languages, an issue persisting since the punch card era. This enduring problem, described as "the Joker to the Batman" by Anil Dash, VP of developer experience at Fastly, is highlighted in a recent episode of The New Stack Makers. The White House has emphasized memory safety, advocating for the adoption of memory-safe programming languages and better software measurability. The Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) noted that languages like C and C++ lack memory safety traits and are prevalent in critical systems. They recommend using memory-safe languages, such as Java, C#, and Rust, to develop secure software. Memory safety is particularly crucial for the US government due to the high stakes, especially in space exploration, where reliability standards are exceptionally stringent. Dash underscores the importance of resilience and predictability in missions that may outlast their creators, necessi

In the push to integrate data into development, time series databases have gained significant importance. These databases capture time-stamped data from servers and sensors, enabling the collection and storage of valuable information. InfluxDB, a leading open-source time series database technology by InfluxData, has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer a managed open-source service for time series databases. Brad Bebee, General Manager of Amazon Neptune and Amazon Timestream highlighted the challenges faced by customers managing open-source Influx database instances, despite appreciating its API and performance. To address this, AWS initiated a private beta offering a managed service tailored to customer needs. Paul Dix, Co-founder and CTO of InfluxData joined Bebee, and highlighted Influx's prized utility in tracking measurements, metrics, and sensor data in real-time. AWS's Timestream complements this by providing managed time series database services, including TimesTen for Live Analytics and

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced PG Vector, an open-source tool that integrates generative AI and vector capabilities into PostgreSQL databases. Sirish Chandrasekaran, General Manager of Amazon Relational Database Services, explained at Open Source Summit 2024 in Seattle that PG Vector allows users to store vector types in Postgres and perform similarity searches, a key feature for generative AI applications. The tool, developed by Andrew Kane and offered by AWS in services like Aurora and RDS, originally used an indexing scheme called IVFFlat but has since adopted Hierarchical Navigable Small World (HNSW) for improved query performance. HNSW offers a graph-based approach, enhancing the ability to find nearest neighbors efficiently, which is crucial for generative AI tasks. AWS emphasizes customer feedback and continuous innovation in the rapidly evolving field of generative AI, aiming to stay responsive and adaptive to customer needs. Learn more from The New Stack about Vector Databases Top 5 Vector

Valkey, a Redis fork supported by the Linux Foundation, challenges Redis' new license. In this episode, Madelyn Olson, a lead contributor to the Valkey project and former Redis core contributor, along with Ping Xie, Staff Software Engineer at Google and Dmitry Polyakovsky, Consulting Member of Technical Staff at Oracle highlights concerns about the shift to a more restrictive license at Open Source Summit 2024 in Seattle. Despite Redis' free license for end users, many contributors may not support it. Valkey, with significant industry backing, prioritizes continuity and a smooth transition for Redis users. AWS, along with Google and Oracle maintainers, emphasizes the importance of open, permissive licenses for large tech companies. Valkey plans incremental updates and module development in Rust to enhance functionality and attract more engineers. The focus remains on compatibility, continuity, and consolidating client behaviors for a robust ecosystem.  Learn more from The New Stack about the Valkey Project an

A virtual cluster, described by Loft Labs CEO Lukas Gentele at Kubecon+ CloudNativeCon Paris, is a Kubernetes control plane running inside a container within another Kubernetes cluster. In this New Stack Makers episode, Gentele explained that this approach eliminates the need for numerous separate control planes, allowing VMs to run in lightweight, quickly deployable containers. Loft Labs' open-sourced vcluster technology enables virtual clusters to spin up in about six seconds, significantly faster than traditional Kubernetes clusters that can take over 30 minutes to start in services like Amazon EKS or Google GKE.The integration of vCluster into Rancher at KubeCon Paris enables users to manage virtual clusters alongside real clusters seamlessly. This innovation addresses challenges faced by companies managing multiple applications and clusters, advocating for a multi-tenant cluster approach for improved sharing and security, contrary to the trend of isolated single-tenant clusters that emerged due to comple

When Weaveworks, known for pioneering "GitOps," shut down, concerns arose about the future of Flux, a critical open-source project. However, Puja Abbassi, Giant Swarm's VP of Product, reassured Alex Williams, Founder and Publisher of The New Stack at Open Source Summit in Paris that Flux's maintenance is secure in this episode of The New Makers podcast. Giant companies like Microsoft Azure and GitLab have pledged support. Giant Swarm, an avid Flux user, also contributes to its development, ensuring its vitality alongside related projects like infrastructure code plugins and UI improvements. Abbassi highlighted the importance of considering a project's sustainability and integration capabilities when choosing open-source tools. He noted Argo CD's advantage in UI, emphasizing that projects like Flux must evolve to meet user expectations and avoid being overshadowed. This underscores the crucial role of community support, diversity, and compatibility within the Cloud Native Computing Foundation's ecosystem for l

The use of large language models (LLMs) has become widespread, but there are significant security risks associated with them. LLMs with millions or billions of parameters are complex and challenging to fully scrutinize, making them susceptible to exploitation by attackers who can find loopholes or vulnerabilities. On an episode of The New Stack Makers, Chris Pirillo, Tech Evangelist and Lance Seidman, Backend Engineer at Atomic Form discussed these security challenges, emphasizing the need for human oversight to protect AI systems.One example highlighted was malicious AI models on Hugging Face, which exploited the Python pickle module to execute arbitrary commands on users' machines. To mitigate such risks, Hugging Face implemented security scanners to check every file for security threats. However, human vigilance remains crucial in identifying and addressing potential exploits.Seidman also stressed the importance of technical safeguards and a culture of security awareness within the AI community. Developers

The Kubernetes community primarily focuses on improving the development and operations experience for applications and infrastructure, emphasizing DevOps and developer-centric approaches. In contrast, the data science community historically moved at a slower pace. However, with the emergence of the AI engineer persona, the pace of advancement in data science has accelerated significantly. Alex Williams, founder and publisher of The New Stack co-hosted a discussion with Sanjeev Mohan, an independent analyst, which highlighted the challenges faced by data-related tasks on Kubernetes due to the stateful nature of data. Unlike applications, restarting a database node after a failure may lead to inconsistent states and data loss. This discrepancy in pace and needs between developers and data scientists led to Kubernetes and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation initially overlooking data science. Nevertheless, Mohan noted that the pace of data engineers has increased as they explore new AI applications and workloa

LLM observability focuses on maximizing the utility of larger language models (LLMs) by monitoring key metrics and signals. Alex Williams, Founder and Publisher for The New Stack, and Janikiram MSV, Principal of Janikiram & Associates and an analyst and writer for The New Stack, discusses the emergence of the LLM stack, which encompasses various components like LLMs, vector databases, embedding models, retrieval systems, read anchor models, and more. The objective of LLM observability is to ensure that users can extract desired outcomes effectively from this complex ecosystem.Similar to infrastructure observability in DevOps and SRE practices, LLM observability aims to provide insights into the LLM stack's performance. This includes monitoring metrics specific to LLMs, such as GPU/CPU usage, storage, model serving, change agents in applications, hallucinations, span traces, relevance, retrieval models, latency, monitoring, and user feedback. MSV emphasizes the importance of monitoring resource usage, mode

In a conversation on The New Stack Makers, co-hosted by Alex Williams, TNS founder and publisher, and Charles Humble, an industry expert who served as a software engineer, architect and CTO and now podcaster, author and consultant at Conissaunce Ltd., discussed why software developers and engineers should care about their impact on climate change. Humble emphasized that building software sustainably starts with better operations, leading to cost savings and improved security. He cited past successes in combating environmental issues like acid rain and the ozone hole through international agreements and emissions reduction strategies.Despite modest growth since 2010, data centers remain significant electricity consumers, comparable to countries like Brazil. The power-intensive nature of AI models exacerbates these challenges and may lead to scarcity issues. Humble mentioned the Green Software Foundation's Maturity Matrix with goals for carbon-free data centers and longer device lifespans, discussing their vali

This New Stack Makers podcast co-hosted by Alex Williams, TNS founder and publisher, and Adrian Cockcroft, Partner and Analyst at OrionX.net, discussed Nvidia's GH200 Grace Hopper superchip. Industry expert Sunil Mallya, Co-founder and CTO of Flip AI weighed in on how it is revolutionizing the hardware industry for AI workloads by centralizing GPU communication, reducing networking overhead, and creating a more efficient system. Mallya noted that despite its innovative design, challenges remain in adoption due to interface issues and the need for software to catch up with hardware advancements. However, optimism persists for the future of AI-focused chips, with Nvidia leading the charge in creating large-scale coherent memory systems. Meanwhile, Flip AI, a DevOps large language model, aims to interpret observability data to troubleshoot incidents effectively across various cloud platforms. While discussing the latest chip innovations and challenges in training large language models, the episode sheds light on

This New Stack Makers podcast co-hosted by TNS founder and publisher, Alex Williams and Joan Westenberg, founder and writer of Joan’s Index, discussed Copilot. Westenberg highlighted its integration with Microsoft 365 and its role as a coding assistant, showcasing its potential to streamline various tasks. However, she also revealed its limitations, particularly in reliability. Despite being designed to assist with tasks across Microsoft 365, Copilot's performance fell short during Westenberg's tests, failing to retrieve necessary information from her email and Microsoft Teams meetings. While Copilot proves useful for coding, providing helpful code snippets, its effectiveness diminishes for more complex projects. Westenberg's demonstrations underscored both the strengths and weaknesses of Copilot, emphasizing the need for improvement, especially in reliability, to fulfill its promise as a versatile work companion. Learn more from The New Stack about Copilot Microsoft One-ups Google with Copilot Stack for Deve

This New Stack Makers podcast co-hosted by Adrian Cockroft, analyst at OrionX.net and TNS founder and publisher, Alex Williams discusses the importance of monitoring services utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) and the emergence of tools like LangChain and LangSmith to address this need. Adrian Cockcroft, formerly of Netflix and now working with The New Stack, highlights the significance of monitoring AI apps using LLMs and the challenges posed by slow and expensive API calls from LLMs. LangChain acts as middleware, connecting LLMs with services, akin to the Java Database Controller. LangChain's monitoring capabilities led to the development of LangSmith, a monitoring tool. Another tool, LangKit by WhyLabs, offers similar functionalities but is less integrated. This reflects the typical evolution of open-source projects into commercial products. LangChain recently secured funding, indicating growing interest in such monitoring solutions. Cockcroft emphasizes the importance of enterprise-level support and t

In this New Stack Makers podcast, Martin Parker, a solutions architect for UST, spoke with TNS editor-in-chief, Heather Joslyn and discussed the significance of internal developer platforms (IDPs), emphasizing benefits beyond frontend developers to backend engineers and site reliability engineers (SREs). Parker highlighted the role of IDPs in automating repetitive tasks, allowing SREs to focus on optimizing application performance. Standardization is key, ensuring observability and monitoring solutions align with best practices and cater to SRE needs. By providing standardized service level indicators (SLIs) and key performance indicators (KPIs), IDPs enable SREs to maintain reliability efficiently. Parker stresses the importance of avoiding siloed solutions by establishing standardized practices and tools for effective monitoring and incident response. Overall, the deployment of IDPs aims to streamline operations, reduce incidents, and enhance organizational value by empowering SREs to concentrate on system

In this New Stack Makers podcast, Ben Wilcock, a senior technical marketing architect for Tanzu, spoke with TNS editor-in-chief, Heather Joslyn and discussed the challenges organizations face when building internal developer platforms, particularly the issue of scope, at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America. He emphasized the difficulty for platform engineering teams to select and integrate various Kubernetes projects amid a plethora of options. Wilcock highlights the complexity of tracking software updates, new features, and dependencies once choices are made. He underscores the advantage of having a standardized approach to software deployment, preventing errors caused by diverse mechanisms. Tanzu aims to simplify the adoption of platform engineering and internal developer platforms, offering a turnkey approach with the Tanzu Application Platform. This platform is designed to be flexible, malleable, and functional out of the box. Additionally, Tanzu has introduced the Tanzu Developer Portal, providing a f