OStatic

As predicted on the project's road map months ago, Django 1.0 is out. Though this Python-backed web application framework has been around for quite a while, declaring it to be 1.0 is an important milestone - and a big accomplishment for a dedicated community of developers.

Many people with technical skills, including many open source developrs, use online staffing marketplace oDesk to find work on projects. Project leaders, too, use the service as a way to find developers from all around the world with targeted types of skills. Today, oDesk is launching a program called oDesk Groups, with 11 companies as initial launch partners, including Sun Microsystems, Zend, Yahoo! and Network Solutions. Among other things, Groups are targeted to allow these large tech companies to find developers and people with other types of skills who can work on their products and services. The initial partners have substantial budgets for development, and open source-focused partners Sun Microsystems and Zend may use oDesk Groups to make work available for many open source developers and experts.

Providing further evidence that venture capital is continuing to flow to open source and web-focused companies, Cupertino-based Zend has just received up to 7 million dollars from TriplePoint Capital. Zend is a leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying and managing business PHP applications. The move comes right on the heels of another rosy quarter for open source venture capital funding, but maybe there is more to Zend's announcement than meets the eye.