San Francisco-based Internet hosting for software development GitHub was founded in 2008, and acquired by Microsoft in 2018. Since then, GitHub has been offering distributed version control and source code management functionality of Git. 

GitHub Repositories usually consist of folders, files, images, spreadsheets, and videos; and are used to organise projects. GitHub boasts of being one of the world’s largest community of developers. As of January 2020, it reported hosting over 40 million users with 190 million repositories. A developer can either create private repositories or choose to share it with others. 

Today, we take a look at eight open source GitHub Repositories that are trending right now: 

Mobile Verification Toolkit 

Developed by Amnesty International Security Lab, Mobile Verification Toolkit or MVT is a collection of utilities to automate gathering of forensic traces used in identifying potential threats on Android or iOS devices. It was released recently in the context of the Pegasus project. 

For iOS devices, MVT helps extract artifacts from iTunes backup and full filesystem dump. It also compares stored JSON results to provide indicators. For Android devices, MVT downloads all or non-safelisted installed APKs and checks the Android backup.  

Using the MVT tool requires technical skills including understanding the basics of forensic analysis and using command line tools. 

In order to install MVT, first install the dependencies using the following code: 

For Linux: sudo apt install python3 python3-pip libusb-1.0-0

For MacOS: brew install python3 libusb

Post this, one can either directly install MVT from pypi with: pip3 install mvt 

Or directly from sources: 

git clone https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt.git

cd mvt

pip3 install

For more information, click here. 

Tinode Instant Messaging Server 

The Tinode Instant Messaging Server, on the surface, looks similar to WhatsApp or Telegram. Backed in pure Go, it is meant as a replacement for XMPP and Jabber. Its goal is to create a modern open platform for federated instant messaging, focusing on mobile communication. Additionally, in line with the recent controversies around privacy concerns, Tinode Instant Messaging Server aims to create a decentralised instant messaging platform that would be challenging for the government to track and block. 

At present, Tinode is available in English, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. 

For more information, click here. 

NocoDB

NocoDB is the open source alternative to Airtable. It turns any MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite and MariaDB into a smart spreadsheet. The idea behind developing NocoDB is to provide a powerful open source and no-code interface for databases to digital businesses across the globe. It is focused towards democratising access to powerful computing tools. 

NocoDB requires a database to store metadata of spreadsheet views and external databases. 

For more information, click here. 

Flutter 

Google’s SDK to create user experiences for mobile, web and desktop from a single codebase, Flutter works with existing code. The open-source UI software development kit is used by developers and organisations across the globe. Flutter composting capabilities allows one to overlay and animate graphics, video, text and controls without limitations. It also includes a set of widgets to allow the delivery of experiences on both iOS and Android ecosystems. 

Powered by hardware accelerated 2D graphics library Skia, and the Dart platform, Flutter enables the compilation to 32-bit and 64-bit ARM machine code for iOS, Android; JavaScript for web and Intel x64 for desktop devices. 

Flutter works with any development tool and is a fully open-source project.

For more information, click here. 

Coding Interview University 

This repository is useful for everyone trying to crack a Software Development Engineer’s role at any software company, including the likes of the tech giants– Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. It is a multi-month study plan for self-taught web developers looking to become a software engineer. 

Created by John Washam, it is a to-do list of study topics that helped John crack a Software Development Engineering job at Amazon. 

Besides learning material, this study repository prepares one for the interview process, provides a daily plan, finding the best career opportunity, building a resume, and questions to ask an interviewer, among others. 

For more information, click here. 

CBL-Mariner

CBL-Mariner is an internal Linux distribution for Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and edge products and services. It enhances Microsoft’s ability to stay current on Linux’s updates. Consuming limited disk and memory resources, CBL-Mariner provides minimal attack surface. In the rise of a security vulnerability, CBL-Mariner supports both package-based and image-based update models. 

The CBL-Mariner initiative is a part of Microsoft’s investment in Linux technologies– SONiC, Azure Sphere OS and WSL. 

For more information, click here.

Forem Self-Host

This is a repository to set up a free, self-managed install of Forem in a Fedora CoreOS VM running on popular cloud providers– DigitalOcean, AWS and Google Cloud. The main aim of this project is to provide developers with the choice, freedom and cost-effectiveness of hosting their own Forem community. 

The requirements include Git, Python 3.x and pip3, Ansible, Butane, Fedora CoreOS and a supported cloud provider. 

For more information, click here. 

Windows11 in React 

The Windows11 open source project replicates the Windows11 desktop experience on the web using technologies React, CSS and Js. It features all the widgets, menus and layouts of Windows11. 

The stack consists of React and Redux, SCSS and CSS Modules. 

For more information, click here.