Welcome to the 6th edition of Open Source Matters: our regular publication about the latest happenings in open source! Let’s dive into the news.

In the first part of this series, we outlined the basic steps you need to take in order to begin setting up a developer environment, installing your first app, and making use of the first commands. In this installment, we’ll aim to answer the most common questions about what was installed, how it works, and how the various pieces interact with each other. Additionally, this post will lay out all the different components that are involved in the overall lifecycle of a Mattermost app.

Mattermost has proudly served government and public sector organizations of all types since we got our start in 2016. We have always embraced our role as the open source collaboration platform that can deliver developers and other technical teams the tools needed to accelerate digital operations through better collaboration, in a secure and self-managed environment. Today we emphasize our commitment to these organizations further with the launch of Mattermost Government Solutions.

Mattermost v6.1 is generally available today and includes the following new features (see changelog for more details).

Welcome to the 5th edition of Open Source Matters: our regular publication about the latest happenings in open source! Let’s dive into the news.

While service incidents can be wildly dissimilar, they tend to have one thing in common: a need for quick resolution. Response teams need a robust, repeatable process to follow that ensures fast, mistake-free execution, especially for those 4 AM calls. Having a documented checklist saved where the entire team can access and use it at any time could make the difference between quick resolution or compounding the problem.

As I approach my first anniversary at Mattermost as a Senior Technical Writer, it’s fun to look back on what has been an empowering year of daily technical learning. When I joined Mattermost, I was new to many of the processes and tools used by the team: A year in, I’ve now introduced, led, and supported enhancements across all of these areas, and more! I’d like to introduce you to our product documentation tech stack and share some key learnings we’ve adopted.

The past few weeks have marked a real milestone for the Mattermost community. My co-founder and longtime colleague, Ian, shared his reflections on our huge v6.0 launch, and I echo his take on the magnitude of the launch and our new product capabilities. As CTO at Mattermost, I have the unique pleasure of leading product development efforts for an open source platform backed by an inspiring community of contributors and enthusiasts.

One of the most challenging tasks for Site Reliability Engineers is to align the reliability of the systems with the business goals. There is a constant battle between delivering more features—which increases the product’s value—and keeping the system reliable and maintainable. A significant ally to achieve both objectives is the Service Level Objective Framework.

This post outlines the quickest path available for a developer to use a basic Mattermost app on a local setup. It makes use of Docker containers, a Node.js app, and — of course — a Mattermost instance! When you’re ready to get started with the Mattermost App Framework, here are the steps that you will need to take.