Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1052269/
The calendar has flipped over to 2026; a new year has begun. That means
the moment we all dread has arrived: it is time for LWN to put out a set of
lame predictions for what may happen in the coming year. Needless to say,
we do not know any more than anybody else, but that doesn’t stop us from
making authoritative-sounding pronouncements anyway.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1052732/
The 6.19-rc4 kernel prepatch is out for
testing.
So this rc is still a bit smaller than usual, but it’s not _much_
smaller, and I think next week is likely going to be more or less
back to normal.Which is all exactly as expected, and nothing here looks
particularly odd. I’ll make an rc8 this release just because of the
time lost to the holidays, not because it looks like we’d have any
particular issues pending (knock wood).
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1052607/
Greg Kroah-Hartman has written an
overview of how the kernel’s security team works.
The members of the security team contain a handful of core kernel
developers that have experience dealing with security bugs, and
represent different major subsystems of the kernel. They do this
work as individuals, and specifically can NOT tell their employer,
or anyone else, anything that is discussed on the security alias
before it is resolved. This arrangement has allowed the kernel
security team to remain independent and continue to operate across
the different governments that the members operate in, and it looks
to become the normal way project security teams work with the
advent of the European Union’s new CRA law coming into effect.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1052241/
Nate Graham looks
back at how 2025 went for the KDE project.
Today Plasma is the default desktop environment in a bunch of the
hottest new gaming-focused distros, including Bazzite, CachyOS,
Garuda, Nobara, and of course SteamOS on Valve’s gaming
devices. Fedora’s Plasma edition was also promoted to co-equal
status with the GNOME edition, and Asahi Linux — the single
practical option for Linux on newer Macs — only supports KDE
Plasma. Parrot Linux recently switched to Plasma by default,
too. And Plasma remains the default on old standbys like
EndeavourOS, Manjaro, NixOS, OpenMandriva, Slackware and TuxedoOS —
which ships on all devices sold by Tuxedo Computers!
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1052191/
Linus has released 6.19-rc3 for testing. “Another week, another -rc release.
Except the past week has obviously been the holiday week, and this rc
release is pretty small as a result. Very much as expected.“
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051984/
The judge in the Vizio GPL-compliance lawsuit has ruled, in a
summary judgment, that the GNU General Public License, version 2,
does not require the provision of signing keys needed to install modified
software on a device.
Read as a whole, the Agreements require Vizio to make the source
code available in such a manner that the source code can be readily
obtained and modified by Plaintiff or other third parties. While
source code is defined to include “the scripts used to control
compilation and installation,” this does not mean that Vizio must
allow users to reinstall the software, modified or otherwise, back
onto its smart TVs in a manner that preserves all features of the
original program and/or ensures the smart TVs continue to function
properly. Rather, in the context of the Agreements, the disputed
language means that Vizio must provide the source code in a manner
that allows the source code to be obtained and revised by Plaintiff
or others for use in other applications.
As the Software Freedom Conservancy, the plaintiff in the case, has pointed
out, the judge has ruled against a claim that was never actually made.
SFC has never held the position, nor do we today hold the position,
that any version of the GPL (even including GPLv3!) require “that
the device continues to function properly” after a user installs
their modified version of the copyleft components.
Linus Torvalds, meanwhile, has posted his own take
on the ruling that has, as one might imagine, sparked an extended
discussion as well.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051230/
Another year has reached its conclusion. That can only mean one thing: the
time has come to take a look back at the
predictions we made in January and evaluate just how badly they turned
out. Much to our surprise, not all of our predictions were entirely
accurate. It has been a wild year in the Linux community and beyond, to
say the least.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051010/
Arnd Bergmann began his 2025 Linux
Plumbers Conference session on the future of 32-bit support in the
Linux kernel by saying that it was to be a followup to his September talk on the same topic. The
focus this time, though, was on the kernel’s “high memory” abstraction, and
when it could be removed. It seems that the kernel community will need to
support 32-bit systems for some time yet, even if it might be possible to
remove some functionality, including support for large amounts of memory on
those systems, more quickly.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051653/
Version 17.1 of the GDB debugger is out. Changes include shadow-stack
support, info threads improvements, a number of Python API
improvements, and more, including: “Warnings and error messages now
” See the
start with an emoji (warning sign, or cross mark) if supported by the host
charset. Configurable.
NEWS file for more information.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051650/
Version 4.3.0 of the security-oriented Qubes OS distribution has been
released. Changes include more recent distribution templates, preloaded
disposable virtual machines, and the reintroduction of the Qubes Windows
Tools set. See the
release notes for more information.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051580/
Ian Jackson (along with Sean Whitton) has posted a manifesto and status
update to the effect that, since Git repositories have become the
preferred method to distribute source, that is how Debian should be
distributing its source packages.
Everyone who interacts with Debian source code should be able to
do so entirely in git.That means, more specifically:
- All examination and edits to the source should be performed via
normal git operations.- Source code should be transferred and exchanged as git data, not
tarballs. git should be the canonical form everywhere.- Upstream git histories should be re-published, traceably, as part of
formal git releases published by Debian.- No-one should have to learn about Debian Source Packages, which are
bizarre, and have been obsoleted by modern version control.This is very ambitious, but we have come a long way!
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051466/
The 6.19-rc2 kernel prepatch is out for
testing. “I obviously expect next week to be even quieter, with people
“
being distracted by the holidays. So let’s all enjoy taking a little break,
but maybe break the boredom with some early rc testing?
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051459/
The 2025 election for members of the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory
Board has
concluded; the winners are Greg Kroah-Hartman, Steven Rostedt, Julia
Lawall, David Hildenbrand, and Ted Ts’o.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1051179/
Stephen Rothwell, who has maintained the kernel’s linux-next integration
tree from its inception, has announced his
retirement from that role:
I will be stepping down as Linux-Next maintainer on Jan 16, 2026.
Mark Brown has generously volunteered to take up the challenge. He
has helped in the past filling in when I have been unavailable, so
hopefully knows what he is getting in to. I hope you will all
treat him with the same (or better) level of respect that I have
received.It has been a long but mostly interesting task and I hope it has
been helpful to others. It seems a long time since I read Andrew
Morton’s “I have a dream” email and decided that I could help out
there – little did I know what I was heading for.
Over the last two decades or so, the kernel’s development process has evolved
from an unorganized mess with irregular releases to a smooth machine with a
new release every nine or ten weeks. That would not have happened without
linux-next; thanks are due to Stephen for helping to make the current
process possible.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1050317/
Linus Torvalds is famously averse to presenting prepared talks, but the
wider community is always interested in what he has to say about the
condition of the Linux kernel. So, for some time now, his appearances have
been in the form of an informal conversation with Dirk Hohndel. At the
2025 Open Source Summit Japan, the pair followed that tradition for the
29th time. Topics covered include the state of the development process,
what Torvalds actually does, and how machine-learning tools might fit into
the kernel project.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1049996/
Inside this week’s LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1049604/
The Civil Infrastructure Platform
(CIP) first launched in that form in April 2016, so it has a
tenth-anniversary celebration in its near future. At the 2025 Open
Source Summit Japan, Yoshitake Kobayashi talked about the goals of this
project and where it is headed in the future. Supporting a Linux system
for even one year is a challenging task; maintaining that support for a
decade or more is rather more so, and a changing regulatory environment
complicates the task further.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1050179/
The final part of the 2025 Maintainers Summit was devoted to the kernel’s
development process itself. There were two sessions, one on continuity and
succession planning, and the traditional discussion, led by Linus Torvalds,
on any pain points that the community is experiencing. There was not a lot
that developers were unhappy about, and there are now more explicit plans in
the works to provide a process should Torvalds abruptly become unable to
fill his role.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1050177/
Despite depending heavily on tools, the kernel project often seems to
under-invest in the development of those tools. There has been progress in
that area, though. At the 2025 Maintainers Summit, Konstantin Ryabitsev,
who is (among other things) the author of b4, led a session on ways
in which the kernel’s tools could be improved to make the development
process more efficient and accessible.
Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/1049424/
Linus Torvalds released 6.19-rc1 and
closed the 6.19 merge window on December 14 (Japan time), after having
pulled 12,314 non-merge commits into the mainline. Over 8,000 of those
commits came in after our first 6.19
merge-window summary was written. The second part of the merge window
was focused on drivers, but brought in a number of other changes as well.