All posts by jzb

Security updates for Thursday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/984212/

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium), Fedora (kernel, obs-cef, and xen), Mageia (emacs), Oracle (freeradius, freeradius:3.0, and kernel), Red Hat (emacs, httpd, and kpatch-patch-4_18_0-305_120_1), Slackware (curl), SUSE (apache2, cockpit-wicked, glibc, gnutls, gvfs, less, nghttp2, opensc, python-idna, python-requests, qemu, rpm, tpm2-0-tss, tpm2.0-tools, and unbound), and Ubuntu (clickhouse, exim4, libcommons-collections3-java, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, mysql-8.0, openssl, php-cas, prometheus-alertmanager, and snapd).

[$] Showing up for Python in GNOME

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/983897/

A few years ago, PyGObject—the Python
package that provides bindings for GTK and GNOME applications—was not
faring particularly well. Several maintainers had left the project and its
development was not keeping pace with changes in GTK. At this year’s
GUADEC, Dan Yeaw presented a talk
about the project’s decline, improvements in the last year, and his
experience getting involved in an undermaintained project.

Forgejo v8.0 released

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/984116/

Version 8.0 of the Forgejo
software-development platform has been released. Notable
changes include the removal
of non-free software found in the codebase, improved stability, and a
reduction
in “seemingly random User Interface changes“:

A gentle way of describing Forgejo User eXperience is that it is an
acquired taste: it grew over the years, driven by the inspiration of
the person with the keyboard in their hand. Once implemented it almost
never changed. A user who started with Forgejo in 2022 can only see
minor changes in 2024 and not all of them make intuitive sense. The
solution to this problem is simple and was identified early on: User
Research. But only in the making of Forgejo v8.0 did it get some
momentum.

See the release
notes for a full list of changes.

Security updates for Wednesday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/984080/

Security updates have been issued by Fedora (xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland), Red Hat (freeradius, freeradius:3.0, git-lfs, httpd, kernel, openssh, and varnish:6), SUSE (cdi-apiserver-container, cdi-cloner-container, cdi- controller-container, cdi-importer-container, cdi-operator-container, cdi- uploadproxy-container, cdi-uploadserver-container, cont, git, gtk2, gtk3, kubevirt, virt-api-container, virt-controller-container, virt-exportproxy-container, virt-exportserver-container, virt-handler-container, virt-launcher-container, virt-libguestfs-t, orc, postgresql14, python-dnspython, python-urllib3, shadow, and xen), and Ubuntu (openjdk-17, openjdk-21, openjdk-8, openjdk-lts, and python3.10, python3.8).

Funtoo Linux is being discontinued

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/983977/

Daniel Robbins, founder of the Gentoo Linux distribution and its
spinoff Funtoo Linux, has
announced
that he has decided to end the Funtoo project:

Funtoo started as a philosophy to create a fun
community of contributors building something great together. For me,
it’s no longer that so I need to move on to other things. There is not
a successor BDFL for Funtoo nor am I interested in trying to find one,
or hand the project off to someone else. You can expect the project to
wind down through August. If you have a Funtoo
container, it will continue to be online through the end of August
so you have time to find another hosting solution if you need one.

[$] Report from the annual general meeting at GUADEC

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/983203/

At GUADEC
in Denver, Colorado on July 21, the GNOME Foundation held its annual
general meeting (AGM) to provide updates from the foundation’s board and committees.
Topics included work accomplished in the past year, challenges
facing the GNOME Foundation–including fundraising and finding a new
executive director–and some insight into plans for the next year. And
last, but not least, the awarding of the Pants of Thanks.

Linux Mint 22 “Wilma” released

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/983301/

Linux Mint has announced version 22 of
the distribution in three editions: Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce. Mint 22
is based on Ubuntu 24.04 and uses kernel version 6.8.0:

Linux Mint 22 is a long term support release which will be supported
until 2029. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and
many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

LWN covered the
Linux Mint 22 beta in early July. See the new
features page and release notes for
more information on this release.

OpenSSL announces new governance structure

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/983120/

OpenSSL has announced
that it has adopted a new governance framework:

The OpenSSL Management Committee (OMC) has been dissolved, and two
boards of directors have been elected for the Foundation and the Corporation. Each
organization has ten voting members. These boards share all the
responsibilities and authorities of the former OMC co-equally.

To further engage our communities, we are establishing two advisory
committees for each entity: a Business Advisory Committee (BAC) and a
Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The communities will elect the
members of the BACs and TACs, creating a direct channel for community
input in roadmap development and reflecting the diverse perspectives
of OpenSSL’s communities.

OpenSSL has also announced that two projects have adopted the OpenSSL Mission
and become OpenSSL
projects: Bouncy Castle, which provides
cryptographic APIs for Java and C#, and the cryptlib security
software development toolkit. See the announcement for full details.

[$] Lessons from the death and rebirth of Thunderbird

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/982610/

Ryan Sipes told the audience during his keynote at
GUADEC 2024 in Denver, Colorado that the Thunderbird mail client
“probably shouldn’t still be alive”. Thunderbird, however, is not only
alive—it is arguably in better shape than ever
before. According to Sipes, the project’s turnaround is a result of
governance, storytelling, and learning to be comfortable asking users
for money. He would also like it quite a bit if Linux distributions stopped
turning off telemetry.

Security updates for Wednesday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/983083/

Security updates have been issued by Fedora (ghostscript and xmedcon), Gentoo (Dmidecode, ExifTool, and Freenet), Red Hat (containernetworking-plugins, cups, edk2, httpd, httpd:2.4, kernel, kernel-rt, krb5, libreoffice, libuv, libvirt, linux-firmware, nghttp2, nodejs, openssh, python3, runc, thunderbird, and tpm2-tss), Slackware (aaa_glibc, bind, and mozilla), SUSE (postgresql14, python-sentry-sdk, and shadow), and Ubuntu (activemq, bind9, haproxy, nova, provd, python-zipp, squid, squid3, and tomcat).

Improvements to the PSF Grants program

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/982967/

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) board has announced
improvements to its grants program that have been enacted as a
response to “concerns and frustrations” with the program:

The PSF Board takes the open letter from the pan-African delegation
seriously, and we began to draft a plan to address everything in the
letter. We also set up improved two-way communications so that we can
continue the conversation with the community. The writers of the open
letter have now met several times with members of the PSF board. We
are thankful for their insight and guidance on how we can work
together and be thoroughly and consistently supportive of the
pan-African Python community.

So far the PSF has set up office
hours to improve communications, published
a retrospective on the DjangoCon Africa review, and put out a transparency
report on grants from the past two years. The PSF board has also
voted to “use the same criteria for all grant requests, no matter
their country of origin“.

[$] “Opt-in” metrics planned for Fedora Workstation 42

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/980598/

Red Hat, through members of the Fedora
Workstation Working Group, has taken another
swing at persuading the Fedora Project to allow metrics related to
the real-world use of the Workstation edition to be collected. The first
proposal, aimed for Fedora 40, was withdrawn to be reworked
based on feedback. This time around, the proponents have shifted from
asking for opt-out telemetry to opt-in metrics, with more detail about
what would be collected and the policies that would govern data collection. The
change seems to be on its way to approval by the Fedora Engineering
Steering Council (FESCo) and is set to take effect for
Fedora 42.

Security updates for Wednesday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/982270/

Security updates have been issued by Debian (kernel), Fedora (golang and krb5), Red Hat (cups, firefox, git, java-21-openjdk, kernel, linux-firmware, nghttp2, nodejs, and podman), SUSE (libndp, nodejs18, nodejs20, tomcat, and xen), and Ubuntu (gtk+2.0, gtk+3.0 and linux-hwe-5.4, linux-oracle-5.4).

[$] SUSE asks openSUSE to consider name change

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/981018/

SUSE has, in a somewhat clumsy
fashion, asked openSUSE
to consider rebranding to clear up confusion over the
relationship between SUSE the company and openSUSE as a community
project. That, in turn, has opened conversations about revising
openSUSE governance and more. So far, there is no concrete proposal to
consider, no timeline, or even a process for the community and company
to follow to make any decisions.

GNOME Foundation Announces Transition of Executive Director

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/981850/

The GNOME Foundation has announced
that executive director Holly Million is stepping down at the end of
July, and will be replaced by Richard Littauer as interim executive
director:

On behalf of the whole GNOME community, the Board of Directors
would like to give our utmost thanks to Holly for her achievements
during the past 10 months, including drafting a bold five-year
strategic plan for the Foundation, securing two important fiscal
sponsorship agreements with GIMP and Black Python Devs, writing our
first funding proposal that will now enable the Foundation to apply
for more grants, vastly improving our financial operations, and
implementing a break-even budget to preserve our financial
reserves.

The Foundation’s Interim Executive Director, Richard Littauer,
brings years of open source leadership as part of his work as an
organizer of SustainOSS and CURIOSS, as a sustainability coordinator
at the Open Source Initiative, and as a community development manager
at Open Source Collective, and through open source contributions to
many projects, such as Node.js and IPFS. The Board appointed Richard
in June and is confident in his ability to guide the Foundation during
this transitional period.

Million says she is leaving to pursue a PhD in psychology. The
board plans to announce its search plan for a permanent executive
directory after GUADEC, which takes
place July 19 through 24.