Post Syndicated from LWN.net original https://lwn.net/Articles/961405/

On February 2, Google announced this year’s

“Season of Docs”, a program complementing its Summer of Code program
by providing funding to open source projects to hire technical writers to improve
their documentation. Interested projects have until April 2 to apply.

Google Season of Docs provides direct grants to open source projects to improve their documentation and gives professional technical writers an opportunity to gain experience in open source. Together we raise awareness of open source, of docs, and of technical writing.

Post Syndicated from LWN.net original https://lwn.net/Articles/961414/

Stephen Brennan describes
kernel core dumps in excruciating detail.

Kernel core dumps are complex. They are not simply copies of system
memory; they contain plenty of extra metadata which is critical to
understanding their contents. And like any other type of data, the
design of the file formats can enable lots of flexibility and
power. However, due to the broad variety of tools out there, the
diversity of dump formats is overwhelming, and the lack of
documentation or specifications compounds the problem.

Post Syndicated from LWN.net original https://lwn.net/Articles/961359/

Mitchell Baker has announced
that she is stepping down from the role of Mozilla CEO, effective
immediately. Laura Chambers will be the new CEO “for the remainder of
the year“.

We’re at a critical juncture where public trust in institutions,
governments, and the fabric of the internet has reached
unprecedented lows. There’s a tectonic shift underway as everyone
battles to own the future of AI. It is Mozilla’s opportunity and
imperative to forge a better future. I’m excited about Laura’s
day-to-day involvement and the chance for Mozilla to achieve
more. Our power lies in the collective effort of people
contributing to something better and I’m eager for Mozilla to meet
the needs of this era more fully.

Post Syndicated from LWN.net original https://lwn.net/Articles/961121/

The generation of random (or, at least, unpredictable) numbers is key to
many security technologies. For this reason, the provision of random data
as a CPU feature has drawn a lot of attention over the years. A proper
hardware-based random-number generator can address the problems that make
randomness hard to obtain in some systems, but only if the manufacturer can
be trusted to not have compromised that generator in some way. A recent
discussion has brought to light a different problem, though: what happens
if a hardware random-number generator can be simply driven into exhaustion?

Post Syndicated from LWN.net original https://lwn.net/Articles/961355/

The GNU C Library project has
been accepted as a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA), meaning that the
project is now in control of the CVE numbers assigned to its code.

As a CNA the glibc security team will be working to improve the
quality and response time of security advisories and mitigations.

Over the coming months, the glibc security team will define the
process for the CNA and establish best practices that can also be
used by the rest of the GNU Toolchain.

See this article for some background on
this change.

Post Syndicated from LWN.net original https://lwn.net/Articles/961330/

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium), Red Hat (gimp, kernel, kernel-rt, and runc), Slackware (expat), SUSE (libavif), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gke,
linux-gkeop, linux-gkeop-5.15, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15,
linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-oracle,
linux-oracle-5.15, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4,
linux-bluefield, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4,
linux-iot, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, and linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-hwe-6.5, linux-laptop,
linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5, linux-oem-6.5, linux-oracle,
linux-raspi, linux-starfive).