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● 06.23.21

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Posted in News Roundup at 12:11 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ LHS Episode #417: The Gang’s All Here

• Hello and welcome to Episode 417 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts are all gathered together in one place for the recording for the first time. They cover Field Day, upcoming ARRL elections, SSTV from the ISS, the death of Freenode, the philosophy of Open Source, WSJT-X and much more. Thanks for listening and have a great week!

=> ↺ DistroTube Is Wrong About Word Processors!

• Recently Distrotube made a video about why word processors are evil, this video was full of really odd arguments as well as some things that were just flat out wrong so I felt like I needed to correct a lot of the points he made.

=> ↺ Minimalist, open source, encrypted Google Photos & Google Docs alternative? We’ll see about that!

• Today, we’re going to take a look at a service that ticks a lot of my boxes for online storage: privacy-focused, encrypted, open source, and very, very minimalist. Let’s take a look at Cryptee!

=> ↺ Taking Ubuntu To The Next Level

• In this lengthy video, I go over some of the changes I would make with Ubuntu (with GNOME) if I were using it as my daily driver. I don’t make drastic changes like swapping out the desktop environment. I just tweak some of the things that are already there.

=> ↺ The Best of Both OSs | LINUX Unplugged 411

• Is it possible to have Arch’s best feature on other Linux distros? We attempt it and report our findings. Plus our reaction to NVIDIA’s beta Wayland support–is this the milestone we’ve been waiting for?

Kernel Space

=> ↺ A study of the Linux kernel PCI subsystem with QEMU

• The Linux PCI subsystem is one of the most significant subsystems of the Linux kernel. In this article, we introduce the usage of QEMU to emulate different PCI/PCIe configurations to help study the Linux PCI subsystem. This ability facilitates Linux administrators or developers, to study, debug and develop the Linux kernel, as it is much easier to customize the PCI/PCIe configuration with QEMU. For instance, in conjunction with SeaBIOS source code, it will be much easier to study PCI initialization and the probing process. In addition, it is also considerably faster to reboot a QEMU/KVM virtual machine compared to rebooting a baremetal server.

• For all examples in this article the KVM virtual machine is running Oracle Linux 8, the virtual machine kernel version is 5.10.0, and the QEMU version is 5.2.0.

• All examples run the boot disk (ol8.qcow2) as default IDE. Since the objective of this article is to study PCI/PCIe, we use virtio-scsi-pci HBA as an example and will not attach any SCSI LUN to the HBA. Please refer to our prior blog article for how to attach an SCSI LUN to virtio-scsi-pci HBA.

• The article focuses on the usage of QEMU with PCI/PCIe. It does not cover any prerequisite knowledge on PCI/PCIe specifications.

Intel

=> ↺ Intel Announces New Leadership Roles, Business Unit Changes

=> ↺ Intel is collapsing

• Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger continues working on restructuring the company and today announced some new leadership as well as business unit changes.

=> ↺ Intel’s Latest CPU Microcode Update Isn’t All That Scary

• While in the past we have seen Intel CPU microcode updates lead to measurable performance differences on multiple occasions, this month’s CPU microcode update doesn’t end up being all that concerning for real-world performance.

• Two weeks ago Intel published new CPU microcode with mitigations for a few new processor vulnerabilities. As usual, I ran benchmarks testing the new microcode against prior revisions to see if these CPU vulnerability mitigations led to any measurable performance hit.

=> ↺ Intel Lands More Open-Source Vulkan Driver Changes For Ray-Tracing – Phoronix

• Even though Vulkan ray-tracing support on Intel graphics hardware isn’t coming until Xe HPG avaiability, Intel’s Linux graphics driver developers have been preparing since last year. In preparation for the Xe HPG launch, Intel’s open-source talent have for many months already been preparing the Vulkan ray-tracing functionality wither another batch of code being merged today.

• Last year Intel began with the compiler-side work around ray-tracing and that has continued with other ray-tracing related prerequisites for their “ANV” Vulkan Linux driver.

Applications

=> ↺ Open Source 3D CAD Software for GNU Linux for 3D Printer Models

• OpenSCAD is a software for creating solid 3D CAD objects.

• It is free software and available for Linux/UNIX, MS Windows and Mac OS X.

• Unlike most free software for creating 3D models (such as the famous application Blender), OpenSCAD focuses on the CAD aspects rather than the artistic aspects of 3D modeling. Thus this might be the application you are looking for when you are planning to create 3D models of machine parts but probably not the tool for creating computer-animated movies.

• OpenSCAD is not an interactive modeler. Instead it is more like a 3D-compiler that reads a script file that describes the object and renders the 3D model from this script file (see examples below). This gives you, the designer, complete control over the modeling process and enables you to easily change any step in the modeling process or make designs that are defined by configurable parameters.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to install LeoCAD on Deepin 20.2

• In this video, we are looking at how to install LeoCAD on Deepin 20.2.

=> ↺ Creating an app with QML: a heater control

• Last week I took the ICS course “Building an Embedded Application with Qt” and now it’s time to put the gained knowledge into action. I decided to create an application to (simulate?) a heater control. Why? Because I have a very basic one at home, and I always dreamed of getting something better. So time to implement it.

=> ↺ Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer: Firsts steps into QML

• After years of using and maintaining Qt there was a piece of the SDK that I never got to use as a developer: QML. Thanks to ICS I’ve took the free (in the sense of cost) QML Programming — Fundamentals and Beyond.

• It consists of seven sessions, which can be easily done in a few days. I did them all in 4 days, but with enough time available you can do them even faster. Of course some previous knowledge of Qt comes handy.

=> ↺ DMIDecode Command Guide with Examples

• Finding information related to BIOS, CPU, or System Serial Number is easy if you are a windows user. But for Linux users, the story is a little bit different than the Windows user.

• If you are using Linux daily like me, then we have something more advanced and powerful tool. But before that, let me tell you a short story. Last night, I suddenly got some issues in my system, and after trying to resolve it on my own for a while in the end, I contacted the manufacturer’s support team.

=> ↺ Wielding Chef for system automation in Linux – Linux Concept

• The last automation framework we will explore is Chef. Chef is a slightly more hands-on and development-oriented automation framework than the previous ones, but powerful nonetheless. It has commercial backing by the similarly named company Chef.

=> ↺ 13 Important Privacy and Security Settings in Ubuntu Linux

• Everybody should be concerned about their privacy and security in this day and age. It is a common misconception that if you are running Linux you do not need to concern yourselves with privacy and security issues. Every operating system has risks and vulnerabilities that can be exploited and leave you exposed.

• In this article, you will learn about best practices that you can follow to avoid privacy risks and leaks.

=> ↺ How To Record the Screen with OBS

• This tutorial will show you how to record both your screen and audio with OBS Studio and save the file on your hard drive. Since the software is compatible with multiple operating systems, we included step-by-step instructions for each one. Keep reading to learn more about the fantastic free tool and its various screen recording settings.

• How to Record Screen With OBS?

• Since it’s open-source software, OBS Studio is entirely free for download. As mentioned, the program is compatible with different operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac. It’s an advanced tool that offers a wide range of customizing options. Also, OBS automatically saves the recorded files in a folder of your choice.

=> ↺ “Firstname Lastname” to “Lastname, Firstname”, with complications

• This particular reformatting task is one I’ve seen celebrated as easy-peasy with AWK. Do you want “Firstname Lastname” made into “Lastname, Firstname”? No problem…

=> ↺ Linux 101: How to clean the DNF and APT caches – TechRepublic

• Both DNF and APT (the package managers for Red Hat and Ubuntu-based Linux distributions) store cached information to ensure the process of installing software is much faster and reliable. With these caches in place, neither package manager has to download the information every time you attempt to update, upgrade or install software.

• But, there are times when that cache information can become outdated or corrupted. When that happens, you might find DNF of APT doesn’t function properly.

• What do you do? You clean the cache, which will delete all of that information so you have a clean slate.

=> ↺ Install Vivaldi Browser for Linux Distros – Linux Shout

• One of the nice firefox and Google chrome alternative for Linux is Vivaldi Browser. Lightspeed, integrated email client, multiple layout choices are some popular features of it. Here we will learn how to install the Vivaldi browser on Linux distros such as Debian, Ubuntu, Pop!OS, Linux Mint, RedHat, CentOS, AlmaLinux, Elementary OS, and more…

• The interface of Vivaldi is also quite easy to handle. As we start, the welcome page will appear with an extremely tidy and usual tab view and the most important functions in the menu bar on the left. Bookmarks and quick selections can be created, managed, and clicked here. You can also access the quick selection when you open an empty tab. Also, open bookmarks, history views in the quick selection menu, and deletion of browser data individually or completely can be down from the left side panel.

=> ↺ How to Convert a PDF File to Text Document on Linux

• Unlike a text file, you can’t edit a PDF directly. There are multiple ways to generate PDF files using text. But what if you want to go the other way round and convert PDFs to text files?

• Luckily, Linux allows you to easily modify these files from the terminal. This article will demonstrate how to convert a PDF file to a text document on Linux.

Games

=> ↺ TI10: The International for Dota 2 may not happen in Sweden now as it’s not elite enough | GamingOnLinux

• The saga continues for the major upcoming Dota 2 tournament TI10: The International, with it now switching countries due to Sweden not accepting it.

• Delayed a while now thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Valve had been working closely with Stockholm Live and Visit Stockholm who seemed to repeatedly assure Valve it would qualify and get the same exemptions as “other elite sporting events there received”. Sadly, that’s not been the case.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Akademy 2021

• The Corona loads inside its scene QGraphicsWidgets objects called Containments, and manages views for each containment: every containment that is associanted to a phisical screen, will have a correspondece 1:1 with a view and views can be eother of Desktop type or Panel type

• Each Containment can contain many Applets, which will be either desktop widgets or panel components like the start menu, task manager and so on, and containment itself is a particular type of Applet, so it’s a subclass of it.

• Applets own a Package of files, together they form a Plasmoid. Plasma::Package was then splitted out of Plasma-framework and became the KPackage framework

• In this way is possible for the user to build its own perfect desktop ui out of a vast choice of pieces.

• In KDE4 times, Plasma supported a wide variety of bindigs, even if most of the applets were implemented in C++ We had pure javascript (before QML wasa thing), Python, Ruby and later we added QML support.

• In Plasma5 things changed quite a lot, as it was obvious that QML was going to be the future, and qgraphicsview was having huge performance problems (when resizing large applets it could go down even to 4-5 fps)

• So we went all with the QML scenegraph, having much faster and hardware accelerated things in the process. Corona, Containment and Applet are no more graphical objects but judt QObjects that manage only logic, not the visualization having a better separation On the downside that meant that the qml binding became the only way to write plasmoids, losing the possibility for using Python and Ruby, but all the binding infrastructure remained there, which became a significant overhead without a real reason.

• So now with KF6 coming: What parts of the Plasma architecture are still needed and mostly ok? what are kinda redundant and not necessary anymore? should we split something? how we can improve things in general?

=> ↺ Akademy 2021 – III

• On Sunday, I made it to all but the last one of the presentations and talks I wanted to go. The session about porting applications to Qt6 was very interesting and I made a few notes that I may later turn into issues on KDE’s Gitlab infrastructure for the KMyMoney project. The talk on How we can solve the personal data problem was not so much related to KMyMoney and its use of the data but nevertheless interesting. Let’s see how this initiative evolves over time and which impact it can create. I added another talk on the fly that was again on Wayland and again presented by Dave Edmundson. Very interesting concepts which I am looking forward to see in distros hopefully soon.

=> ↺ Akademy 2021 – Tuesday BoF Wrap-up

• Tuesday continued the Akademy 2021 BoFs, meetings, group sessions and hacking. There is a wrap-up session at the end of the day so that what happened in the different rooms can be shared with everyone including those not present.

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5.22.2, Bugfix Release for June

• Today KDE releases a bugfix update to KDE Plasma 5, versioned 5.22.2.

• Plasma 5.22 was released in June 2021 with many feature refinements and new modules to complete the desktop experience.

• This release adds a week’s worth of new translations and fixes from KDE’s contributors.

Distributions

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ A Perfect Partnership: SUSE Wins HPE Global Technology Partner of the Year 2021

• We are delighted to announce that SUSE has won the Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) Global Technology Partner of the Year 2021 Award!

• This award from HPE is an acknowledgement of our evolving partnership to help joint customers on their digital transformation journeys from monolithic infrastructure to a scalable, open-source foundation that will support them both now and in the future.

• In a longstanding partnership that has spanned more than 25 years, we have jointly delivered secure Linux, container management and a range of market-leading enterprise solutions to enterprises.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Rocky Linux 8.4 Available Now – Download DVD ISO Images

• After months of active development, Rocky Linux has finally got its first stable version 8.4 release, ready for a production system.

• If you don’t know, last year, Red Hat decided to drop maintenance of CentOS Linux 8 after 2021 to solely focus on CentOS Stream.

• Obviously, the decision made various people unhappy including CentOS project founder Greg Kurtzer. Hence, within a few days, Greg announced a new alternative OS called Rocky Linux, which is still under intensive development.

=> ↺ Rocky Linux 8.4: First release of the announced CentOS successor available

• The Rocky Linux development team has released version 8.4 (“Green Obsidian”), the first stable release of the new Linux distribution. Rocky Linux, which is binary-compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.4, was created from the basic idea of ​​creating a follow-up project to the previous CentOS as a free RHEL clone. Rocky was launched by the original CentOS founder Gregory Kurtzer.

• After AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux is already the second CentOS successor project that was launched this year. The background to this development is Red Hat’s announcement in December 2020 that the 8.x version series of the free RHEL clone CentOS will only be continued as a rolling release from the end of 2021 without fixed version cycles. CentOS will then no longer be completely compatible with the RHEL model: From this point onwards, it will develop into a kind of harbinger of the upcoming RHEL version. The CentOS version series 7.x will receive updates until the regular end of support in June 2024.

=> ↺ Utilize LinuxONE as a platform to build open source technology

• Call for Code invites developers to build and contribute to sustainable, open source technology projects. Now, there is an opportunity for developers to use one of the world’s most reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective platforms – IBM LinuxONE – towards that end. While using the latest encryption technology, ultimate uptime, and the scalability of the IBM Z platform, LinuxONE can process your data efficiently and securely. Therefore, LinuxONE is a great choice to use for your Call for Code project.

• [...]

• IBM Hyper Protect Services are built on IBM LinuxONE technology running on IBM Cloud. These secure services offer technical assurance that only the authorized user — not even the cloud administrator — can see your data, personal information, or encryption keys. There are three services available:

=> ↺ How is the retail industry using enterprise open source?

• Been doing a lot of online shopping lately? There’s a good chance enterprise open source is helping to power your favorite retailer’s website, based on findings we published in The State of Enterprise Open Source report earlier this year.

• We conducted interviews with 1,250 IT leaders worldwide to get a picture of how, where and why they use enterprise open source. They did not know the survey was sponsored by Red Hat and were not necessarily Red Hat customers.

=> ↺ The evolution of SDN: What service mesh offers telco

• In the previous post we took a look at the evolution of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the role it plays for communication service providers. We explored all the way up to the virtualization of network infrastructure, OpenStack, Open vSwitch (OVS) and more. In this post we’re going to look at networking, containers and container orchestration.

• Containers are not new. Depending on how you define “containers” they can date back to 2008 for LXC, or even further back if you consider things like Solaris Zones or good old-fashioned chroots a container. Containers are a way of isolating processes and applications from the rest of the system, therefore they are “contained” by a number of mechanisms we won’t try to go into in this post. “What’s a Linux container?” is a good read if you want to know more about the history, the technologies and the state of the art.

=> ↺ Vim vs. Nano vs. Emacs: Three sysadmins weigh in | Enable Sysadmin

• Three editors. Three experts. Which Linux text editor is right for you?

Debian Family

=> ↺ Neil McGovern & Debian: GNOME and Mollygate

• More significantly, McGovern and Lamb are both personal friends. They live in the Cambridge region of the UK. McGovern gave a job to his mate’s girlfriend.

• [...]

• When we look at de Blanc’s vendetta against her old boss, Dr Richard Stallman, it is easy to see that any employer would sack her for this. GNOME Foundation is not any employer. As the Github records show, her boss, Neil McGovern, was a partner in crime. Therefore, de Blanc has been treated unfairly. She may have a case for unfair dismissal. The Github records are presented below, McGovern and de Blanc did this together.

• It appears that these three men, John Sullivan (previous boss), Chris Lamb (boyfriend) and Neil McGovern all engaged in the attacks on Dr Stallman. It is plausible that they all communicated about moving her from the job at FSF to the GNOME Foundation. It is plausible that two of these men and maybe all three of them envisaged using her as a weapon against Dr Stallman.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu Blog: Ubuntu in the wild – 22nd of June

• The Ubuntu in the wild blog post ropes in the latest highlights about Ubuntu and Canonical around the world on a bi-weekly basis. It is a summary of all the things that made us feel proud to be part of this journey. What do you think of it?

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ JingPad A1: Linux-based tablet with an AMOLED display blows through its Indiegogo campaign goal

• The JingPad A1 has finally reached Indiegogo, where it has already surpassed its funding target. According to Jingling, its manufacturer, the tablet amassed US$20,000 in funding within 15 minutes of going live on the crowdfunding website. As it stands, Jingling has raised over US$117,000 with 54 days of the campaign left to run.

• Jingling still has stock of its early bird pricing though, which it has set to US$549. This price includes an active stylus and a Wi-Fi version of the JingPad A1. The company is also selling a keyboard separately for US$149, or a bundle of the three products for US$699.

• To recap, Jingling has equipped the JingPad A1 with an 11-inch AMOLED display that runs at 2,368 x 1,728 pixels. The display has a 4:3 aspect ratio and supports 4,096 pressure levels. Jingling claims that the display reaches 350 nits and is TÜV certified, too.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ This shield brings a tic-tac-toe game to your Arduino Mega, complete with an AI opponent | Arduino Blog

• Tic-tac-toe is a nearly perfect time-wasting game as it’s quick to play, easy to learn, and has a very small set of rules, which makes it ideal for implementation on a microcontroller. Michael Klements wanted to take it a step further and add a simple AI that can effectively play against a human opponent while never losing a single match. The device he came up with is a shield that fits onto an Arduino Mega and features a grid of LEDs and corresponding tactile buttons. A player can then choose from one of three different modes: easy AI, expert AI, or a human opponent.

=> ↺ Adding a ChaCha Cipher to Precursor’s TRNG « bunnie’s blog

• This is the second post of a two-part series on Betrusted/Precursor’s True Random Number Generator (TRNG).

• A bulletproof source of random numbers is a key component of any cryptosystem, so we’ve done an extensive, months-long characterization of Precursor’s dual, redundant TRNG sources, which consists of an avalanche noise generator and a ring oscillator. We’ve found them to produce passable raw entropy, but you don’t have to take my word for it. You can download our raw data and run your on analysis on it if you like (at least until our ISP cuts us off for serving multiple 10GiB files filled with random data).

• [...]

• After poking around a bit on the Internet, it seems popular to feed a seed of entropy into the ChaCha20 stream cipher (I refer to it as a “cipher” in this post, but I think more technically because of the way I’m using it, it should be referred to as a CSPRNG – Cryptographically Secure Pseudo Random Number Generator). This is done in the Linux kernel as well as by cryptech.is’s HSM and a few other implementations. The devil, of course, is always in the details. Cryptech.is takes the output of their TRNGs, hashes them with a SHA2 block, and then feeds it into a ChaCha20 stream cipher. Linux maintains an entropy pool that is collected from a variety of low-and-high-quality sources, blends them using some fast and slow techniques based upon the nature of the source, runs it through SHA1, and then into ChaCha20 to create the final stream.

=> ↺ Arduino rocks babies to sleep, gives parents a break | Arduino Blog

• If there is one thing for which babies are infamous, it is their complete inability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Rocking cradles can help them drift off, but they require a parent’s attention. Modern motorized rockers solve that issue, but they can be expensive. That’s why Peter Turczak used an Arduino to build an electromechanical rocker mechanism for cribs.

• Turczak kept the costs down on this project by using 3D printer parts. The frame, which attaches beneath an existing crib, was constructed from aluminum extrusion. The frame is in two parts and the top half slides on linear rails with bearings. A NEMA 23 stepper motor pushes the top half of the frame back and forth using a ball screw. Two reed switches act as end stops so that the motor doesn’t grind.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ How to stop robocalls on Android – Phandroid

=> ↺ Android will add update similar to iOS to find your device

=> ↺ The Android 12 Privacy Dashboard is an at-a-glance permissions tool – TechRepublic

=> ↺ Universal Electronics Inc. to Provide Voice-Enabled Android TV Remotes and QuickSet® Technologies to Claro Colombia | Business Wire

=> ↺ OnePlus Merger With Oppo Could Be Big for Android

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Jamie McClelland: How to Meet Online with Simultaneous Interpretation

• May First Movement Technology has been running a public Jitsi Meet instance since well before the pandemic to support Internet-based, video meetings for folks who don’t want to rely on corporate and proprietary infrastructure.

• However (until this week – see below), we haven’t been using it for our own meetings for one main reason: simultaneous interpretation. We’re an international organization with roots in the US and Mexico and we are committed to building a bi-national leadership with a movement strategy that recongizes the symbolic and practical disaster of the US/Mexico border.

• As a result, we simply can’t hold a meeting without simultaneous interpretation between english and spanish.

• [...]

• With the ability to control local volume via the Jitsi Meet API, I was able to pull together a very small amount of code to produce Jitsi Simultaneous Interpretation (JSI) – a way to run your Jitsi Meet server with an interpretation slider at the top allowing you to set the volume of the interpreter at any time during the meeting.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ TC39 meeting, May 25-26 2021 | SpiderMonkey JavaScript/WebAssembly Engine

• Due to the recent changes on freenode, TC39 has moved to Matrix as its communication platform of choice. Read more here.

• The TC39 meeting in May, one of the shorter two day meetings of the committee, primarily focused on more mature proposals, and no stage 1 proposals were introduced. Object.hasOwn moved forward quickly, reaching stage 3 at this meeting. In addition, Top-level await and RegExp Match Indices both moved to stage 4. Resizeable ArrayBuffers and Growable SharedArrayBuffers advanced to stage 3, and implementation will soon start in major browsers. This proposal introduces growable and shrinkable memory which will have implications for web developers as well as other specifications such as WebGPU and WebAssembly.

• Realms, which is finally in a shape that browsers would be willing to implemented, was held back from stage 3 due to ergonomic concerns for certain use cases.

=> ↺ Celebrating 10 years of Reps – Mozilla Reps

• Last week the Reps program celebrated its 10 years anniversary. To honor the event, a week of celebrations took place, with meetings in Zoom rooms and virtual hangouts in specially decorated Hubs rooms. During that week, current Reps and Reps alumni shared memories of the past years, talked about their current work, and discussed future plans and aspirations.

• The Reps program was created with a simple narrative in the mind of its founders (William Quiviger and Pierros Papadeas), to bring structure to the regional communities and help them grow. Throughout the last years, the Reps have served their communities, by growing them and mentoring them, supporting all Mozilla’s big projects and launches, and pivoting to be able to help where the organization needed them the most. From the 1 million Mozillians initiative to the Firefox OS days, and from the Quantum launch to the recent foxfoooding campaign, Reps have always stepped up for the challenge, giving a helping hand, organizing thousands of events, and amplifying Mozilla’s work and mission. And is that spirit that we wanted to celebrate during the last week. A spirit of giving and helping.

CMS

=> ↺ WordPress 5.8 Beta 3

• WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 is now available for testing!

• This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.

FSF

=> ↺ What happens if the FSF collapses?

GNU Projects

=> ↺ parallel @ Savannah: GNU Parallel 20210622 (‘Protasevich’) released [stable]

• GNU Parallel 20210622 (‘Protasevich’) [stable] has been released. It is available for download at: lbry://@GnuParallel:4

• No new functionality was introduced so this is a good candidate for a stable release.

Programming/Development

Perl/Raku

=> ↺ What they say in Java is just as true in Perl

=> ↺ An Error In The Roles Article – LFlat, The Home of Vrurg

• The recently published article contained a factual error, as was pointed out by Elizabeth Mattijsen. I stated that named arguments do not work in role parameterization but it is not true. Yet, what I was certain about is that there is clearly something wrong about them. It took a bit of my time and wandering around Rakudo sources to recover my memories. The actual problem about named parameters is less evident and I dedicated a section of the article to explain what is actually going on.

• In this post I will share more detailed explanation of what’s going on for those interested in it. If anybody wish to follow me by watching the code open the src/Perl6/Metamodel/ParametricRoleGroupHOW.nqp file in Rakudo sources. There we start with method parameterize. Remember in the meanwhile, that the code is NQP meaning it looks like Raku but it lacks many features of it.

• [...]

• But what happens when named parameters are involved? To make it possible to dispatch over them ParametricRoleGroupHOW does a trick: it takes the slurpy hash of nameds and uses it as a single positional argument which is appended to the end of @args array of positionals. To be consistent, if there are no nameds are passed in, NO_NAMEDS constant is pushed instead.

=> ↺ Rakudo Weekly News: 2021.25 Small Steps

• Alexander Kiryuhin has again released a version of the Rakudo Compiler implementing the Raku Programming Language: the 2021.06 Compiler Release!

Rust

=> ↺ ISRG and Google Back Rust for Linux Project

• Bringing memory safety to the Linux kernel is a big job, but the Rust for Linux project is making great progress, says Josh Aas in a recent announcement from the The Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), which is the parent organization of Let’s Encrypt.

• The ISRG is formally supporting this development work by providing Miguel Ojeda with a one-year contract (made possible through financial support from Google) to work on Rust for Linux and other security efforts full time. Previously, Ojeda was doing the work as a side project.

=> ↺ The ISRG wants to make the Linux kernel memory-safe with Rust

• As we covered in March, Rust is a low-level programming language offering most of the flexibility and performance of C—the language used for kernels in Unix and Unix-like operating systems since the 1970s—in a safer way. Efforts to make Rust a viable language for Linux kernel development began at the 2020 Linux Plumbers conference, with acceptance for the idea coming from Linus Torvalds himself. Torvalds specifically requested Rust compiler availability in the default kernel build environment to support such efforts—not to replace the entire source code of the Linux kernel with Rust-developed equivalents, but to make it possible for new development to work properly.

• Using Rust for new code in the kernel—which might mean new hardware drivers or even replacement of GNU Coreutils—potentially decreases the number of bugs lurking in the kernel. Rust simply won’t allow a developer to leak memory or create the potential for buffer overflows—significant sources of performance and security issues in complex C-language code.

=> ↺ The ISRG Wants To Make the Linux Kernel Memory-safe With Rust

=> ↺ Linux Foundation

Leftovers

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Pseudo-Open Source

Openwashing

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Launches GitOps Training

=> ↺ trying to change its business model

=> ↺ Linux Foundation initiative advocates open standards for voice assistants

=> ↺ Linux Foundation is openwashing Microsoft and listening devices

• To support the evolution, the Linux Foundation today launched the Open Voice Network (OVN), an alliance advocating for the adoption of open standards across voice assistant apps in automobiles, smartphones, smart home devices, and more. With founding members Target, Schwarz Gruppe, Wegmans Food Markets, Microsoft, Veritone, Deutsche Telekom, and others, the OVN’s goal — much like Amazon’s Voice Interoperability Initiative — is to standardize the development and use of voice assistant systems and conversational agents that use technologies including automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, advanced dialog management, and machine learning.

=> ↺ The Linux Foundation Tackles Safe Open Standards for AI Voice Assistants

Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

=> ↺ Daniel Stenberg: On the GitHub ReadMe podcast

=> ↺ 1

=> ↺ 2

• On May 17, I joined the Kathy and Brian, the hosts of the GitHub ReadMe podcast on a video meeting from my home and we had a chat. Mostly about my work on curl. Today the episode “aired”.

Security

=> ↺ Unpatched Supply-Chain Flaw Affects ‘Pling Store’ Platforms for Linux Users – News Nation USA

• Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a critical unpatched vulnerability affecting Pling-based free and open-source software (FOSS) marketplaces…

=> ↺ Unpatched Flaw in Linux Pling Store Apps Could Lead to Supply-Chain Attacks

• Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a critical unpatched vulnerability affecting Pling-based free and open-source software (FOSS) marketplaces for Linux platform that could be potentially abused to stage supply-chain attacks and achieve remote code execution (RCE).

• “Linux marketplaces that are based on the Pling platform are vulnerable to a wormable [cross-site scripting] with potential for a supply-chain attack,” Positive Security co-founder Fabian Bräunlein said in a technical write-up published today. “The native PlingStore application is affected by an RCE vulnerability, which can be triggered from any website while the app is running.”

=> ↺ Innovatrics Optimizes SmartFace for Linux and NVIDIA Jetson Systems

• Innovatrics has taken steps to increase the appeal of its SmartFace facial recognition platform. To that end, the company has optimized the platform for the Linux operating system, and for edge devices that run on NVIDIA Jetson technology.

=> ↺ Open Source Utilization in Email Security Demystified

• Open Source is currently being recognized by more organizations than ever before for its ability to give rise to flexible, cost-effective and exceptionally secure software and technologies. Currently, over 75 percent of organizations worldwide are contributing to and consuming open-source software and products. The open-source community is expected to continue to grow and thrive in the coming years, which will further increase the overall credibility of Open Source and enhance the various benefits that open-source options are able to offer businesses and individuals alike.

• This article will explore why choosing an open-source email security solution can offer key advantages over proprietary alternatives including superior security, reliability, resiliency, flexibility and cost-efficiency.

=> ↺ Top Linux OS for Cybersecurity – Hack Ware News

• When it comes to cybersecurity, the most recommended operating system to use is Linux. Yet not all distros are the same when it comes to handling security. Some distros are better than others. Below is a list of the top Linux OS for Cybersecurity.

• Kali Linux – always appears at the top of searches when looking for Top Linux OS for Cybersecurity. Why? Because this OS comes with over 500 pre-installed apps and tools used in cybersecurity for purposes such as hacking and penetration testing. These tools are always updated, and this distro can run on different platforms.

• Tails – stands for The Amnesiac Incognito Live System and is the official distro of the Tor project. It’s a very compact distro that can be run on USB or DVD on most computers. It lives completely in RAM and leaves no trace of activity after use. Like the others, connections are routed to Tor. Despite being compact, it still includes productivity tools such as LibreOffice, Thunderbird and GIMP.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Your phone’s not listening to your conversations, you are likely giving it the information it needs

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Google cans engineering diversity training scheme after alumni complain of abysmal pay packages

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Thorsten Bausch (Hoffmann Eitle) on Changes to the German Patent Act

• The German Bundestag has adopted amendments to the German Patent Act. The changes introduce (i) a codified proportionality defense to injunctions in patent infringement proceedings, (ii) new confidentiality rules for patent disputes, and (iii) an accelerated timeline for nullity actions. While the Bundesrat still has to approve this bill, this is not believed to be controversial. Thus, the changes described below are expected to enter into force in a few weeks, except (iii), which will enter into force in spring 2022.

• The proportionality defense is the most heavily debated part of the amendments. Some stakeholders have even expressed concerns that this could weaken the attractiveness of the German patent system, although we think that this may be exaggerated. So, what are the changes about? Currently, a German infringement court will issue an injunction by default if it finds that the asserted patent is infringed or threatened to be infringed. The patent holder does not have to fulfil additional requirements to obtain an injunction.

• The new law will not change this. It is intended to merely codify a proportionality exception developed by the German Federal Court of Justice in the decision Wärmetauscher [heat exchanger] in 2016 based on the principle of good faith, which is generally applicable in civil law. The exception is now codified in Section 139(1) Patent Act and applies if the injunction would result in an undue hardship for the defendant or third parties that is disproportionate to the exclusive right granted by the patent due to special circumstances. The burden of proof lies with the defendant. If the exception applies, the patent will still be considered infringed and the patent holder is entitled to monetary compensation independent of its damages claim. It is expected that under the new law the courts will apply the exception only very rarely. The new law may however give more weight to the interests of third parties, which have not been considered by the courts so far.

=> ↺ FOSS Patents: Legislative intent couldn’t be clearer: availability of patent injunctions not compromised by new German legislation

• Two renowned German patent litigators stated in the podcast I published yesterday that patent injunctions would remain just as available as before the German patent “reform” bill that was adopted earlier this month by the Federal Parliament. Dr. Dietrich Kamlah of Taylor Wessing pointed to the high hurdle that “disproportionate hardship” represents. Dr. Christof Augenstein of Kather Augenstein highlighted that the legislation is merely meant to codify the case law of the Federal Court of Justice, a court that rejected a proportionality argument in the only case of this kind it ever decided (Wärmetauscher, or Heat Exchanger).

• In case you missed it, here’s the podcast again:

• Arguably, Daimler has lost that Heat Exchanger case–in which defended itself against an inventor–a second time by not achieving a German patent injunction reform that would make a practical difference. But perseverance sometimes pays off, and maybe they will succeed on a third attempt, if they and their allies figure out how to win a patent policy battle.

Software Patents

=> ↺ Parus Files Patent Lawsuit Against Microsoft for Infringement of its Proprietary Voice-Browsing and Device Control Technology

=> ↺ Parus Files Second Patent Lawsuit Against Google for Infringement of its Proprietary Voice-Browsing and Device Control Technology

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