The Little Hacker's Room

The SCO case has long since dropped off the radar for most. It is worth noting, though, that the Novell slander of title trial is now underway in Utah. Groklaw has a href=http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100309181439569detailed coverage/a of the testimony thus far. spanWhy did Novell slander SCO's title? Because of Linux. Linux started as a hobbyist tool. It's open source; 'nobody can be completely sure where the code comes from'. Starting around 2000, IBM inserted into Linux stuff that belonged to SCO. SCO sued, and started their licensing program (SCOsource). Novell stated that SCO doesn't have the copyrights and can't sue IBM./span

bDebian/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/378069/tdiary/a (cross-site scripting). p bFedora/b has updated bsamba/b (a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/378070/F11/a: filesystem access privilege escalation). p bMandriva/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/378068/php/a (two safe_mode bypass vulnerabilities).

The Mozilla Foundation has a href=http://mpl.mozilla.org/launched a process to update the Mozilla Public License/a. The project is described this way: p div class=BigQuote We've been using version 1.1 of the Mozilla Public License for about a decade now. Its spirit has served us well, helping to communicate some of the values that underpin our large and growing community. However, some of its wording may be showing its age. Keeping both those things in mind, we're launching this process to update the license, hoping to modernize and simplify it while still keeping the things that have made the license and the Mozilla project such a success. /div p While the update process is inspired by the GPLv3 update, the objectives are far less ambitious: Mozilla would like to smooth various rough edges without making major changes to the license. They hope to have the process complete - after releasing three drafts for comments - by November of this year.

Jonathan Schwartz a href=http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/writes about patent attacks/a, and Apple's attack on Android in particular. spanHaving watched this movie play out many times, suing a competitor typically makes them more relevant, not less. Developers I know aren’t getting less interested in Google’s Android platform, they’re getting more interested - Apple’s actions are enhancing that interest./span He also says that Microsoft tried to shake down Sun with patent claims on OpenOffice.org.

Swedish MEP Christian Engstrouml;m a href=http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/epic-win-for-transparency-on-acta/reports/a that the European Parliament has passed a href=http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/common-eu-parliament-resolution-on-acta-tabled/a resolution/a coming out against the secretive ACTA copyright treaty negotiations and demanding transparency in the process. The vote was rather definitive: 633 for, 13 against. spanAt last, the elected representatives in the parliament have sent a strong message. We have shown that we do not accept secrecy. We have shown that we are prepared to stand up for a free internet open to everybody./span

img src=http://lwn.net/images/2010/morevna-ivan-sm.png border=0 hspace=3 align=right width=125 height=88 alt=[Ivan design] pKonstatin Dmitriev's a href=http://morevnaproject.org/Morevna Project/a is to 2-D animation what the Blender Foundation's a href=http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/blender-open-projects/Open movie projects/a have been for 3-D. The goal is to produce a production-quality, full-length animated feature, using only open source software, and license the source content and final product under free, re-use-friendly terms. Along the way, the work provides stress-testing, feedback, and development help to the open source software used, while raising awareness of the quality of the code. Subscribers can click below for a look at the project from this week's edition.

a href=http://www.texaslinuxfest.org/Texas Linux Fest/a has announced the initial list of speakers and presentations for its inaugural event. Keynote speakers include Joe Zonker Brockmeier and Randal L. Schwartz, with additional presentations by Linux, free software, and open source experts such as Jon maddog Hall, Amber Graner, Bradley Kuhn, and Max Spevack. The event will take place on Saturday, April 10th, in Austin Texas. Registration is available a href=http://register.texaslinuxfest.org/online/a. The complete list of talks is a href=http://texaslinuxfest.org/talks/ available/a as well.

Almost exactly one year ago, LWN a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/322777/examined the problem of 4K-sector drives/a and the reasons for their existence. In short, going to 4KB physical sectors allows drive manufacturers to increase storage density, always welcome in that competitive market. Recently, there have been a number of reports that Linux is not ready to work with these drives; kernel developer Tejun Heo even a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377897/posted an extensive, worth-reading summary/a stating that span4 KiB logical sector support is broken in both the kernel and partitioners./span As the subsequent discussion revealed, though, the truth of the matter is that we're not quite that badly prepared; click below (subscribers only) for details.

The a href=http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2010LibrePlanet/a conference, being held March 19-21 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will be featuring a day-long a href=http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/WomenscaucusWomen's Caucus/a on Sunday March 21st. That track will be focusing on finding concrete ways to increase women's participation in free software, including a panel on recruiting and retaining women, a presentation on mentoring, and a workshop on how non-coders can take up critical roles in free software projects. In addition, LibrePlanet has keynotes from FSF founder Richard Stallman and EFF founder John Gilmore. More information can be found on the web sites or in the a href=http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2010/Scheduleschedule/a.

Bruce Byfield a href=http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3869411_1/GNOME-and-KDE-Seven-Attractions-in-Each.htmtakes a look/a at innovations in GNOME and KDE. spanOf course, GNOME and KDE have long had features that Windows lacked, such as multiple desktops and finer controls for customizing the user experience. However, in the last few years, both major free desktops have added features that show not only an interest in usability, but, at times, an effort to anticipate what users might actually want. The focus is by no means consistent, yet scattered here and there are features that can make any user glad that they're using a open source desktop./span

The H a href=http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Happenings-FOSS-at-CeBIT-2010-948946.htmlcovers/a the CeBIT Open Source Forum. spanThe CeBIT Open Source Forum, a prominent feature in the Open Source area of Hall 2, featured several lectures, demonstrations and keynote speeches on several topics, from Open Source in data centres and security, to web browsers, mobility and multimedia. The H attended several of the Open Source Forum sessions, including the introduction of the latest 6.3 release of the popular Knoppix Live Linux distribution by Knoppix creator Klaus Knopper./span

Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer at Sun, a href=http://webmink.com/2010/03/08/sundown/reminisces/a about some achievements during his tenure. spanGot some of the most important software in the computer industry released under Free licenses that guarantee software freedom for people who rely on them, regardless of who owns the copyrights. Unix, Java, key elements of Linux, the SPARC chip and much more have been liberated./span

bDebian/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377875/typo3-src/a (multiple vulnerabilities). p bFedora/b has updated bbournal/b (a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377876/F13/a, a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377877/F12/a, a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377878/F11/a: multiple vulnerabilities), a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377879/F12: curl/a (arbitrary code execution), and a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377880/F11: sudo/a (unintended privilege escalation). p bPardus/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377881/sudo/a (unintended privilege escalation) and a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377882/firefox/a (multiple vulnerabilities). p bSlackware/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377874/httpd/a (multiple vulnerabilities).

The first alpha release of Fedora 13 is out. spanWe need your help to make Fedora 13 the best release yet, so please take a moment of your time to download and try out the Alpha and make sure the things that are important to you are working. If you find a bug, please report it -- every bug you uncover is a chance to improve the experience for millions of Fedora users worldwide./span There is a ilot/i of new stuff in this release; see the announcement for a summary.

Linus has kept his promise and released a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377774/2.6.34-rc1/a a bit earlier than usual, even though he reserves the right to pull in a few more trees yet. spanSo if you feel like you sent me a pull request bit might have been over-looked, please point that out to me, but in general the merge window is over. And as promised, if you left your pull request to the last day of a two-week window, you're now going to have to wait for the 2.6.35 window./span Nouveau users should note that they can't upgrade to this kernel without updating their user-space as well.

TuxRadar a href=http://www.tuxradar.com/content/try-linux-desktop-futuretakes a look/a at several desktops and applications. spanFor the tinkerers and testers, 2010 is shaping up to be a perfect year. Almost every desktop and application we can think of is going to have a major release, and while release dates and roadmaps always have to be taken with a pinch of salt, many of these projects have built technology and enhancements you can play with now. We've selected the few we think are worth keeping an eye on and that can be installed easily, but Linux is littered with applications that are evolving all the time, so we've also tried to guess what the next big things might be./span

bFedora/b has updated bdrupal/b (a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377726/F12/a, a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377727/F11/a: multiple vulnerabilities), a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377730/F12: fetchmail/a (arbitrary code execution), and a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377731/F12: sudo/a (unintended privilege escalation). p bMandriva/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377725/openoffice.org/a (multiple vulnerabilities) and a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377733/apache/a (information leak). p brPath/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377734/openssh/a (information disclosure), a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377735/postgresql/a (multiple vulnerabilities), a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377736/gzip/a (arbitrary code execution), and a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377737/mysql/a (multiple vulnerabilities). p bSlackware/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377732/firefox/a (multiple vulnerabilities). p bSUSE/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377738/kernel/a (multiple vulnerabilities). p bUbuntu/b has updated a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/377739/gnome-screensaver/a (lock bypass).

LWN first a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/234441/looked at LogFS/a, a new filesystem aimed at solid-state storage devices, back in 2007. It has taken a long time, but, as of 2.6.34, LogFS will be in the mainline kernel and available for use; let the benchmarking begin.

Version 2.2.15 of the Apache HTTPD server is out. spanNotably, this release was updated to reflect the OpenSSL Project's release 0.9.8m of the openssl library, and addresses CVE-2009-3555 (cve.mitre.org), the TLS renegotiation prefix injection attack. This release further addresses the issues CVE-2010-0408, CVE-2010-0425 and CVE-2010-0434 within mod_proxy_ajp, mod_isapi and mod_headers respectively./span

The OpenSSH 5.4 release is out, with a number of new features; these include a new certificate format, a netcat mode, a key revocation operation, better multiplexing support, and strengthened encryption. This release also strikeremoves/strike disables (by default) support for versionnbsp;1 of the SSH protocol - a change which few users should notice at this point.