The H Week

This week, The H saw several major releases for popular open source applications and several updates for popular Linux distributions, controversy around Mono and the economic turndown has affected yet another open source project.

Open Source News

It's been a rather busy week for The H Open Source, especially when it comes to new releases. The week kicked off with the release of version 3.1 of the Python scripting language, replacing Python 3.0 which will no longer receive any maintenance or security updates. Other anticipated releases that arrived included NetBeans 6.7, which focused on Maven and Kenai integration, PHP 5.3.0 abd version 2.4.2 of Mono which added support for the ASP .NET MVC framework. FreeDOS turned 15 years old this week and several distributions issued updates, including a second update for Debian 5.0, minimalist desktop distribution Tiny Core Linux 2.1, PowerPC distribution Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, PCLinuxOS 2009.2 and Milestone 3 of openSUSE 11.2.

The most anticipated release of the week, however, was the long-awaited launch of version 3.5 of Mozilla's Firefox web browser. On Tuesday, The H posted a feature containing in-depth details about Firefox 3.5 and all of its major new features. According to Mozilla's Worldwide Firefox Downloads page, the 3.5 release was downloaded more than four million times in less than 20 hours. In a recent feature, Mozilla's CEO John Lilly talked to The H about HTML 5, Chrome, the mobile Web and the future of Firefox, saying that the browser war is far from won. Mozilla also released a second beta for Nokia's N810 Internet Tablets running OS2008 ("Maemo") and the second alpha for the Windows Mobile 6 platform of its Fennec mobile web browser.

Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU project, wrote an open letter that criticised Debian's use of Mono because, according to Stallman, "Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground someday using software patents". A few days later, Debian developer Alexander Schmehl responded to Stallman's open letter and pointed out that Debian has no plans to include the controversial programming environment in the default GNOME installation. The Ubuntu Technical Board also wanted its position on the Mono discussion to be known, stating that it will continue using Mono because the patent issues were not a "sufficient reason to warrant exclusion from the Ubuntu Project".

Sun Microsystems released a major update to its popular open source VirtualBox desktop virtualisation application for x86 hardware. VirtualBox 3.0 improved graphics performance with the addition of experimental support for Direct3D 8 and 9 in applications for Windows guests. A new Kernel Log was published this week as well, documenting the new Wi-Fi drivers and network-related changes in the upcoming 2.6.31 Linux kernel. This is the first part of the "Coming in 2.6.31" series, with future installments looking at all the other changes in the next version of the Linux kernel. The popular open source office suite for Mac OS X, NeoOffice, fell on hard times; due to very low donation levels this year, they will be forced to make severe cutbacks to the services provided for users.

Security news

The H Security started off the week with news of a new version of Tor (The Onion Router) fixing two security issues and a Lost+Found post featuring a strange root password vulnerability in NetBSD and a report saying that passwords should be displayed using plain text instead of bullets or asterisks to usability. Palm updated its open source Palm webOS on the Pre, closing a hole used to allow homebrew applications to be installed on the phone. Once again, HP patched a critical vulnerability in its OpenView Network Noted Manager and The H reported on the British Cabinet Office publishing its first cyber-security strategy paper.

A presentation at the upcoming Black Hat Conference about cracking cash machines was cancelled due to the intervention by an unnamed maker of ATMs, VMWare updated it's ESX-Server 3.5, patching a vulnerability in its Kerberos implementation, and Kaspersky tightened up its anti-virus engine.

On Thursday, Apple closed a vulnerability in its online iDisk storage service, preventing unauthorised access to other users' files and the AACS LA reduced the copy protection license fees for Blu-ray discs. A study from MessageLabs, a Symantec subsidiary, advised that the month of June saw a 25.6 percentage point increase over May in the amount of spam being sent using botnets. The MD6 hash algorithm was withdrawn from the SHA-3 competition and a team of of cryptologists at Luxembourg university made substantial theoretical progress with attacks on the AES-192 and AES-256 encryption standards.

To see all last week's news see The H's last seven days of news and to keep up with The H, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow honlinenews on Twitter. You can follow The H's own tweeting on Twitter as honline.

(crve)