The H Week - Fedora 13, Chrome 5, MeeGo 1.0

In the past week, The H took an in-depth look at Fedora 13, Google released Chrome 5 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and a number of open source software projects issued release candidates for the next major versions of their applications. Intel and Nokia released version 1.0 of MeeGo, McAfee acquired Trust Digital and it was discovered that the iPhone's data encryption could easily be bypassed using Linux.

Featured

At the beginning of the week, Glyn Moody looked at patents and the threats they represent to free software, The H published an in-depth feature looking at what's new in the latest Fedora 13 release and another edition of Processor Whispers detailed Intel's Larrabee graphics chips and NVIDIA's M2050 cards.

• Hacking through the Software Patent Thickets
• Rock it - What's new in Fedora 13
• Processor Whispers

Open Source

The Fedora Project developers released Fedora 13, code named "Goddard" and Google released version 5 of its Chrome web browser – the first stable release to be available on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. BitTorrent Inc. open sourced a new P2P torrent protocol. Intel and Nokia released MeeGo v1.0. Simon Phipps pointed out that the VP8 codec is "not currently open source" as the license hasn't been approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and the VLC Project issued a release candidate for the next major version 1.1 release with support for WebM / VP8. Mozilla brought Firefox bookmarks to the iPhone this week and the FSF approached Apple about the licensing conflict caused by a GPLv2 licensed application appearing in the company's App Store. After nearly six months of bug fixing the Ruby on Rails developers released version 2.3.6, closely followed by 2.3.7 to address bugs. The next day they released Ruby on Rails 2.3.8 to fix an issue with the bug fix.

• Fedora 13 released
• Google releases Chrome 5.0 for Windows, Mac OS X & Linux
• BitTorrent Inc. open sources new P2P protocol
• Intel and Nokia release MeeGo v1.0
• Phipps: WebM/VP8 "not currently open source"
• VLC 1.1.0 Release Candidate supports WebM / VP8
• Mozilla to bring Firefox bookmarks to the iPhone
• FSF take on Apple's App Store over GPL2 code
• Ruby on Rails 2.3.6 released, rapidly updated to 2.3.7
• Rails 2.3.8 released to fix 2.3.7's "Facepalm"

Open Source Releases

• Miro Video Converter 2.0 supports WebM/VP8
• Wine 1.2 gets a first release candidate
• Slackware Linux 13.1 arrives
• Google open sources My Tracks GPS app for Android
• Nexenta Core Platform 3.0 RC1 released
• Microsoft release open source Outlook PST tools
• SabreDAV PHP framework becomes calendar server
• openSUSE Build Service 2.0 Beta 1 released
• openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 7 arrives
• KDE SC 4.5 Beta 1 released
• NetBeans IDE 6.9 gets first release candidate
• Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.3 announced
• Maemo update for N900 release, but no official MeeGo
• Mozilla releases Thunderbird 3.1 RC1
• Firefox's Jetpack SDK boosted to 0.4
• KOffice 2.2 released
  

Security

It has been discovered that when an iPhone is mounted on a Linux system the iPhone data encryption is bypassed and stored files can easily be read. Adobe announced that it is considering reducing the interval between security updates form 90 to 30 days. Google launched an alternative homepage that supports SSL encryption. A new phishing attack that exploits focus shift in tabbed browsing was demonstrated this week. The latest ClamAV update fixed denial-of-service vulnerabilities. A new browser add-on allows users to opt out of Google Analytics. McAfee acquired mobile security specialist Trust Digital. It was found that Cisco's building automation system is vulnerable to manipulation and two Android applications were released that encrypt calls and texts

• Vulnerability in iPhone data encryption
• Adobe considers shorter update cycles
• Google secures search with SSL encryption
• New phishing attack exploits tabbed browsing
• ClamAV 0.96.1 fixes DoS vulnerabilities
• A bit of privacy for Google Analytics
• McAfee acquires Trust Digital
• Blinkenlights for all: Cisco's building automation system vulnerable to manipulation
• Android apps for encrypting calls and texts

Security Alerts

• Camino 2.0.3 addresses critical security vulnerabilities

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)