The H Week - Fedora 14, OpenOffice.org resignations, Adobe vulnerabilities

In the past week, The H took an in-depth look at Fedora 14, there were further resignations from OpenOffice.org and Oracle raised its prices for MySQL. The main development phase for the Linux 2.6.37 kernel concluded, Microsoft previewed next week's Patch Tuesday and Adobe confirmed yet another unpatched hole in its Reader product.

Featured

The H took an in-depth look at what's new in the latest version of the Fedora Linux distribution and published its Community Calendar for November, listing open source events for the month.

• What's new in Fedora 14
• The H Community Calendar - November 2010

Open Source

This week saw mass resignations from the German-language branch of the OpenOffice.org project, the Apache Software Foundation said that the Java code allegedly copied by Google did not come from Apache, Oracle raised its prices for MySQL and the Java Community Process Executive Committee was elected.

• Mass resignations from OpenOffice.org
• Apache: Google's Java code not from us
• Oracle raises prices for MySQL
• Executive Committee of the Java Community Process elected

The Fedora Project released the latest version of its popular Linux distribution and closing the merge window.Linus Torvalds issued RC1 of version 2.6.37 of the Linux kernel.

• Fedora 14 "Laughlin" released
• Main development phase for Linux kernel 2.6.37 concluded

China Mobile Communications Corporation, known simply as "China Mobile", joined the Linux Foundation as a Gold Member and well-known free and open source software (FOSS) advocate Stormy Peters announced that she would be leaving the GNOME Foundation to join Mozilla.

• China Mobile joins the Linux Foundation
• Stormy Peters leaves the GNOME Foundation to join Mozilla

Open Source Releases

• Adium 1.4 arrives with Twitter & IRC support
• DragonFly BSD 2.8 adds root partition encryption
• Apache POI 3.7 released
• Wine 1.3.6 adds support for GStreamer filters
• Google Web Toolkit 2.1 adds "Model View Presenter" support
• OpenBSD 4.8 released
• WordPress for Android gains media improvements
• Zend Framework on track for mobile and cloud technologies
• Apache Mahout 0.4 adds new algorithms
• Google updates Chrome Dev channel to version 9
• KDE SC 4.5.3 update released
• Apache module for faster web sites
• Pinta 0.5 adds new brushes & clone stamp
• Apache Hive 0.6.0 released
• Mozilla releases Firefox 4 Beta 2 for Android and Maemo
• Blender 2.5 Beta 3 released
• Google releases security update for Chrome

Security

In security news, Microsoft confirmed that it would release three updates to close eleven holes in its products for next week's Patch Tuesday and responded to the Firesheep cookie-jacking plug-in, promising that it would fully convert the Hotmail / Windows Live email service to SSL.

• Microsoft responds to Firesheep cookie-jacking tool
• Microsoft Patch Tuesday: Updates for Office and Forefront

VeriSign announced the roll-out schedule for the authentication of .com and .net zones, some botnet control servers were found to use honeypot techniques to investigate security researchers and following the recent Stuxnet infections, attackers appear to be showing increased interest in online industrial control systems.

• Fast start of DNSSEC with .net and .com
• Honeypot role reversal
• Attackers set sights on online industrial control systems

Check Point appliances spontaneously rebooted across the globe, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suits against the US Dept. of Justice over renewed calls for increased government surveillance of the internet and Google increased its maximum award for reports of security flaws in its services to $3,133.70. It was confirmed that some Facebook developers had sold private user data and security firm Covertly said that they had discovered 88 critical vulnerabilities in Google's open source Android mobile operating system.

• Spontaneous worldwide reboot of Check Point appliances
• US civil rights organisation prepares for new 'crypto war'
• Up to $3,133.70 for reporting security flaws in Google services
• Developers sold Facebook user data
• Security firm reportedly discovered 88 critical holes in Android

Security Alerts

• Security update for ProFTPD FTP server
• Microsoft warns of zero-day hole in Internet Explorer
• PayPal fixes critical vulnerability in its iPhone app
• Google releases security update for Chrome
• Adobe: hole closed, hole open

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)