The H Week - Patent wars and certificate searches

Over the past week, The H has looked at reports that IBM had broken its 2005 patent pledge and Canonical going back to Google for search, a return of Linux on the PS3, a new exploitable Java hole, online virus scanners for virus authors, the planned closure of a VBScript hole in IE, Adobe's silent updates activating and more...

Featured

The H's editor-in-chief, Dj Walker-Morgan, commented on the dispute between IBM and TurboHercules SAS while Richard Hillesley looked at Emacs and the creation of the GPL, Glyn Moody talked about free software in developing countries and Thorsten Leemhuis delivered a new edition of the Kernel Log covering the latest graphics drivers and Mesa3D updates.

• Emacs & the birth of the GPL
• Kernel Log: Graphics drivers and Mesa3D updated, four new stable kernels
• Promoting Free Software in Developing Countries
• Comment: Patent MADness

Open Source

IBM was found to have included two patents it pledged not to assert in 2005 in a case against TurboHercules SAS and its open source mainframe emulator; IBM denied that it had broken the pledge and was backed by the Linux Foundation. Parallels joined the Linux Foundation ahead of the upcoming Collaboration Summit and Microsoft was criticised for its implementation plans of its own OOXML standard. Canonical switched back to Google as default search in Ubuntu. Hacker George Hotz previewed a custom firmware for the PS3 that returned support for Linux. A new X Server, DragonFly BSD optimised for SSD caching and an updated JavaScript benchmark were among the weeks new open source releases.

• IBM uses pledged patents against open source mainframe emulator
• IBM denies breaking patent pledge
• Linux Foundation say "breathe easy" on IBM patents
• OSHUG, new UK user group for open source hardware
• Parallels joins the Linux Foundation
• XML expert says Microsoft's OOXML fails standards test
• Report: 37% less VC funding for open source in 2009
• Ubuntu 10.04 drops Yahoo search as default
• Hacker previews custom 3.21 PS3 firmware with Linux support

Open Source Releases

• Mandriva Linux 2010 Spring Beta 1 released
• X Server 1.8 with new configuration mechanisms
• Mozilla releases Sunbird 1.0 Beta 1
• DragonFly BSD 2.6.1 with new swapcache released
• SunSpider benchmark updated
• Cappuccino 0.8 web framework released
• Launchy 2.5 adds Mac OS X support
• MonoTouch 2.0 adds iPad support
• Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 2 available
• WebKit2 browser engine introduces split process model

Security

An exploitable Java hole is discovered. The GhostNet espionage network is found to be larger and more sophisticated than had been assumed. Online virus scanners aimed at virus authors have emerged and Mozilla confirmed that it is to remove a root certificate, thought to be of unknown origin but actually from RSA. Joanna Rutkowska released a new operating system called Qubes that creates a separate virtual system for every task. Whois and SSL certificate metadata could be used for cross-site scripting attacks. Microsoft and Adobe announced upcoming security updates for their products and an updated version of the open source ClamAV was released with new malware detection techniques.

• Java exploit launches local Windows applications
  
• GhostNet 2.0 espionage network uses cloud services
• Online virus scanners for virus authors
• Orphan root certificate creates confusion
• Security through virtualisation - Qubes
• Cross-site scripting using meta information

Security updates

• Microsoft finally to close the VBScript hole in Internet Explorer
• Adobe introduces automatic update for Reader
• New version of Foxit closes executable security hole
• ClamAV 0.96 adds new malware detection mechanisms

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)