The H Week - Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 2, Chrome 9, Hudson fork
In the past week Google released a stable version of its Chrome browser, Chrome 9 with WebGL support, while Microsoft released a Windows H.264 plug-in for Chrome. Google also launched the Android Market on the web. With Oracle holding the trademark the Hudson community voted to fork he project into Jenkins. Oracle announced new rules for the OpenJDK community, while Yahoo! decided to stop internal development of Hadoop in favour of strengthening Apache Hadoop. The US DoJ asked for further details of the Novell / CPTN patent deal. Attacks on the London Stock Exchange last year are now being investigated. Microsoft added disposable aliases to its Hotmail service and said 22 vulnerabilities will be fixed on next Patch Tuesday. Cisco reported a back door in Tandberg video conferencing systems.
Featured
The H kicks of the month with another issue of the Community Calendar and another issue in our kernel log series, this time not part of a mini-series on a kernel version, but a look at how network interface names are to be made more consistent. A feature by our editor-in-chief Dj Walker-Morgan took a look at open source licensing.
- Kernel Log: Consistent names for network interfaces
- The H Community Calendar - February 2011
- Licence Pickers
Open Source
Canonical and the Ubuntu developers released a second alpha on the way to the stable release of Natty Narwhal, an alpha that includes the controversial Unity shell. Canonical also extended its cloud strategy by joining the OpenStack community. Google released version 9, a major update and stable version of the Chrome browser, which includes support for WebGL and, with Google having dropped support for H.264, Microsoft released it's own H.264 plug-in for Chrome on Windows. Mozilla re-launched Prism, the software that allowed splitting web apps from the browser, as Chromeless, a more powerful and flexible browser toolkit.
- Canonical releases Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 2
- Canonical get on the OpenStack
- Google releases Chrome 9.0 stable
- Microsoft releases H.264 plug-in for Google Chrome on Windows
- Mozilla: Prism becomes "Chromeless"
The Hudson community voted to fork away from Oracle's control and the new fork of the CI software is now known as Jenkins. Oracle itself announced the formulation of new rules for the OpenJDK community, based on earlier work by Sun Microsystems. Yahoo! decided to cease further internal development and consolidate and strengthen the Apache version of Hadoop by integrating its own work with Apache Hadoop. The US Department of Justice asked for more details on the proposed deal to sell Novell patents to the Microsoft led consortium CPTN.
- Community vote landslide: Hudson to become Jenkins
- Yahoo! commits to Apache Hadoop, drops Yahoo! Hadoop
- Oracle writes new OpenJDK rules
- US DoJ requests more information from Novell and CPTN
In mobile phone related news Google launched web browser access to the Android Market, a report showed Android powered phones outstripping Symbian and Apple as losing market share. The Linux Foundation launched courses on Android and MeeGo development.
- Google launches Android Market on the web
- Smartphones: Android overtakes Symbian, Apple loses market share
- Linux Foundation launches new Android & MeeGo developer training courses
Open Source Releases
- Google releases Mac OS X deployment engine
- openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 6 arrives
- Enlightenment core libraries reach 1.0
- Version 5.50 of the Nmap network scanner released
- Mozilla Dash hides the browser interface
- ArchBang Linux 2011.01 brings new look
- KDevelop 4.2 brings KDE 4.6 support
- jQuery 1.5 arrives
- PostgreSQL security update fixes a buffer overrun
- Mandriva 2011 delay
- RubyGems 1.5.0 now supports Ruby 1.9.2
- Mozilla releases Firefox 4 Beta 4 for Android and Maemo
- Chrome Dev channel gains password sync
- Word's chemistry add-in released as open source.
- RabbitMQ 2.3.0 released - Update
- First release of Jenkins CI after fork vote
- FreeBSD 8.2 and 7.4 get third release candidate
- GNOME 3 approaches completion
- jQuery Mobile Alpha 3 expands browser support
Security
Following theft of data, apparently by a dissatisfied employee, Kaspersky source code from 2007 appeared on the internet. Kaspersky said very little of this code is used in current products. Attacks on the London Stock Exchange in August and November of last year are now under official investigation. Microsoft added anonymous and disposable alias accounts to its Windows Live Hotmail free, web-based, email service.
- Kaspersky source code on the internet after data theft
- Attacks on London Stock Exchange under investigation
- Hotmail offers disposable alias accounts
Microsoft issued a security advisory warning of an MHTML bug that allows CSS attacks from apparently trusted web sites. There is a workaround, but no fix as yet. Microsoft's customary pre-announcement of the patches planned for Patch Tuesday mentions 12 updates to fix 22 vulnerabilities in IE, in the Windows graphics Engine and in the IIS FTP service.
- Pwn2Own 2011: Extra prize for Chrome hack
- Microsoft warns of cross-site scripting in Windows
- Microsoft lines up 12 updates for Tuesday
The PostgreSQL database developers released updates that fixed 63 bugs. The developers of Exim, the message transfer agent, released a maintenance update that also fixed a privilege escalation vulnerability. Several cross site scripting vulnerabilities were fixed in CouchDB, the NoSQL document-oriented database, by the release of version 1.0.2 and Cisco reported that Tandberg Series Endpoints and Tandberg E / EX personal video conferencing systems contain an undocumented access to system root that is not password protected.
- PostgreSQL security update fixes a buffer overrun
- Exim update closes vulnerability
- CouchDB update fixes cross-site scripting vulnerabilities
- Backdoor in Tandberg desktop video systems
Security Alerts
- New critical vulnerability in VLC Media Player
- VLC Media Player 1.1.7 addresses critical vulnerability
- Mailing list application Majordomo reveals file content
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(crve)