The H Roundup - 15 years of Mozilla, Ubuntu 13.04 beta, Live Code

Welcome to The H Roundup, your rapid review of the week with the most read news on The H, the security alerts and open source releases, and the essential feature articles – all in one quick-to-scan news item. This week, Glyn Moody looks at the last and next 15 years of Mozilla, a first and final beta for Ubuntu 13.04, Debian gets a server from Bytemark, the first open source version of LiveCode, and NVIDIA driver improvements for Linux.

Features

Glyn Moody looks at what has been achieved in 15 years of Mozilla and where the organisation should be heading next. In the second part of his Kernel Log mini-series for Linux 3.9, Thorsten Leemhuis looks at the infrastructure changes coming in the next version of the kernel.

• Mozilla: the Next 15 Years
• Kernel Log: Coming in 3.9 (Part 2) - Infrastructure

Top News

The Ubuntu developers have released the first and final beta of Ubuntu 13.04, "Raring Ringtail", and the Debian Project has received a generous gift from hosting provider Bytemark.

• Ubuntu 13.04's "Final Beta" arrives
• Debian gets served by Bytemark

The AV-Test Institute has published, for the first time, test results of anti-virus programs for Windows 8, the Cutwail botnet is now spreading an Android trojan as well as Windows malware and Apple is changing the VPN features in iOS after losing a patent dispute.

• Antivirus programs tested for Windows 8
• Botnet now spreading Android trojans
• After patent dispute loss Apple changes iOS 6.1 VPN feature

After successfully completing a Kickstarter campaign, RunRev has released the first open source version of its LiveCode cross-platform development environment and the Jolla developers have released the Windows and Mac versions of the SDK for their SailfishOS, which will allow more developers to start creating apps for the platform. Meanwhile, a number of networking-focused companies and the Linux Foundation have got together to establish a new open source standard for software-defined networking.

• First open source version of LiveCode arrives
• SailfishOS SDK arrives
• OpenDaylight shines on open source software-defined networking

Lots of progress has been made this week where drivers for NVIDIA's hardware for Linux are concerned. First steps were taken towards an open source 3D driver for NVIDIA's Tegra hardware and the company's proprietary graphics driver now has the beginnings of support for the Optimus hybrid graphics technology.

• First steps towards FOSS 3D driver for NVIDIA's Tegra
• Optimus support comes to the NVIDIA Linux driver

Open Source Releases

Open source releases this week included a new version of Darktable that can import workflows from Adobe's Lightroom, bugfix releases from LibreOffice and VLC, and a new version of the Funf sensor framework for Android.

• Darktable 1.2 introduces Lightroom import
• Check_MK simplifies Nagios monitoring
• Icecream 1.0 speeds up compilation process
• FF Multi Converter 1.5.0 supports drag & drop
• Hyperlapse animations with Google Street View
• 600 improvements in Qt 5.0.2
• LibreOffice 3.6.6 fixes 50 bugs
• VLC 2.0.6 fixes hole from January
• Funf 0.4 brings under the hood changes to sensor framework

Users who like cutting edge versions of software can try new development releases from Qt and Mozilla's Persona web identity service.

• The first Qt 5.1 alpha arrives with Android and iOS support
• Mozilla launches Persona Beta 2, plugs into OpenID and OAuth

Security Alerts

Important security alerts that users should note this week are Microsoft's and Adobe's Patch Day releases (one of which was later pulled by Microsoft), a compromised WordPress plugin, and a hole in the mod_security firewall for Apache and NGINX.

• Springtime for patches: Microsoft 9 - Adobe 3
• Microsoft pulls security update for Windows and Windows Server
• Social Media Widget for WordPress a source of spam
• Hole in Apache/NGINX mod_security firewall

For everything The H has published in the last week, check out the last seven days of news. 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.

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