Tech News Digest - 2025-03-25

📢 The flames in your monitor are not part of the page.

[$] Development statistics for 6.14

Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:55:40 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:

Linus Torvalds released kernel version 6.14, which had only 11,003 non-merge changesets pulled into the mainline, making it one of the smallest releases in some time. Despite being smaller than usual, 6.14 still contains many significant changes and is a notable release in the history of kernel development.
By the time that Linus Torvalds released the 6.14 kernel, 11,003 non-merge changesets had been pulled into the mainline, making this one of the smallest releases we have seen in some time. Indeed, one must go back to the 4.0 release, which happened almost exactly ten years ago, to find a release with fewer changesets than 6.14. Even so, "small" is relative, and 6.14 contains a lot of significant changes.
Read more

Security updates for Tuesday

Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:20:40 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:

Various Linux distributions have released security updates to address vulnerabilities, including Debian, Fedora, Mageia, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu. The updates involve multiple packages across these distributions, including kernel, web browsers, programming languages, and other software components.
Security updates have been issued by Debian (ruby-rack), Fedora (chromium, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, OpenIPMI, and python-jinja2), Mageia (kernel, kernel-linus, and wpa_supplicant, hostapd), Red Hat (fence-agents, kernel, kernel-rt, libxml2, libxslt, and pcs), SUSE (cadvisor, docker, freetype2, nodejs-electron, php8, rsync, u-boot, warewulf4, webkit2gtk3, and zvbi), and Ubuntu (elfutils, python3.5, python3.8, ruby-rack, smartdns, and zvbi).
Read more

The 6.14 kernel is out

Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 14:47:32 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:

Linus Torvalds has released Linux kernel version 6.14, slightly later than expected due to his own admission of "pure incompetence". The LWN merge-window summaries and KernelNewbies 6.14 page provide details on what's new in this release.
Linus has released the 6.14 kernel, a bit later than expected:

So it's early Monday morning (well - early for me, I'm not really a morning person), and I'd love to have some good excuse for why I didn't do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon release schedule.

I'd like to say that some important last-minute thing came up and delayed things.

But no. It's just pure incompetence.

See the LWN merge-window summaries (part 1, part 2) and the KernelNewbies 6.14 page for details on what's new in this release.
Read more

[$] Lessons from open source in the Mexican government

Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 11:49:35 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:

The adoption of open-source software (FOSS) in governments has had mixed results, with some governments being surprisingly resistant to using FOSS for various reasons. Federico González Waite shared his experiences working with and for the Mexican government on implementing FOSS, including both successful and unsuccessful projects aimed at switching away from proprietary software companies.
The adoption of open-source software in governments has had its ups and downs. While open source seems like a "no-brainer", it turns out that governments can be surprisingly resistant to using FOSS for a variety of reasons. Federico González Waite spoke in the Open Government track at SCALE 22x in Pasadena, California to recount his experiences working with and for the Mexican government. He led multiple projects to switch away from proprietary, often predatory, software companies with some success—and failure.
Read more

Security updates for Monday

Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:59:42 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:

Multiple Linux distributions have released security updates to address various vulnerabilities. The affected distributions include Debian, Fedora, Mageia, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu, with fixes issued for packages such as libxslt, chromium, and mercurial, among others.
Security updates have been issued by Debian (libxslt, mercurial, and webkit2gtk), Fedora (chromium, dotnet8.0, ffmpeg, jupyterlab, and kitty), Mageia (expat and libxslt), Red Hat (pcs), SUSE (apptainer, chromium, kernel, libarchive, mercurial, python311, radare2, xorg-x11-server, and zvbi), and Ubuntu (golang-github-cli-go-gh-v2 and nltk).
Read more