Linux Action News 13

Surprising details in how Ubuntu's Gnome desktop is getting implemented, Krita hits some troubles but the community comes to the rescue, Bitcoin splits, Firefox sends, and Red Hat gives up on Btrfs.

Plus Amazon accuses BLU of spying on Android users, and more!

• Krita Foundation in Trouble — This means that the tax authorities see the Foundation is as partly a company, partly as not a company.
• The Krita community came to the rescue — We didn’t expect the incredible response from all of you! A day later, over 500 awesome people have donated a total of €9562 (at the time of writing, check the fancy progress bar we’ve finally managed to create!). Fourteen people have joined the development fund, too!
• More details about the GNOME experience in Ubuntu 17.10 — e will implement thus our modifications as a GNOME Shell mode
• Some BLU phones still phoning home to China — BLU released a software update to address the issue, but Kryptowire researchers told CNET recently that some BLU phones still are still running the offending software… and Amazon has responded by suspending sales of all BLU phone models until the issue is resolved
• Or are They? — The reason data is being sent to a Chines server is because BLU is using an over-the-air update service called Adups, which is based in China, and which allows some phone makers to request a lot of personal data from users’ phones. But after a related report from Kryptowire in 2016, BLU decided to start using Google’s OTA update service on newer devices.
• Bitcoin Cash split — It was created by Bitcoin supporters worried about growing congestion in the mainstream bitcoin network that has led to slow payment processing and high fees.
• Firefox Send — Send files through a safe, private, and encrypted link that automatically expires to ensure your stuff does not remain online forever.
• Firefox Test Pilot — Try out the latest experimental features
• Red Hat gives up on Btrfs? — The Btrfs file system has been in Technology Preview state since the initial release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Red Hat will not be moving Btrfs to a fully supported feature and it will be removed in a future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
• Red Hat acquires Permabit — Permabit offers data de-duplication and compression software and recently cooked ready-to-run Linux kernel modules of its wares after previously focusing on sales to OEMs.