Plus, our thoughts on Apple's seeming abandoning of CUPS, the latest and greatest open source podcast player, and an important show update.

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• Plasma 5.20: One absolutely massive release — A massive release, containing improvements to dozens of components, widgets, and the desktop behavior in general.
• KDE Plasma 5.20 is Here – And It's an Epic Update
• LibreOffice rains on OpenOffice's 20th anniversary parade — To mark the 20th anniversary of Apache OpenOffice, the project's main rival, LibreOffice, published a letter asking OpenOffice to tell its users to switch
• Google and Intel warn of high-severity Bluetooth security bug in Linux — The flaw resides in BlueZ, the software stack that by default implements all Bluetooth core protocols and layers for Linux. Besides Linux laptops, it's used in many consumer or industrial Internet-of-things devices. It works with Linux versions 2.4.6 and later.
• Intel Blows the Coms Again
• Greg K-H on Twitter — "They are now claiming you need a 5.10 kernel or newer to solve this. 5.10 will be released at the end of December 2020. Intel knows better, and knows how to do this properly, this feels malicious at this point..."
• CUPS Printing System Open-Source Development Has Seemingly Dried Up — The open-source CUPS code-base is now at a stand-still. There was just one commit to the CUPS Git repository for all of 2020.
• Has Apple abandoned CUPS?
• LPC 2020 - Open Printing MC - YouTube
• OpenPrinting News - September 2020
• Antennapod 2.0 Released — AntennaPod version 2 released with a range of new features, bug fixes and improvements. Below you’ll find an extensive list of highlights, with each time the Pull Request ID.
• AntennaPod
• AntennaPod - Apps on Google Play
• AntennaPod | F-Droid

Plus the PinePhone UBports edition goes up for pre-order, and our reaction to Huawei joining the Open Invention Network.

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• Linux kernel 5.6 release announcement — This has a bit more changes than I'd like, but they are mostly from davem's networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary. It's just slightly more than I'd have preferred at this stage - not doesn't really seem worth delaying a release over.
• The Best Features Of The Linux 5.6 Kernel
• WireGuard Christened As A Modern Secure VPN Alternative
• WireGuard VPN makes it to 1.0.0 — It's a good day for WireGuard users—DKMS builds will soon be behind us.
• WireGuard VPN review
• PinePhone UBports Community Edition Pre-orders — Today we're pleased to announce the first PinePhone 'Community Edition', which will ship with Ubuntu Touch pre-installed.
• PINEPHONE – “Community Edition: UBports” - PINE Store
• Ubuntu Touch Q&A 72 — We are very pleased to announce that we are now working together with German phone startup Volla. They are joining us as a sponsor and will have a place on our Advisory Board. We expect that UT will be available as a pre-installed option with the new Volla phone.
• Linux phones running postmarketOS can now run (some) Android apps — “Android in a Box” solution that basically installs Android in a container in a way that lets you run Android apps as if they were native apps.
• LineageOS 17.1 based on Android 10 is now officially available — The team has also decided to jump up on the subversion, going from 17.0 to 17.1
• Huawei signs non-aggression patent pact with membership of Open Invention Network — Chinese giant plays nice with open source
• Press Release Details - Open Invention Network
• Xbox co-creator Rob Wyatt sues Atari for failing to pay him for design of VCS console — Xbox co-creator Rob Wyatt has filed a lawsuit against Atari for failing to pay him for the design work he did in creating the Atari VCS console.
• Game over: Atari VCS architect quits project, claims he hasn’t been paid for six months
• Atari VCS: Managing the Unexpected — We believe it would be unfair to use the balance to fulfill only a small number of Indiegogo orders, so Atari’s plan is to ship to all backers at the same time when enough VCS units and peripherals are available.

Plus our thoughts on LVFS for Chromebooks, and the recent Monero hack.

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• Updates to the Mozilla Web Security Bounty Program — To celebrate the 15 years of the 1.0 release of Firefox, we are making significant enhancements to the web bug bounty program.
• GitLab: We are increasing bounties in our bug bounty program — Since we opened our bug bounty program to the public in December 2018, our community of external security researchers submitted 1,282 reports and we paid out $515,899 in bounties.
• Expanding the Android Security Rewards Program
• Google will pay $1.5 million for the most severe Android exploits
• Google and fwupd sitting in a tree
• Google To Require "Designed For Chromebook" Devices Support Fwupd Firmware Updates
• Debian init systems - what, another GR ? — Sam Hartman, the Debian Project Leader, has proposed a General Resolution (a plebiscite of the whole project) about init systems. In this posting I am going to try to summarise the situation. This will necessarily be a personal view but I will try to be fair. Also, sorry that it's so long but there is a lot of ground to cover.
• General Resolution: Init systems and systemd
• Open Invention Network Teams with IBM, Linux Foundation and Microsoft to Further Protect Open Source from Patent Trolls — Open Invention Network announced today it is partnering with IBM, the Linux Foundation and Microsoft to further protect open source software (OSS) from Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) leveraging low quality patents, also called patent trolls.
• IBM, Microsoft and Linux Foundation link arms to fight patent trolls with 'multimillion' scheme
• Official Monero website is hacked to deliver currency-stealing malware — GetMonero.org delivers Linux and Windows binaries that steal users' funds.

Acquisitions, solid releases, a revolution for gaming, politics in the kernel community, Chrome OS coming of age, and more.

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• IBM to Acquire Red Hat — Most significant tech acquisition of 2018 will unlock true value of cloud for business
• Red Hat to Acquire CoreOS — The world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire CoreOS, Inc.
• Welcome to Fedora CoreOS — This new thing will be “Fedora CoreOS” and serve as the upstream to Red Hat CoreOS.
• Red Hat's Stratis Storage Project Reaches 1.0 — Stratis 1.0 was quietly released last week with the 1.0 version marking its initial stable release and where also the on-disk meta-data format has been stabilized.
• Microsoft to acquire GitHub — Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced it has reached an agreement to acquire GitHub
• Microsoft joins OIN — Microsoft is joining the Open Invention Network (“OIN”), a community dedicated to protecting Linux and other open source software programs from patent risk.
• Microsoft’s Linux powered dev boards, Azure Sphere for sale — Azure Sphere is a solution for creating highly-secured, connected Microcontroller (MCU) devices, providing you with the confidence and the power to reimagine your business and create the future.
• Ubuntu 18.04 released — The 'main' archive of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years until April 2023.
• Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported for 10 years — At OpenStack Summit in Berlin, Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth said in a keynote that Ubuntu 18.04 Long Term Support (LTS) support lifespan would be extended from five years to 10 years.
• Valve’s “Steam Play” uses Vulkan to bring more Windows games to Linux — Valve announced today a beta of Steam Play, a new compatibility layer for Linux, to provide compatibility with a wide range of Windows-only games.
• Steam Machines disappear from Valve's site — Valve is no longer highlighting Steam Machine hardware through the front page of its online Steam store, seemingly putting a final nail in the coffin of Valve's partnership with third-party PC builders.
• Steam Link box discontinued — According to Valve, the inventory of Steam Links has fully depleted, meaning this one’s apparently gone for good.
• Meltdown and Spectre — Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors. These hardware vulnerabilities allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer.
• Linus takes a break and a new CoC for kernel devs — The revamped Linux code of conduct encourages behaviors like accepting constructive criticism gracefully, using inclusive language, and being respectful of “differing viewpoints and experiences.”
• Linux apps on Chrome OS confirmed — Support for Linux will enable you to create, test and run Android and web app for phones, tablets and laptops all on one Chromebook. Run popular editors, code in your favorite language and launch projects to Google Cloud with the command-line. Everything works directly on a Chromebook.
• Chrome OS tablet launched — The Pixel Slate is a Chrome OS tablet with a detachable keyboard cover that turns it into something very closely resembling a laptop.
• Chrome OS 70 brings native network file share support — Mr. Beaufort points to a Chromium Gerrit commit that gives details of the feature that shows M70 of Chrome OS will have its NativeSmb flag to set to enabled by default.