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Microsoft Acquires GitHub For $7.5B
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jun '18

04 Jun '18

'As rumored, Microsoft said Monday that it has acquired code repository website GitHub for a whopping sum of $7.5B in Microsoft stock. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Nat Friedman, founder of Xamarin and an open source veteran, will assume the role of GitHub CEO. GitHub's current CEO, Chris Wanstrath, will become a Microsoft technical fellow, reporting to Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie, to work on strategic software initiatives. From the blog post: "Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation," said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. "We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world's most pressing challenges." Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock. Subject to customary closing conditions and completion of regulatory review, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of the calendar year. GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos and will operate independently to provide an open platform for all developers in all industries. Developers will continue to be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects -- and will still be able to deploy their code to any operating system, any cloud and any device. The two companies, together, will "empower developers to achieve more at every stage of the development lifecycle, accelerate enterprise use of GitHub, and bring Microsoft's developer tools and services to new audiences," Microsoft said. A portion of the developer community has opposed the move, with some already leaving the platform for alternative services. Update: In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Nadella said today the company is "all in with open source," and requested people to judge the company's commitment to the open source community with its actions in the recent past, today, and in the coming future. GitHub will remain open and independent, Mr. Nadella said.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/18/06/04/1314247 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux 4.17 Released
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jun '18

04 Jun '18

'In his weekly message to the Linux community on Sunday, Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 4.17. The release comes a couple of months after the first release candidate, and in his message Torvalds also talks about version 5.0 of the Linux kernel. Having previously said that Linux kernel v5.0 "should be meaningless," he said that this next major numerical milestone will come around "in the not too distance future." For now, though, it's version 4.17 -- or Merciless Moray, if you prefer -- that's of interest. Linux kernel 4.17 is not a major release, and Torvalds announced it without much fanfare. "So this last week was pretty calm, even if the pattern of most of the stuff coming in on a Friday made it feel less so as the weekend approached. And while I would have liked even less changes, I really didn't get the feeling that another week would help the release in any way, so here we are, with 4.17 released."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/06/04/0913249 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire Coding Site GitHub
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jun '18

04 Jun '18

'Microsoft Corp. has agreed to acquire GitHub Inc., the code repository company popular with many software developers, and could announce the deal as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter. GitHub preferred selling the company to going public and chose Microsoft partially because it was impressed by Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Terms of the agreement weren't known on Sunday. GitHub was last valued at $2 billion in 2015. GitHub is an essential tool for coders. Many corporations, including Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, use GitHub to store their corporate code and to collaborate. It's also a social network of sorts for developers. While GitHub's losses have been significant -- it lost $66 million over three quarters in 2016 -- it had revenue of $98 million in nine months of that year. On Friday, it was reported that Microsoft was in talks with GitHub about an acquisition. Now it seems like it's actually happening. Update: Our sister site, SourceForge, has weighed in. Here is a tool that will import your GitHub project to SourceForge. Update #2: Already, we are seeing plenty of backlash over this news. One user has started a petition to stop Microsoft from buying GitHub.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/18/06/03/2042255 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Emacs 26.1 Released With New Features
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '18

03 Jun '18

'There's a new version of the 42-year-old libre text editor with over 2,000 built-in commands, reports LWN.net: Highlights include a built-in Lisp threading mechanism that provides some concurrency, double buffering when running under X, a redesigned flymake mode, 24-bit color support in text mode, and a systemd [user] unit file. The Free Software Foundation has released a 10,653-word description of all the new features in Emacs 26.1. Here's a couple more: * The Emacs server now has socket-launching support. This allows socket based activation, where an external process like systemd can invoke the Emacs server process upon a socket connection event and hand the socket over to Emacs... This new functionality can be disabled with the configure option '--disable-libsystemd'. * The new function 'call-shell-region' executes a command in an inferior shell with the buffer region as input. * Intercepting hotkeys on Windows 7 and later now works better. * The new user variable 'electric-quote-chars' provides a list of curved quotes for 'electric-quote-mode', allowing user to choose the types of quotes to be used.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/06/01/202205 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Atari Launches Linux Gaming Box Starting at $199
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '18

03 Jun '18

'Attempts to establish Linux as a gaming platform have failed time and time again, with Valve's SteamOS being the latest high-profile casualty. Yet, Linux has emerged as a significant platform in the much smaller niche of retro gaming, especially on the Raspberry Pi. Atari has now re-emerged from the fog of gaming history with an Ubuntu-based Atari VCS gaming and media streaming console aimed at retro gamers. In addition to games, the Atari VCS will also offer Internet access and optional voice control. With a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, the system can be used as a standard Linux computer. The catch is that the already delayed systems won't ship until July 2019... By the launch date, Atari plans to have "new and exclusive" games for download or streaming, including "reimagined classic titles from Atari and other top developers," as well as multi-player games. The Atari VCS Store will also offer video, music and other content... The hardware is not open source, and the games will be protected with HDCP. However, the Ubuntu Linux stack based on Linux kernel 4.10 is open source, and includes a "customizable Linux UX." A Linux "sandbox" will be available for developing or porting games and apps. Developers can build games using any Linux compatible gaming engine, including Unity, Unreal Engine, and Gamemaker. Atari also says that "Linux-based games from Steam and other platforms that meet Atari VCS hardware specifications should work." Atari boasts this will be their first device offering online multi-player experiences, and the device will also come pre-loaded with over 100 classic Atari games. An Indiegogo campaign this week seeking $100,000 in pre-orders has already raised over $2.2 million from 8808 backers.' -- source: https://games.slashdot.org/story/18/06/01/2057206 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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CSS Is Now So Overpowered It Can Deanonymize Facebook Users
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '18

03 Jun '18

'Some of the recent additions to the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) web standard are so powerful that a security researcher has abused them to deanonymize visitors to a demo site and reveal their Facebook usernames, avatars, and if they liked a particular web page of Facebook. Information leaked via this attack could aid some advertisers linking IP addresses or advertising profiles to real-life persons, posing a serious threat to a user's online privacy. The leak isn't specific to Facebook but affects all sites which allow their content to be embedded on other web pages via iframes. The actual vulnerability resides in the browser implementation of a CSS feature named "mix-blend-mode," added in 2016 in the CSS3 web standard. Security researchers have proven that by overlaying multiple layers of 1x1px-sized DIV layers on top of iframes, each layer with a different blend mode, they could determine what's displayed inside it and recover the data, to which parent websites cannot regularly access. This attack works in Chrome and Firefox, but has been fixed in recent versions.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/06/02/0531202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Amscay Essagemay
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jun '18

02 Jun '18

Received this message a few days ago: Hello, Tphe3rer was a6n e7rdrmor in ymourq bi3llicng infoormaptniido0n: C6re7dit cfard ntu9mbejt:94*****c we c5obuldnt co8nfiidrem3 you8r5 deta4ilsf with youri b9an5k u C1ovn1tdenatl Providerl: iTyunes2 Store,App Store,xiCloud,ipTunesy Ma5tc7h... Dkaltex of expmir2at6ion: 30/0h5/18 Reason of expiratikon7: Acecountk n7egver been1 updqated Accuouynt stagteusz: On hmold1,Waitincg2 for ryeinae7wablme Your ac9cmount is ond hold, Warit2ingy fboyrq r0e3nejwald,8 you have 4g8 hours or wi3ll0 be closed.h Pxlmeaaseb renbew yeouqr suzbstcnroi2ptsison witih u5s tor convtinnue uvse acll s0eqrvices In otr9dern to3 ensiur9ed yo1urp Accoiunlt achtsi8ve,a yyou mcustf nsow c4lickz the fopldl6owjing lin8k andp fyollowx thce instar5uctilovnsd providie3d: (etc, etc) I realize there must be an upper IQ limit to those who are likely to respond to such an invitation. But surely there must be a lower limit as well, to being able to even understand the message in the first place. Is the interval between them nonempty?

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Inkscape: By The Way ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Jun '18

01 Jun '18

That previous Libre Graphics World article linked to an item on Tavmjong Bah’s blog <http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/>. “Mr Inkscape” himself has posts on the ins and outs of SVG and CSS, and tutorials on advanced features of Inkscape itself.

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SVG 2.0 Chicken-And-Egg Dilemma
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Jun '18

01 Jun '18

From <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/gradient-meshes-and-hatching-to-be…>: Essentially, we have arrived to the point where development of a major vector graphics file format for the Web is shaped by inactivity of Mozilla and Google, while Microsoft and W3C do the real work, a developer of one design tool [Inkscape] contributes a lot, but has no say in what goes into the standard, and a vendor [Adobe] of another design tool is taking a wait-and-see stance. By the way, it appears Alexandre Prokoudine has given up the battle with spammers, and has turned off all posting of new comments on his blog.

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Chrome and Firefox leaks let sites steal visitors’ Facebook names, profile pics
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '18

01 Jun '18

'For more than a year, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome may have leaked users’ Facebook usernames, profile pictures, and likes if the users’ browsers visited malicious websites that employed a cutting-edge hack, researchers said Thursday. The data could be extracted through what’s known as a side-channel vulnerability in the browsers’ implementation of new standards for cascading style sheets introduced in 2016. One of the new features known as the “mix-blend-mode” leaked visual content hosted on Facebook to websites that included an iframe linking to it and some clever code to capture the data. Normally, a security concept known as the same-origin policy forbids content hosted on one domain to be available to a different domain. The vulnerability was significant because it allowed hackers to bypass this bedrock principle for two of the Internet’s most widely used browsers. The leak was independently discovered by two different research teams, and it was fixed late last year in version 63 of Chrome and two weeks ago in Firefox 60. While the updated browsers no longer pose a threat to user privacy, one of the researchers who discovered the vulnerability said the increasingly powerful graphics capabilities being added in the HTML5 and CSS standards are likely to make similar hacks possible in the future.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/chrome-and-firefox-l… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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