The Xen Project has announced the release of Xen 4.20. This release adds support for AMD Zen 5 CPUs, improved compliance with the MISRA C standard, work on PCI-passthrough on Arm, and more. Xen 4.20 also removes support for Xeon Phi CPUs, which were discontinued in 2018. See the feature list and release notes for more information.
Version 136.0 of the Thunderbird Desktop mail client has been released. The release includes a quick toggle for adapting messages to dark mode, and a new "Appearance" setting to control message threading and sorting order globally, as well as a number of bug fixes. See the security advisory for a full list of security vulnerabilities addressed in Thunderbird 136.0.
Version 12.3 of Linux From Scratch (LFS) has been released, along with Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) 12.3. LFS provides step-by-step instructions on building a customized Linux system entirely from source, and BLFS helps to extend an LFS installation into a more usable system. Notable changes in this release include toolchain updates to GNU Binutils 2.44, GNU C Library (glibc) 2.41, and Linux 6.13.2. The Changelog has a full list of changes since the previous stable release.
Mozilla's actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late, and inspiring them to look for alternatives. There are many choices for users who are looking for a browser that isn't part of the Chrome monoculture but is full-featured and suitable for day-to-day use. For those who are willing to stay in the Firefox "family" there are a number of good options that have taken vastly different approaches. This includes GNU IceCat, Floorp, LibreWolf, and Zen.
Mozilla has issued an update to its terms of use (TOU) that were announced on February 26. It has removed a reference in the TOU to Mozilla's Acceptable Use Policy "because it seems to be causing more confusion than clarity", and has revised the TOU "to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data". The new language says:
You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.Mozilla has also updated its Privacy FAQ to provide more detail about its reasons for the changes.
Differences of opinion, as well as outright disputes, between upstream open-source projects and Linux distribution packagers over packaging practices are nothing new. It is rarer, though, for those disputes to boil over to threats of legal action—but a disagreement between the Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio project and Fedora packagers reached that point in mid-February. After escalation to a higher authority, things have been worked out to the satisfaction of the OBS project, but some lingering questions remain. How Fedora should prioritize Flatpak repositories, how to handle conflicts between upstreams and Fedora packagers, and the mechanics of removing or retiring Flatpaks all remain open questions.
Firefox will always continue to add new features, improve existing ones, and test new ideas. We remain dedicated to making Firefox open source, but we believe that doing so along with an official Terms of Use will give you more transparency over your rights and permissions as you use Firefox. And actually asking you to acknowledge it is an important step, so we're making it a part of the standard product experience starting in early March for new users and later this year for existing ones.
Specifically, the apparent removal of a promise to not sell users' personal data has drawn attention.
(See also: this analysis by Michael Taggart. "So, is this Mozilla 'going evil?' Nah, prolly not. But it is at best clumsy, and a poor showing if they want me to believe they care about Firefox, rather than the data it can provide".)
On the other hand, (1) presentation skills stay with you through life, and (2) small improvements in presentation skills over months or years can provide you with great advantages longer term. An old saying credited to Thomas Edison claims a breakdown of 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. However, my own experience with RCU has instead been 0.1% inspiration, 9.9% perspiration, and 90% communication. Had I been unable to communicate effectively, others would have extreme difficulty using RCU, as in even more difficulty than they do now.
There is a lot of speaking experience distilled into this set of posts.
Zotero is an open-source reference management tool designed for collecting, organizing, and citing research materials. It is particularly useful for those writing research papers, theses, or books that require a bibliography in standard formats like APA Style, Chicago Style, or MLA Format. Zotero stores bibliographic metadata, annotations, and user data and integrates with word processors like LibreOffice, Microsoft Word, and Google Docs to produce in-text citations and bibliographies. The core features of Zotero include metadata extraction, tagging, full-text indexing, and cloud synchronization for multi-device access, and Zotero has a plugin system to allow anyone to expand its capabilities. The most recent major release, Zotero 7, added support for reading EPUBs, brought user-interface improvements including a dark mode, performance improvements, and more.