Tech News Digest - 2025-05-01

📢 In Hypno-Vision

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 1, 2025

Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Thu, 01 May 2025 00:19:02 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:

The LWN.net Weekly Edition includes articles on various open-source topics, including vulnerabilities in Mailman 2, AI in Debian, and new releases of software such as Firefox and GCC. The edition also features briefs on recent news and announcements, including the Debian election, OpenBSD 7.7 release, and updates on other projects.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

• Front: Mailman 2 vulnerabilities; AI in Debian; nonstring; Cache-aware scheduling; Freezing filesystems; Socket-level storage; Debugging information; LWN in 2025.
• Briefs: Debian election; Kali Linux key; OpenBSD 7.7; Firefox 138.0; GCC 15.1; Meson 1.8.0; Valgrind 3.25.0; FSF review; OSI retrospective; Mastodon; Quotes; ...
• Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

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Albertson: Future of OSL in Jeopardy

Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:06:59 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:

The Oregon State University Open Source Lab, which hosts many prominent free-software projects, is facing financial trouble due to a decline in corporate donations and recent changes in university funding. The lab needs to secure $250,000 in committed funds by year's end or it will be forced to shut down, according to an urgent announcement from Lance Albertson.
Lance Albertson writes that the Oregon State University Open Source Lab, the home of many prominent free-software projects over the years, has run into financial trouble:

I am writing to inform you about a critical and time-sensitive situation facing the Open Source Lab. Over the past several years, we have been operating at a deficit due to a decline in corporate donations. While OSU's College of Engineering (CoE) has generously filled this gap, recent changes in university funding have led to a significant reduction in CoE's budget. As a result, our current funding model is no longer sustainable and CoE needs to find ways to cut programs.

Earlier this week, I was informed that unless we secure $250,000 in committed funds, the OSL will be forced to shut down later this year.

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[$] The mystery of the Mailman 2 CVEs

Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:06:06 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:

GNU Mailman version 2.1 was thought to be no longer supported due to its age and being declared "mostly" end-of-life in 2020, but it still has active users and projects using the software. Despite three vulnerabilities being announced, WebPros, which maintains a port of Mailman 2.1.x to Python 3 for its customers, disputes that the CVEs are valid, suggesting that the software may not be as vulnerable as initially thought.

Many eyebrows were raised recently when three vulnerabilities were announced that allegedly impact GNU Mailman 2.1, since many folks assumed that it was no longer being supported. That's not quite the case. Even though version 3 of the GNU Mailman mailing-list manager has been available since 2015, and version 2 was declared (mostly) end of life (EOL) in 2020, there are still plenty of users and projects still using version 2.1.x. There is, as it turns out, a big difference between mostly EOL and actually EOL. For example: WebPros, the company behind the cPanel server and web-site-management platform, still maintains a port of Mailman 2.1.x to Python 3 for its customers and was quick to respond to reports of vulnerabilities. However, the company and upstream Mailman project dispute that the CVEs are valid.

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[$] Better debugging information for inlined kernel functions

Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:10:03 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:

Compilers perform many optimizations that can make debugging more complicated, which Song Liu and Thierry Treyer aim to address. They propose adding information about selectively inlined functions to BPF Type Format (BTF) to improve support for tracing tools and make debugging easier.

Modern compilers perform a lot of optimizations, which can complicate debugging. Song Liu and Thierry Treyer spoke about a potential improvement to BPF Type Format (BTF) debugging information that could partially combat that problem at the 2025 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit. They want to add information on selectively inlined functions to BTF in order to better support tracing tools. Treyer participated remotely.

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The conclusion of the FSF board review

Category: Linux
Tags: AI
Published: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 15:42:45 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:

The Free Software Foundation has completed its review of its board of directors, resulting in the reconfirmation of all five sitting members. The review process involved philosophical and policy discussions with global associate members on topics such as the Free Software Definition and developments in machine learning.
The Free Software Foundation has announced the completion of the review of its board of directors; the process resulted in the reconfirmation of all five sitting board members.

The review examined board members Ian Kelling, Geoffrey Knauth, Henry Poole, Richard Stallman, and Gerald Sussman. The process generated detailed philosophical and policy discussions between board members and the FSF's global associate members on topics ranging from the firmness of the Free Software Definition, developments in machine learning, to the board's president position.

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