Tech News - Application Development

On Tuesday, Atila Neves the Deputy leader for D programming language posted about his vision for D and what he would like to do with D lang in the near future. Make D programming language default for web dev and mobile applications D’s static reflection and code generation capabilities make it an ideal candidate to implement a codebase that needs to be called from several different languages and environments (e.g. Python, Java, R). Traditionally this is done by specifying data structures and RPC calls in an Interface Definition Language (IDL) then translating that to the supported languages, with a wire protocol to go along with it. With D, none of that is necessary. One can write the production code in D and have libraries automatically making the code callable from other languages. Hence it will be easy to write D code that runs as fast or faster than the alternatives, and it will be a win on all fronts. Memory Safety for D lang Atila believes that D is a systems programming language with value types and pointers, it isn’t memory safe. He says that DIP1000 is in the right direction, but it still needs to be memory safe unless programmers opt-out via @trusted block or function. The DIP1000 proposal includes a scope mechanism that will know when the lifetime of a reference is over by providing a mechanism to guarantee that a reference cannot escape lexical scope. Thus it can safely implement memory management schemes rather than tracing the garbage collection. Safe and easy concurrency in D programming language As per Atila safe and easy concurrency in D is mostly achieved through actor models, but they still need to finalize shards and make everything @safe as well. Centralizing all reflection needs with an API Atila says instead of disparate ways of getting things done with fragmented APIs like (__traits, std.traits, custom code), he would like there to be a library that centralizes all reflection needs with a great API. Easy interoperability for C++ developers C++ has been successful so far in making the transition from C virtually seamless. Atila wants current C++ programmers with legacy codebases to just as easily be able to start writing D code. Faster development times D needs a fast interpreter so that developers can skip machine code generation and linking. This should be the default way of running unittest blocks for faster feedback, with programmers only compiling their code for runtime performance and/or to ship binaries to final users. String interpolation in D programming language Code generation is one of D’s greatest strengths, and token strings enable visually pleasing blocks of code that are actually “just strings”. Hence, String interpolation would make it vastly easier to use. To know more about D programming language, check out the official post by Atila Neves. “Rust is the future of systems programming, C is the new Assembly”: Intel principal engineer, Josh Triplett The V programming language is now open source – is it too good to be true? Rust’s original creator, Graydon Hoare on the current state of system programming and safety

Two days ago, Immo Landwerth, a program manager on the .NET team announced that the community is concluding the .NET Framework API Porting project. They also plan to release more of the .NET Framework codebase under the MIT license on GitHub to allow the community to create OSS projects for technologies that will not be brought to .NET Core. For example, there already are community projects for CoreWF and CoreWCF. https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1184214679779864576 In May, this year, Microsoft announced that the future of .NET will be based on .NET Core. At Build 2019, Scott Hunter stated that AppDomains, remoting, Web Forms, WCF server, and Windows Workflow won’t be ported to .NET Core. “With .NET Core 3.0, we’re at the point where we’ve ported all technologies that are required for modern workloads, be it desktop apps, mobile apps, console apps, web sites, or cloud services,” Landwerth writes. .NET Core 3.0 released last month includes added WPF and WinForms, which increased the number of .NET Framework APIs ported to .NET Core to over 120k, which is more than half of all .NET Framework APIs. Also, about 62K APIs to .NET Core that doesn’t exist in the .NET Framework. On comparing the total number of APIs, .NET Core has about 80% of the API surface of .NET Framework. “Since we generally no longer plan to bring existing technologies from .NET Framework to .NET Core we’ll be closing all issues that are labeled with port-to-core,” Landwerth further mentions. Post this announcement on GitHub, a lot of GitHub users enquired more about this change in the .NET community. A user asked, “Is CSharpCodeProvider ever going to happen in Core? The CodeDom API arrived somewhere in the 2.x timeframe, but it's a runtime fail even under 3.0 - are we going to need to re-write for some kind of explicitly Roslyn scripting?” To this, Landwerth replied, “CSharpCodeProvider is supported on .NET Core, but only the portions that deal with CodeDOM creation. You can't compile because this would require a compiler and the .NET Core runtime doesn't include a compiler (i.e. Roslyn). However, we might be able to do some gymnastics, like reflection, where the app can pull that in. Still tracked under #12180.” https://twitter.com/terrajobst/status/1183832593197744129 To know more about this announcement in detail, read the official GitHub post. .NET 5 arriving in 2020! Docker announces collaboration with Microsoft’s .NET at DockerCon 2019 .NET Core 3.0 is now available with C# 8, F# 4.7, ASP.NET Core 3.0 and EF 6.3

On Monday, Neil Williams a software developer from Linux CodeHelp raised severity issues for Python 2 leaf packages in Debian which do not support Python 3. Neil has urged Debian maintainers to remove Python 2 from all the Debian packages. He specifically mentions one of the packages, Calibre, an e-book management software which is completely open source and licensed under the GNU GPL v3. Calibre is written primarily in Python with some C/C++ code for speed and system interfacing. But it is not yet compatible with Python 3 as it requires at least Python 2.7.9. In 2017, an issue was raised on the Calibre platform by a user, “Python 2 is retiring in thirty months. Calibre needs to convert to Python 3.” Kovid Goyal, author of the Calibre platform responded saying, “No, it doesn't. I am perfectly capable of maintaining python 2 myself. Far less work than migrating the entire calibre codebase.” Now the latest Calibre version requires Python modules which are no longer available for Python 2. Gregor Riepl, a systems engineer in response to Neil says, “As of now, calibre is not of sufficient quality to be part of a Debian release and until it drops all Python2 requirements, it must be considered RC buggy.” This means that Calibre >= 4.0 for the foreseeable future will not be available in Debian. Calibre version 3.48 will be the last version that can run on Debian until the upstream Calibre switches to Python 3. Riepl further asked Neil if his quality argument is due to the Calibre authors resistance to migrate to Python 3. Neil responded, “No, it is based just on the removal of Python2 from Debian and avoiding special cases. Right now, any and every package in Debian testing which requires Python2 and has no Python3 alternative in Debian or ready for upload is of poor quality for no other reason than that. All such packages are of such poor quality that the package should be removed from testing - in an orderly manner, leaf packages first. That is in the best interests of all users, despite what may or may not happen to any particular subset(s) of users.  The decision flow is easy - if the answer in each case is "no", then move on to the next and if you get to the bottom, the bug should be RC. * Has the package already been removed from testing? * Is a Python3-only version already in Debian? * Is a Python3-only version available upstream? * Does the package have any reverse dependencies? * If you get here, it is already too late, there have already been   enough warnings. Upgrade the bug to RC and get the package   auto-removed from testing.” Neil said he was aware of the history of Calibre and understood what would happen if it is no longer a part of Debian. But that did not matter as removal of Python 2 is more important for the next Debian release. He also believes that Calibre has a relatively large user base that doesn't know much or care about the Python 2 deprecation. User will simply perceive dropping Calibre as a bad move on Debian's side and rush towards other packages of significantly lower quality. He further concluded, “Calibre is nothing special - it's a Python2 leaf package like vland and tftpy and any one of far too many others. Calibre can stay in unstable - it will go FTBFS, of course, but that isn't a problem either, IMHO. It's calibre's problem - not Debian's problem. There's always the option of users installing the old Python2 stuff from Buster to keep calibre hobbling along. Debian is the higher priority here. Calibre would be nice to have but it does not deserve to cause delays on anybody else's voluntary effort. No package has that right.” Community feels Python 2 will result in unmaintained runtime and libraries in packages On Hacker News, users are discussing how Python foundation is pushing in packages to migrate to Python 3 that will result in Python 2 having an entire set of unmaintained runtime and libraries in the package repository. One user comments, “Historically, Debian hasn't particularly objected to packaging obsolete versions of programming languages without upstream support. I doubt anyone is checking for potential security problems in Algol 68 and Fortran 77 implementations that Debian ships, and I don't think the people using those packages are particularly inconvenienced by that. It seems a shame that the social pressure to persuade people to port their code to Python 3 means that Debian is going to have weaker support for 10-year-old Python than 40-year-old Fortran. In particular, there are ongoing efforts to try to make it the normal thing for scientists to make the programs they ran on their data available so that their results can be reproduced; aggressively dropping older programming language implementations rather gets in the way of that.” Another user responded, “This isn't about "languages". It's about software! Algol 68 and Fortran 77 may have stale (but maintained) compilers or interpreters in the package repository. Starting very soon - Python 2 will have an entire set of unmaintained runtime and libraries in the package repository. You know - actual, officially, unmaintained software! Unmaintained software that other packages, including Calibre in this example, further build on. Of course they're throwing this out.” Python 3.8 is now available with walrus operator, positional-only parameters support for Vectorcall, and more Core Python team confirms sunsetting Python 2 on January 1, 2020 PyPy will continue to support Python 2.7, even as major Python projects migrate to Python 3

The Bazel team announced the release of Bazel 1.0, last week. The team calls this version a “stability milestone” as it tries to address the stability concerns associated with Bazel by switching to semantic versioning. Along with this change, Bazel 1.0 features new genrule support, C++ and Java-related improvements, gRPC connections with default TLS enabled, and more. Bazel is the open-source version of the Blaze tool that Google uses internally. It is a polyglot build system that enables you to automate software building and testing. It provides features like reproducibility via sandboxing, distributed caching, static analysis of build dependencies, uniform CLI for builds and tests, and more. Key updates in Bazel 1.0 Windows A genrule generates one or more files based on a user-defined Bash command. Starting with Bazel 1.0, genrule supports cmd_bash, cmd_ps, and cmd_bat attributes for better integration on Windows. You can now get a new generated DEF file from the def_file output group of cc_library. Execution Previously, tags were not being propagated from a Bazel’s target to the action’s execution requirements. In Bazel 1.0, this is possible with the help of the --experimental_allow_tags_propagation flag. A rule consists of a series of actions that Bazel performs on inputs to produce a set of outputs. Now all rules have a default exec_properties attribute just like the one on a platform rule. Starting with Bazel 1.0, all gRPC connections from Bazel will have TLS enabled by default. You can disable TLS by going to the grpc:// scheme in your URIs. Configurability The config_setting general rule matches an expected configuration state for the purpose of triggering configurable attributes. With Bazel 1.0 release, it can now check multiple values on "--foo=firstVal --foo=secondVal ..."-style flags. This release comes with --enable_platform_specific_config that enable flags in bazelrc according to your host platform. C++ The cc_* rules now support non-transitive defines via a local_defines attribute. This attribute returns the set of defines needed to compile a particular target. Bazel 1.0 comes with support for ThinLTO builds, the new link-time optimization (LTO) compilation type, on Linux for Clang versions 6.0 or above. You can enable ThinLTO via --features=thin_lto. Java The Java-Starlark API, java_common.create_provider is now removed. Also, the JavaInfo() legacy arguments including actions, sources, source_jars, use_ijar, java_toolchain, and host_javabase are removed. Starting with Bazel 1.0, maven_jar and maven_server do not permit the use of plain HTTP URLs without a specified checksum. If you are using maven_jar it recommends switching to rules_jvm_external for transitive dependency management. The team has also advised that developers check the compatibility of their codebase by running bazelisk --migrate or by building their code with Bazel 0.29.1 and a list of flags before they upgrade to Bazel 1.0. These were some of the updates in Bazel 1.0. Check out the official announcement to know what else has shipped in this release. Rust 1.38 releases with pipelined compilation for better parallelism while building a multi-crate project Pivotal open sources kpack, a Kubernetes-native image build service Mozilla releases WebThings Gateway 0.9 experimental builds targeting Turris Omnia and Raspberry Pi 4 Introducing Weld, a runtime written in Rust and LLVM for cross-library optimizations LLVM 9 releases with official RISC-V target support, asm goto, Clang 9, and more

Yesterday, Apple released MacOS Catalina, its latest update for Macs and MacBooks. The new operating system can be installed from the homepage of its App Store. Catalina brings a host of new features, including the option to use apps from the iPad as well as turn the tablet into an additional display for computers. But this new update kills iTunes and faces some major issues. Apple has confirmed that there are some serious issues in MacOS Catalina, and affected consumers should refrain from updating the OS until these issues are addressed. Catalina is finally the download that kills iTunes, which is nowhere to be found in the new update. Instead, Apple has moved the features of iTunes into their own separate Music app, the new update also includes separate apps for Podcasts and TV. MacOS Catalina update is a big problem for DJs who rely on iTunes The Mac platform is especially popular with DJs, who cart around MacBook Pro machines jam-packed with music, playlists, mixes and specialist software to allow them to perform every evening. These have been tied to iTunes’ underlying XML database. But after nearly 2 decades, iTunes are discontinued in macOS Catalina, and the XML file no longer exists to index a local music collection. This has broken popular and niche music tools alike, including some of the major titles such as Traktor and Rekordbox. The Verge reports that Apple has confirmed that this issue is down to its removal of the XML file, but is handing responsibility to the third-party developers behind each app. Unfortunately, for Apple’s reputation, those developers have been expecting the ability for the new standalone Music app to explore an XML file, a feature Apple suggested would be available until they could code around the lack of XML. Fact Mag also reported, “this news contradicts Apple’s earlier assertion that there would be a way to manually export the XML file from the new Music app, though Catalina’s launch yesterday now proves this isn’t the case at all.” Apple advice DJs that, if you rely on a software that needs this XML file to function, then do not update to Catalina until individual developers have issued compatibility updates for the new operating system. Catalina drops support for 32-bit applications and faces other issues as well Catalina also drops support for 32-bit applications. The 32-bit applications will simply not run under the new system, this version of macOS is a 64-bit only. If you are a Mac user that is reliant on a 32-bit app, then you have just a single dialog on installation that warns of the loss of support. And with these there are other questions which a user will need answers to like, you would need to know which of your apps are 32-bit and which are 64-bit? And if they are mission-critical in your role and is a 64-bit alternative available? It's not just this, a number of creative tools, including Apple Aperture, Microsoft Office 2011 and Adobe CS6 are also experiencing issues with Catalina. Additionally, there are issues with font in MacOS Catalina, as per the Chromium blog, the macOS system font appears "off" -- too light / tight kerning. It is clear that Apple wants to push forward with its platforms, but it needs to remember that the hardware has to work in the real world today. Apple should be consistent in what features it offers, it should provide clear and accurate information to developers and users, and it should ensure the very least that its own store is in order. TextMate 2.0, the text editor for macOS releases MacOS terminal emulator, iTerm2 3.3.0 is here with new Python scripting API, a scriptable status bar, Minimal theme, and more Apple previews macOS Catalina 10.15 beta, featuring Apple music, TV apps, security, zsh shell, driverKit, and much more! WWDC 2019 highlights: Apple introduces SwiftUI, new privacy-focused sign in, updates to iOS, macOS, and iPad and more Apple plans to make notarization a default requirement in all future macOS updates

Yesterday, reports from 9to5 Google says that as per the updated Google Mobile Services (GMS) agreement. Per the new terms, OEMs who utilize their own gesture navigation systems cannot have those available in the device's initial setup if it ships with Android 10. Google has struggled to devise a new navigation system for Android over the last few releases. The two-button design from Pie is not liked much in the market, and the new full-gesture setup in Android 10 also has its critics. However, with the new agreement, you will see a lot of Google's gestures in the upcoming new Android 10 devices. At this year’s Google I/O 2019, the company announced that it would support the new gestures and the three-button navbar going forward. It didn't rule out OEMs having their own custom gesture navigation and will indeed let them keep those, but there will be some restrictions. Notably, devices shipping with Android 10 will need to have either classic three-button nav or Google's gesture navigation enabled out of the box. This makes it sound like the two-button "pill" setup will be effectively dead. Android 10 devices will not offer custom navigation in the initial setup Phones often let users choose their navigation options during setup, but Android 10 will not offer custom gesture navigation as an option in the setup wizard at all. So, you'll probably be able to turn on Google's gestures, but something like Samsung's swipe-up targets (see below image) will only be available if you dig into the settings. Source: 9to5 Google Hence, the updated Google Mobile Services agreement puts into perspective what Google really wants for Android users. Manufacturers can still include their own navigation solutions, but those solutions aren’t to be immediately available to the users during the setup wizard. Users must go into the device settings to toggle alternative navigation systems after the initial setup. Not only are OEM-specific navigation systems not allowed during setup, but manufacturers can’t even prompt users to use them in any way. No notifications. No pop-ups or any other way. Also, Google also requires OEMs to hide their custom navigation systems deeper into the settings. Manufacturers can put these settings under new sections like “advanced” or something similar, not easily accessible to the user. This isn’t necessarily a bad call by Google. More uniformity throughout the Android ecosystem can only be a good thing. The gestures will mature quicker, apps will be forced to adhere to the new navigation systems, and users will get used to it more easily. Google Mobile Services requires new Android devices compatible with Type-C ports The new Google Mobile Services agreement also outlines the technical requirements that smartphone device makers must meet in order to preload Google Mobile Services. Nearly every Android smartphone or tablet sold internationally have met these requirements because having access to Google apps is critical for sales outside of China. A subsection 13.6 of this document is titled “USB Type-C Compatibility” which states: “New DEVICES launching from 2019 onwards, with a USB Type-C port MUST ensure full interoperability with chargers that are compliant with the USB specifications and have the USB Type-C plug.” On Reddit, this news has got significant traction and Android users are discussing that this move by Google is good only if the gesture usage works well. Here are some of the comments, “Im sure people will hate this, but im for easier usage for the general public.” Another user responds, “Sure. As long as the gesture usage works really, really well. If it doesn't, this is a bad move.” Google Project Zero discloses a zero-day Android exploit in Pixel, Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung devices Google’s DNS over HTTPS encryption plan faces scrutiny from ISPs and the Congress Google Chrome Keystone update can render your Mac system unbootable Google’s V8 JavaScript engine adds support for top-level await Google announces two new attribute links, Sponsored and UGC and updates “nofollow”

There is a new operating system in the market which is designed in anticipation of the collapse of the current economic system - Collapse OS. The goal of this project is “to be as self-contained as possible.” With a copy of this project, its developer Virgil Dupras says, a capable person will be able to easily build and install Collapse OS without external resources. It will also be possible to build a machine with an exclusive design, and from discarded parts with low-tech tools. Dupras believes that the global supply chain will collapse before 2030 and post-collapse, it would be difficult to reproduce most of the electronics due to lack of supply chain. This will make it impossible to bootstrap the new electronic technology and thus limit its growth. At this point, Dupras says, Collapse OS can prove to be a good “starter kit”. He affirms that this operating system can be designed from “scavenged parts and program microcontrollers” with sufficient RAM and storage. Basically, Collapse OS is a z80 kernel, with a collection of programs, tools, and documentation to assemble an operating system. It can run on minimal and improvised machines and enables interfacing through improvised means like serial, keyboard, display. The Collapse Operating System can edit text and compile assembler source files for a wide range of microcontrollers and CPUs. It can also read and write from a wide range of storage devices and replicate itself. What is the current status of Collapse OS? Collapse OS is built from a GNU environment with minimal tooling and only requires libz80, which is an emulator of the z80 processor. It also has a shell that can poke memory, I/O, call arbitrary code from memory. It can also read SD cards and has a text editor modeled after UNIX's ed. Two days ago, a 5K binary zasm with a 2400 SLOC and 8K RAM usage was added in the apps, with an aim to assemble kernel or itself. Currently, Collapse OS can run on an RC2014 through a serial link with a directly plugged in PS/2 keyboard. It also runs on a Sega Master System or a MegaDrive (Genesis) with video output and D-Pad input and/or a PS/2 keyboard adapter. The unique concept of Collapse OS has led to an informative discussion on Hacker News. One of the queries included the availability of a rad-hardened version of z80. A user answered, “Given the relative simplicity of a z80 compared to newer CPU designs, it should be relatively "easy" to harden it. There was definitely a rad-hardened version of the 8085 (similar to the 8080, and therefore to the z80), which was used on the Sojourner rover (among various other NASA and ESA spacecraft). Seems like RISC processors were more common for this, though (looks like most relatively-recent NASA spacecraft - including pretty much all of NASA's Mars landers after Sojourner - use(d) rad-hardened POWER CPUs, e.g. the RAD6000 and RAD750).” Many users have found the concept of Collapse OS interesting. https://twitter.com/thepanta82/status/1181395008827645952 https://twitter.com/bradneuberg/status/1181273072759762944 https://twitter.com/EvanWard97/status/1181452898296832000 https://twitter.com/indigocat/status/1181297674408124418 A Redditor says, “This is so insanely cool, definitely the coolest project I have seen in a while. I am dry interested in minimal software (void Linux and suckles fanatic) but this is taking it to a new level. I have a ton of respect for people who work on projects geared towards more advanced users, I know that most of the time it’s a thankless job but please, for the love of god keep it up. We need more devs like this in the world!” Read the Collapse OS roadmap page for more information. You can also check out its Github for more details. Understanding network port numbers, TCP, UDP, and ICMP on an operating system Google’s secret Operating System ‘Fuchsia’ will run Android Applications: 9to5Google Report macOS Catalina is now available for download FCC can’t block states from passing their own net neutrality laws, states a U.S. court The US, UK, and Australian governments call Facebook’s end-to-end encryption plan a hindrance to investigating crimes

Apple released macOS Catalina today as the next major update to the company’s Mac operating system. With macOS Catalina, iTunes is now broken into separate apps for Apple Music, Podcasts, and Apple TV. Catalina also features Apple Arcade game subscription service and Sidecar, which extends Mac desktops to a second display. For developers, Catalina has Mac Catalyst to build versions of iPad apps compatible with Mac. macOS Catalina was officially revealed in June at the WWDC 2019 and the public beta was released later in June. What’s new in macOS Catalina Sidecar Sidecar basically extends your Mac workspace by using an iPad as a second display-  both wirelessly and when plugged in. Sidecar also supports the Apple Pencil, letting you work on any Mac app or third-party Mac app that supports stylus input. According to an Apple white paper, the only laptops that Sidecar works on are: MacBooks from 2016 or later, MacBook Airs from 2018 or later, and MacBook Pros from 2016 or later. All of them use Apple’s butterfly keyboard. Addition of Apple Arcade Apple Arcade game subscription service is available at $4.99 per month to play games on Mac. Apple Arcade subscribers get the full version of every game including all updates and expansions, without any ads or additional in-game purchases. The service is launching with a 30-day free trial and a single subscription includes access for up to six family members with Family Sharing. iTunes replaced with new entertainment apps iTunes saw it’s long-awaited death and was replaced by three new apps, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV. Music app features over 50 million songs, playlists, and music videos. Apple Podcasts offers more than 700,000 shows in its catalog. Apple TV+, Apple’s video subscription service, will be available in the Apple TV app for Mac starting November 1 Removal of iTunes, however, is a problem for DJs who rely on XML files to sort through file libraries and quickly find tracks while performing. According to Apple, along with Catalina’s removal of iTunes, users are also losing XML file support as all native music playback on Macs moves over to the official Music app, which has a new library format. https://twitter.com/danideahl/status/1181342504949633025 Additional features You also have Screen Time on macOS and stricter privacy protections. Apps will have to ask for permission to access the desktop, documents, iCloud Drive, and external storage. With activation lock, any Macs that have a T2 security chip cannot be erased and reactivated without Apple ID password. ‘Find My App’ combines ‘Find My iPhone’ and ‘Find My Friends’ into a single, easy-to-use app on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Mail in macOS Catalina adds the ability to block email from a specified sender, mute an overly active thread and unsubscribe from commercial mailing lists. The macOS Catalina update is a free download, and it can be installed by clicking on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen, choosing system preferences, and then selecting software update. Apple bans HKmap.live, a Hong Kong protest safety app from the iOS Store as it makes people ‘evade law enforcement’. Apple iPadOS now available for download with Slide Over and Split View, Home Screen updates, and more. Apple’s September 2019 Event: iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max, Watch Series 5, Apple TV+ and more

Yesterday, the GNOME Foundation shared that Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC has filed a lawsuit against them stating that their Shotwell photo manager and other similar products infringe its patent. “On information and belief, Defendant sells, offers to sell, and/or uses network storage systems and methods including, without limitation, the Gnome Shotwell platform, and any similar products (“Product”), which infringe at least Claim 4 of the ‘086 Patent,” the lawsuit reads. Shotwell is a digital photo manager for the GNOME desktop environment. It allows you to import photos and videos from a disk or digital camera directly and organize them by keywords and events. It also includes editing features for cropping, rotating, adjusting levels and color balance, straightening, and eliminating red-eye. GNOME has called this lawsuit “baseless” and has decided to fight against this case head-on. In a statement, Neil McGovern, Executive Director for the GNOME Foundation said, “We have retained legal counsel and intend to vigorously defend against this baseless suit. Due to the ongoing litigation, we, unfortunately, cannot make any further comments at this time.” The 9,936,086 patent titled "Wireless image distribution system and method” was filed by Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC at the US Patent and Trademark Office on 2 June 2017 and got accepted on 3 April 2018. It talks about wirelessly connecting an image capturing device with a receiving device and sharing them based on transfer criteria. This patent is very vague and can be applied to literally any software that transfers images from one device to another. Also, there are quite a few similar technologies that GNOME can present as prior art resulting in the invalidation of the lawsuit. There is Shotwell’s predecessor, F-Shot that was discontinued in 2017. In a discussion on LW.NET, a user shared, “Shotwell's predecessor (F-Spot) had equivalent "wireless" functionality at least two years before this patent was first applied for.” The GNOME Foundation is not the first one who has been sued by Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC. It looks like the company has been on a suing spree adding Cyberlink.com,  QNAP Inc., Pinterest, Inc., Piximity, LLC, Magix Computer Products International Co. on their list. Considering its history, many are saying that Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC is nothing but a patent troll. A user on Hacker News commented, “Rothschild Patent Imaging appears to be the company holding the rights to a number of dubious patents filed by Leigh M. Rothschild, who appears to have a well-deserved reputation as a patent troll.” Many users commented that there should be some kind of “reform” to eliminate patent trolling. A user added, “One reform worth considering is that an entity that can be demonstrated to persistently engage in frivolous patent lawsuits should lose the rights to their entire portfolio. This could be accomplished with a legal mechanism that allows the defendant to counter-sue the plaintiff as a patent troll. In this scope, they could bring in the previous litigation history of the plaintiff (or any related entities, piercing the corporate veil). If the judge rules in the defendant's favor, then all of the plaintiff's patents (and any related entities) are immediately released into the public domain.” Another user suggested, “Another potential reform (from the book "Radical Markets") - charge a (say 1%) property tax on the patent based on self-assessed value, with the caveat that you MUST sell the patent to anyone willing to pay your claimed value. This basically destroys patent trolling, which only works because of the asymmetrical difference in cost between obtaining a patent and defending a patent lawsuit. If the troll prices the patent too low, the person they are suing just buys it, if they charge too much, they have a massive recurring tax bill (and an incentive to settle quickly, not to drag it out in the courts for years).” GNOME 3.34 releases with tab pinning, improved background panel, custom folders and more! GNOME 3.32 released with fractional scaling, improvements to desktop, web and much more Amazon patents AI-powered drones to provide ‘surveillance as a service’ Apple is patenting Swift features like optional chaining Open Invention Network expands its patent non-aggression coverage in Linux system  

Today, the CentOS community released the much-awaited CentOS 8 (1905). RHEL 8 was released in May this year at the Red Hat Summit 2019. Users were highly anticipating this CentOS 8 rebuild. In CentOS 8, the community has partnered more closely with Fedora and will be sharing git repos with the Fedora system. Highlights of CentOS 8 As the CentOS Linux distribution is a platform derived from the sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it conforms fully with Red Hat's redistribution policy and aims to have full functional compatibility with the upstream product. Version control system and Database servers It will provide version control systems such as Git 2.18, Mercurial 4.8, and Subversion 1.10. Database servers such as MariaDB 10.3, MySQL 8.0, PostgreSQL 10, PostgreSQL 9.6, and Redis 5 have been included. GNOME Shell GNOME Shell has been rebased to version 3.28. The GNOME session and the GNOME Display Manager use Wayland as their default display server. The X.Org server, which is the default display server in RHEL 7, is available as well. Cryptography policies System-wide cryptographic policies, which configures the core cryptographic subsystems, covering the TLS, IPsec, SSH, DNSSEC, and Kerberos protocols, are applied by default. Python updates As Python 3.6 is the default Python implementation in RHEL 8, CentOS may get similar Python default updates. Also, limited support for Python 2.7 may be provided. No version of Python is installed by default. To know about all the highlights in detail, read the upstream Release Notes Deprecated functionalities Assuming the deprecations in RHEL 8, similar CentOS 8 features have been deprecated. The --interactive option of the ignoredisk Kickstart command has been deprecated. NFSv3 over UDP has been disabled. Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) and Network scripts have been deprecated. TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 are deprecated To know more about the deprecated functionalities read the upstream documentation. Removed security functionality The Clevis HTTP pin has been removed shadow-utils no longer allow all-numeric user and group names securetty is now disabled by default To know more about the other removed security functionalities, read the upstream documentation. Known issues in CentOS 8 If the user is planning to install CentOS-8 in a VirtualBox guest, you should not select "Server with a GUI" (default) during the installation. Support for some adapters have been removed CentOS-8. ELRepo offers driver update disks (DUD) for some of those that are still commonly used. For the list of the device IDs provided by the ELRepo packages, please see here. Once CentOS-8 is installed, you can use the centosplus kernel (kernel-plus) which has support for those devices. While using the boot.iso and NFS to install, the automatic procedure for adding the AppStream-Repo will fail. You have to disable it and add the right NFS-path manually. To install and use CentOS 8 (1905), a minimum of 2 GB RAM is required. The community members recommend at least 4 GB RAM for it to function smoothly. To know more about CentOS 8 in detail, read CentOS wiki page. Other news in Tech .NET Core 3.0 is now available with C# 8, F# 4.7, ASP.NET Core 3.0 and general availability of EF Core 3.0 and EF 6.3 Introducing Weld, a runtime written in Rust and LLVM for cross-library optimizations Nim 1.0 releases with improved library, backward compatibility and more

Yesterday, at the ongoing .NET Conference 2019, NET Core 3.0 was released along with ASP.NET Core 3.0 and Blazor updates. C#8 and F# 4.7 is also a part of this release. Entity Framework Core 3.0 and Entity Framework 6.3 are now generally available. What’s new in .NET Core 3.0 .NET Core 3.0 now includes adding Windows Forms and WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), adding new JSON APIs, support for ARM64, and improving performance across the board. Here are the key highlights: Support for Windows Desktop apps .NET Core supports Windows Desktop apps for both Windows Forms and WPF (and open source). The WPF designer is part of Visual Studio 2019 16.3, which was also released yesterday. This includes new templates and an updated XAML designer and XAML Hot Reload. The Windows Forms designer is still in preview and available as a VSIX download. Support for C# 8 and F# 4.7 C# 8 was released last week and adds async streams, range/index, more patterns, and nullable reference types. F# 4.7 was released in parallel to .NET Core 3.0 with a focus on infrastructural changes to the compiler and core library and some relaxations on previously onerous syntax requirements. It also includes support for LangVersion and ships with nameof and opening of static classes in preview. Read Also: Getting started with F# for .Net Core application development [Tutorial] .NET Core apps now have executables by default This means apps can now be launched with an app-specific executable, like myapp or ./myapp, depending on the operating system. Support for new JSON APIs High-performance JSON APIs have been added, for reader/writer, object model, and serialization scenarios. These APIs minimize allocations, resulting in faster performance, and much less work for the garbage collector. Support for Raspberry Pi and Linux ARM64 chips These chips enable IoT development with the remote Visual Studio debugger. You can deploy apps that listen to sensors, and print messages or images on a display, all using the new GPIO APIs. ASP.NET can be used to expose data as an API or as a site that enables configuring an IoT device. Read Also: .NET Core 3.0 Preview 6 is available, packed with updates to compiling assemblies. .NET Core 3.0 is a ‘current’ release and will be available with RHEL 8. It will be superseded by .NET Core 3.1, targeted for November 2019. If you're on .NET Core 2.2 you have until the end of the year to update to 3.1, which will be LTS. You can read a detailed report of all .NET Core 3.0 features. What's new in ASP.NET Core 3.0 ASP.NET Core 3.0 is also released in parallel to .NET Core for building web apps. Notably, ASP.NET Core 3.0 has Blazor, a new framework in ASP.NET Core for building interactive client-side web UI with .NET. With Blazor, you can create rich interactive UIs using C# instead of JavaScript. You can also share server-side and client-side app logic written in .NET. Blazor renders the UI as HTML and CSS for wide browser support, including mobile browsers. Other updates in ASP.NET Core 3.0: You can now create high-performance backend services with gRPC. SignalR now has support for automatic reconnection and client-to-server streaming. Endpoint routing integrated through the framework. HTTP/2 now enabled by default in Kestrel. Authentication support for Web APIs and single-page apps integrated with IdentityServer Support for certificate and Kerberos authentication. New generic host sets up common hosting services like dependency injection (DI), configuration, and logging. New Worker Service template for building long-running services. For a full list of features, visit Microsoft Docs. Entity Framework Core 3.0 and Entity Framework 6.3 are now generally available with C# 8 As a part of the .NET Core 3.0 release, Entity Framework Core 3.0 and Entity Framework 6.3 are now generally available on nuget.org. New updates in EF Core 3.0 include: Newly architectured LINQ provider to translate more query patterns into SQL, generating efficient queries in more cases, and preventing inefficient queries from going undetected. Cosmos DB support to help developers familiar with the EF programming model to easily target Azure Cosmos DB as an application database. EF 6.3 brings the following new improvements to the table: With support for .NET Core 3.0, the EF 6.3 runtime package now targets .NET Standard 2.1 in addition to .NET Framework 4.0 and 4.5. Support for SQL Server hierarchyid Improved compatibility with Roslyn and NuGet PackageReference Added the ef6.exe utility for enabling, adding, scripting, and applying migrations from assemblies. This replaces migrate.exe .NET Core 3.0 is a major new release of .NET Core. Developers have widely appreciated the announcement. https://twitter.com/dotMorten/status/1176172319598759938 https://twitter.com/robertmclaws/status/1176206536546357248 https://twitter.com/JaypalPachore/status/1176200191021473792 Interested developers can start updating their existing projects to target .NET Core 3.0. The release is compatible with earlier .NET Core versions which makes updating easier. Other interesting news in Tech Introducing Weld, a runtime written in Rust and LLVM for cross-library optimizations. Chrome 78 beta brings the CSS Properties and Values API, the native File Systems API and more. LLVM 9 releases with official RISC-V target support, asm goto, Clang 9 and more.

Yesterday, the LLVM team announced the stable release of LLVM 9; though LLVM 9.0 missed its planned release date, which was 28th August. LLVM 9.0 RC3 was made available earlier this month. With LLVM 9, the RISC-V target is now out of the experimental mode and turned on by default. Other changes include improved support for asm goto in the MIPS target, another assembly-level support added to the Armv8.1-M architecture, new immarg parameter attribute added to the LLVM IR, and more. LLVM 9 also explores many bug fixes, optimizations, and diagnostics improvements. LLVM 9 also presents an experimental support for C++ in Clang 9. What’s new in LLVM 9 Two new extension points, called EP_FullLinkTimeOptimizationEarly and EP_FullLinkTimeOptimizationLast are available as plugins for specializing the legacy pass manager full LTO pipeline. A new COFF object files/executables support for llvm-objcopy/llvm-strip. It will support the most common copying/stripping options. LLVM_ENABLE_Z3_SOLVER has replaced the CMake parameter CLANG_ANALYZER_ENABLE_Z3_SOLVER. LLVM 9.0 has finally made the “experimental” RISC-V LLVM backend “official” and will be enabled by default. This means that it no longer needs to be enabled by LLVM_EXPERIMENTAL_TARGETS_TO_BUILD. The RISC-V Target has full codegen support for the RV32I and RV64I based RISC-V instruction set variants, along with the MAFDC standard extensions. Explaining the reason behind this update, Alex Bradbury, CTO and Co-Founder of the lowRISC said, “As well as being more convenient for end users, this also makes it significantly easier for e.g. Rust/Julia/ Swift and other languages using LLVM for code generation to do so using the system-provided LLVM libraries. This will make life easier for those working on RISC-V ports of Linux distros encountering issues with Rust dependencies.” A new support for target-independent hardware loops is added along with PowerPC and Arm implementations, in IR. Other changes in LLVM 9 LLVM IR: A new immarg parameter attribute is added. It indicates that an intrinsic parameter is required to be a simple constant. The atomicrmw xchg now allows floating point types and supports fadd and fsub. ARM Backend: A assembly-level support is added for the Armv8.1-M architecture, including the M-Profile Vector Extension (MVE). Another pipeline model to be used for cores is also added to Cortex-M4. MIPS Target: Improved experimental support for GlobalISel instruction selection framework. New support for .cplocal assembler directive, sge, sgeu, sgt, sgtu pseudo instructions and asm goto constraint. PowerPC Target: Improved handling of TOC pointer spills for indirect calls and better precision of square root reciprocal estimates. SystemZ Target: A new support for the arch13 architecture is added. The builtins for the new vector instructions can be enabled using the -mzvector option. What’s new in Clang 9? With the stable release of LLVM 9, Clang 9 official release was also made available. The major new feature in Clang 9 is the new addition of experimental support for C++ for OpenCL. Clang 9 also new compiler flags- -ftime-trace and ftime-trace-granularity=N.  C Language improvements in Clang 9 The __FILE_NAME__ macro is added as a Clang specific extension and supports all C-family languages. It also provides initial support for asm goto statements for control flow from inline assembly to labels. The main consumers of this construct are the Linux kernel (CONFIG_JUMP_LABEL=y) and glib. Also, with the addition of asm goto support, the mainline Linux kernel for x86_64 is now buildable and bootable with Clang 9. The release notes also specifies about an issue that could not be fixed before the LLVM 9 release, “PR40547 Clang gets miscompiled by GCC 9.” C++ Language improvements in Clang 9 An experimental support for C++is added to OpenCL. Clang 9 also brings backward compatibility with OpenCL C v2.0. Other implemented features include: The address space behavior is improved in the majority of C++ features like templates parameters and arguments, reference types, type deduction, and more. OpenCL-specific types like images, samplers, events, pipes, are now accepted OpenCL standard header in Clang can be compiled in C++ mode Users are happy with the LLVM 9 features, especially the support for asm goto. A user on Hacker News comments, “This is big. Support for asm goto was merged into the mainline earlier this year, but now it's released [1]. Aside from the obvious implications of this - being able to build the kernel with LLVM - working with eBPF/XDP just got way easier” Another user says, “The support for asm goto is great for Linux, no longer being dependent on a single compiler for one of the most popular ISAs can only be a good thing for the overall health of the project.” For the complete list of changes, check out the official LLVM 9 release notes. Other news in Programming Dart 2.5 releases with the preview of ML complete, the dart:ffi foreign function interface and improvements in constant expressions Microsoft releases Cascadia Code version 1909.16, the latest monospaced font for Windows Terminal and Visual Studio Code Linux 5.3 releases with support for AMD Navi GPUs, Zhaoxin x86 CPUs and power usage improvements

Yesterday, the team at Twitter announced to test a new feature called “Hide Replies” in the US and Japan after testing it in Canada. Twitter’s Hide Replies feature lets users hide all those unwanted trolls, abuse, bully and replies on their tweet. The company aims towards civilized conversations on Twitter and to give more control to the users. Users can now decide which reply will be hidden from other users but those who choose to view the hidden replies will still be able to see them by clicking on an icon that would bring up all the hidden tweets. Users can hide replies on both the app and desktop versions of the website.  Observations from the Canadian ‘Hide Replies’ feature test In July this year, the The Twitter team tested out the ‘Hide Replies’ feature in Canada and tried to understand how conversations on the platform change when a person (who starts a conversation) hides the replies.  The team observed that users often hide those replies that they think are not relevant, unintelligible or abusive. According to their survey, the ones who used this feature found it helpful. Also, the users were more likely to reconsider their interactions when their tweets were hidden. Around 27% of the users who had their tweets hidden thought of reconsidering their interactions with others in the future. Hiding someone’s replies can also lead to confusion as it could be misunderstood, so Twitter notifies the user if they wish to block the user. The official post reads, “People were concerned hiding someone’s reply could be misunderstood and potentially lead to confusion or frustration. As a result, now if you tap to hide a Tweet, we’ll check in with you to see if you want to also block that account.” According to the team, the Canadian test showed positive results as the feature helped users have better conversations. In an announcement regarding the feature’s Canada launch, the company said, “Everyday, people start important conversations on Twitter, from #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, to discussions around #NBAFinals or their favorite television shows. These conversations bring people together to debate, learn, and laugh. That said we know that distracting, irrelevant, and offensive replies can derail the discussions that people want to have. Ultimately, the success of ‘hide replies’ will depend on how people use it, but it could mean friendlier — and more filtered — conversations.” Twitter’s Hide Replies feature: will it really improve conversations? The Hide Replies feature is a great addition to the list of the block and mute options on Twitter but it could possibly turn into a slight restriction on freedom of speech. In case, the replies weren't abusive or offensive but are strong views about a subject and the author still decides to hide that reply, then the user who replied might not understand the reason behind hiding the reply. But the good thing is that users can opt to still see the hidden replies. So in this case, the hidden responses aren’t being completely silenced but it will now take an extra click to view them. Also, if the platform still shows the hidden replies then the motive of hiding the replies fails there itself. While it is still not clear as to how will Twitter curtail abusive comments or bullies on the Twitter thread with this feature as it doesn’t delete them but simply hide them. Few Twitter users are not happy with this feature and think it is irrelevant if the user first hides the replies and than again it will appear on clicking the option to see the hidden replies. https://twitter.com/QWongSJ/status/1174795321211158528 https://twitter.com/scott_satzer/status/1174890804143374336 https://twitter.com/CartridgeGames/status/1174857548777885697 https://twitter.com/camimosas/status/1174850022694952960 https://twitter.com/KyleTWN/status/1174828502769471488 https://twitter.com/iFireMonkey/status/1174791634736861207 To know more about this news, check out the official post. Other interesting news in programming Dart 2.5 releases with the preview of ML complete, the dart:ffi foreign function interface and improvements in constant expressions Microsoft releases Cascadia Code version 1909.16, the latest monospaced font for Windows Terminal and Visual Studio Code DevOps platform for coding, GitLab reached more than double valuation of $2.75 billion than its last funding and way ahead of its IPO in 2020  

Yesterday, GitLab, a San Francisco based start-up, raised $268 million in a Series E funding round valuing the company at $2.75 billion, more than double of its last valuation. In the Series D round funding of $100 million the company was valued at $1.1 billion; and with today’s announcement, the valuation has more than doubled in less than a year. GitLab provides a DevOps platform for developing and collaborating on code and offers a single application for companies to draft, develop and release code. The product is used by companies like Delta Air Lines Inc., Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc etc. The Series E funding round was led by investors including Adage Capital Management, Alkeon Capital, Altimeter Capital, Capital Group, Coatue Management, D1 Capital Partners, Franklin Templeton, Light Street Capital, Tiger Management Corp. and Two Sigma Investments. GitLab plans to go public in November 2020 According to Forbes, GitLab has already set November 18, 2020 as the date for going public. The company seems to be primed and ready for the eventual IPO. As for the $268 million, it gives the company considerable time ahead of the planned event and also gives the flexibility to choose how to take the company public. “One other consideration is that there are two options to go public. You can do an IPO or direct listing. We wanted to preserve the optionality of doing a direct listing next year. So if we do a direct listing, we’re not going to raise any additional money, and we wanted to make sure that this is enough in that case,” Sid Sijbrandij, Gitlab co-founder and CEO explained in an interview for TechCrunch. He further adds, that the new funds will be used to add monitoring and security to GitLab’s offering, and to increase the company’s staff to more than 1,000 employees this year from 400 employee strength currently. GitLab is able to add workers at a rapid rate, since it has an all-remote workforce. GitLab wants to be independent and chooses transparency for community Sijbrandij says that the company made a deliberate decision to be transparent early on. Being based on an open-source project, it’s sometimes tricky to make the transition to a commercial company, and sometimes that has a negative impact on the community and the number of contributions. Transparency was a way to combat that, and it seems to be working. He reports that the community contributes 200 improvements to the GitLab open-source products every month, and that’s double the amount of just a year ago, so the community is still highly active. He did not ignore the fact that Microsoft acquired GitHub last year for $7.5 billion. And GitLab is a similar kind of company that helps developers manage and distribute code in a DevOps environment. He claims in spite of that eye-popping number, his goal is to remain an independent company and take this through to the next phase. “Our ambition is to stay an independent company. And that’s why we put out the ambition early to become a listed company. That’s not totally in our control as the majority of the company is owned by investors, but as long as we’re more positive about the future than the people around us, I think we can we have a shot at not getting acquired,” he said. Community is happy with GitLab’s products and services Overall the community is happy with this news and GitLab’s products and services. One of the comments on Hacker News reads, “Congrats, GitLab team. Way to build an impressive business. When anybody tells you there are rules to venture capital — like it’s impossible to take on massive incumbents that have network effects — ignore them. The GitLab team is doing something phenomenal here. Enjoy your success! You’ve earned it.” Another user comments, “We’ve been using Gitlab for 4 years now. What got us initially was the free private repos before github had that. We are now a paying customer. Their integrated CICD is amazing. It works perfectly for all our needs and integrates really easily with AWS and GCP. Also their customer service is really damn good. If I ever have an issue, it’s dealt with so fast and with so much detail. Honestly one of the best customer service I’ve experienced. Their product is feature rich, priced right and is easy. I’m amazed at how the operate. Kudos to the team” Other interesting news in programming Microsoft open-sources its C++ Standard Library (STL) used by MSVC tool-chain and Visual Studio Linux 5.3 releases with support for AMD Navi GPUs, Zhaoxin x86 CPUs and power usage improvements NVIM v0.4.0 releases with new API functions, Lua library, UI events and more!

Two days ago, Linus Torvalds, the principal developer of the Linux kernel announced the release of Linux 5.3 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (lkml). This major release brings new support for AMD Navi GPUs, the umwait x86 instructions, and Intel speed select. Linux 5.3 also presents a new pidfd_open(2) system call and 16 millions new IPv4 addresses in the 0.0.0.0/8 range. There are also many new drivers and improvements in this release. The previous version, Linux 5.2 was released more than two months ago. It included Sound Open Firmware project, new mount API, improved pressure stall information and more. What’s new in Linux 5.3? pidfd_open(2) system call The PID (process identification number) issue has been present in Linux, for a long time. The Linux 5.1 release had the pidfd_send_signal which allowed processes to send signals to stable ‘pidfd’ handles, even after PID reuse. Linux 5.2 added the CLONE_PIDFD to clone(2) feature which enabled users to create PIDs that were usable with pidfd_send_signal(2). However, this created problems for Android's low memory killer (LMK). Thus, Linux 5.3 has a new pidfd_open(2) syscal to complete the functionality needed to deal with the PID reuse issue. This release also has an added polling support for pidfd to allow process managers to identify when a process dies in a race-free way. Support for AMD Navi GPUs Linux 5.3 provides initial support for the AMD Navi GPUs in the amdgpu driver. The AMD Navi GPUs are the new AMD RX5700 GPUs which became available recently. This release also adds support for the core driver,(DCN2) displays, GFX and compute (GFX10), System DMA (SDMA 5), multimedia decode and encode (VCN2) and power management. Zhaoxin x86 CPU support This release also supports the Zhaoxin x86 Processors. The report states, “The architecture of the ZX family of processors is a continuation of VIA's Centaur Technology x86-64 Isaiah design.” Intel Speed Select support for easier power tuning Linux 5.3 also adds support for Intel Speed Select, which is a feature only supported on specific Xeon servers. The power management technology allows users to configure their servers for throughput and per-core performance settings. The Intel Speed Select enables prioritization of performance for certain workloads running on specific cores. 16 millions of new IPv4 addresses This release makes the 0.0.0.0/8 IPv4 range acceptable by Linux as a valid address range and available for 16 million new IPv4 addresses. The IPv4 address space includes hundreds of millions of addresses which were previously reserved for future use. The new IPv4 Cleanup Project has made the addresses usable now. Utilization clamping support in the task scheduler This release adds utilization clamping support to the task scheduler. This is a refinement of the energy-aware scheduling framework for power-asymmetric systems (like ARM big.LITTLE) added in Linux 5.0. Per-task clamping attributes can be set through sched_setattr(2). This feature intends to replace the hacks that Android had developed to achieve the same result. Improvements in Core Io_uring Added support for recvmsg() Added support for sendmsg() Added support for Submission Queue Entry links. Task scheduler New tracepoints added which will be required for energy-aware scheduling testing CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT It will help the RT patchset to be fully integrated into the mainline kernel in the future merge Improvements in Memory management Smaps: It is used to report separate components for the PSS in smaps_rollup proc file. This will help in tuning the memory manager behavior in consumer devices, particularly for the mobile devices commit. Swap: It uses rbtree for swap_extent instead of a linked list. Thus, it improves swap performance when there are lots of processes accessing the swap device concurrently. Linux developers are happy with the Linux 5.3 features, especially the new support for AMD Navi GPUs. https://twitter.com/NoraDotCodes/status/1173621317033218049 A Redditor comments, “I'm really glad to hear that Linux is catching up to the navi gpus as I just invested in all that and after building a new box in attempting to do GPU pass-through for a straight up Linux host and windows VM realized that things aren't quite there yet.” Another user says, “Looks like some people were eagerly waiting for this release. I'm glad the Linux kernel keeps evolving and improving.” These are some of the selected updates in Linux 5.3. You may go through the release notes for more details. Latest news in Linux A recap of the Linux Plumbers Conference 2019 Lilocked ransomware (Lilu) affects thousands of Linux-based servers IBM open-sources Power ISA and other chips; brings OpenPOWER foundation under the Linux Foundation