Hasty Briefsbeta

All tags

#opensource

265 stories total

Bilingual

Gnome 49 Release
8 months ago
- GNOME 49, codenamed 'Brescia', is released after six months of community effort.
- Showtime replaces Totem as the default video player, built on GTK 4 and Libadwaita.
- Papers replaces Evince as the default document viewer, featuring a modernized design and improved performance.
- Calendar receives accessibility enhancements and a more flexible interface.
- GNOME Web browser improves with better ad blocking, security features, and web app controls.
- Maps now includes localized icons, interactive labels, and OpenStreetMap profile pictures.
- Software app performance is optimized for faster browsing and searching.
- New HDR wallpapers are introduced, leveraging enhanced color-management.
- Remote Desktop features multitouch input support and extended virtual monitors.
- Other improvements include lock screen media controls, a new accessibility menu, and enhanced security.
- Two new apps, Mahjongg and Wordbook, join GNOME Circle.
- Developer experience is enhanced with new features and improvements.
- GNOME 49 is available for download, with official packages recommended from distributions.
Bringing CAD-like workflows to the mesh environment
8 months ago
- CAD Sketcher aims to bring CAD-like precision modeling to Blender without replacing traditional CAD programs.
- The addon allows for constraint-based 2D sketching with features like tangents, dimensions, and angles, converting sketches into editable beziers or meshes.
- Future plans include expanding into 3D constraints, sketch-to-sketch referencing, and exploring assemblies and NURBS workflows.
- CAD Sketcher is FOSS (Free Open Source Software) and seeks community support for development through contributions and funding.
- Long-term goals include supporting other precision-oriented Blender addons, like CAM integration and .step file support.
- The project is licensed under GNU GPL, ensuring it remains free and open-source.
- The team emphasizes transparency and community involvement, with updates shared via Discord and Gumroad.
- Current statistics include over 4,050 Discord members and 58,473+ downloads.
Tongyi DeepResearch: A New Era of Open-Source AI Researchers
8 months ago
- Tongyi DeepResearch is the first fully open-source Web Agent matching OpenAI’s DeepResearch performance across benchmarks.
- Achieves state-of-the-art results: 32.9 on HLE, 43.4 on BrowseComp, 46.7 on BrowseComp-ZH, and 75 on xbench-DeepSearch.
- Shares a complete methodology for advanced agents, including novel data synthesis, Agentic CPT, SFT, and RL stages.
- Introduces AgentFounder for scalable data synthesis, creating an entity-anchored open-world knowledge memory.
- Develops high-quality synthetic QA pairs through automated pipelines, enhancing AI agent performance.
- Bootstraps agent capabilities with SFT cold-starting using ReAct and IterResearch frameworks.
- Supports multiple rollout formats: Native ReAct Mode and Heavy Mode (IterResearch paradigm).
- Proposes Research-Synthesis framework for parallel research agent exploration and synthesis.
- Establishes an end-to-end agent training pipeline: Agentic CPT → Agentic SFT → Agentic RL.
- Uses on-policy Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) for RL, ensuring stable and efficient training.
- Develops a synthetic training environment and stable tool sandbox for reliable agent training.
- Powers real-world applications like Gaode Mate (navigation agent) and Tongyi FaRui (legal research agent).
- Identifies limitations: 128k context length, scalability on larger models, and RL efficiency improvements.
- Part of an extensive deep research agent family with multiple published technical reports.
- Released Tongyi DeepResearch-30B-A3B model and plans for next-generation agentic models.
From suspicion to published curl CVE
8 months ago
- Security reports for curl start with submissions on HackerOne, kept private during assessment.
- The curl security team consists of seven experienced maintainers who assess reports promptly.
- Most reports are dismissed as non-security issues, with valid ones classified by severity (low, medium, high, critical).
- Fixes for low/medium severity issues are submitted as public pull requests without mentioning security.
- High/critical severity fixes are merged 48 hours before release to limit exposure.
- Detailed security advisories are written, including affected versions, fixes, and credits.
- curl manages its own CVE IDs as a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA).
- Pre-notification is sent to distros@openwall a week before release for OS preparation.
- On release day, CVEs are published, reports are disclosed, and bounties are claimed via Internet Bug Bounty.
- The current curl security team includes Max Dymond, Dan Fandrich, Daniel Gustafsson, James Fuller, Viktor Szakats, Stefan Eissing, and Daniel Stenberg.
Help Us Raise $200k to Free JavaScript from Oracle
8 months ago
- Deno filed a formal Cancellation Petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office to free the 'JavaScript' trademark from Oracle.
- The campaign aims to raise $200k to fund legal efforts, including public surveys, expert witnesses, and legal filings.
- Oracle denies that 'JavaScript' is a generic term, despite its widespread recognition as a programming language.
- The case is pivotal not just for JavaScript but for the integrity of trademark law against corporate overreach.
- Excess funds will be donated to OpenJS to support digital civil liberties, with no funds going to Deno.
Xmonad seeking help for Wayland port
8 months ago
- The XMonad devteam is seeking help to port XMonad to Wayland.
- They have collected contributions to pay someone for this work but don't know who can do it.
- An existing project for this exists but is outdated and uses an old, buggy version of wlroots.
- A major challenge is that Wayland programs don't set distinct identifiers for manageHook, making appName and className hooks non-portable.
- The team welcomes comments and proposals on their Discourse thread.
Shopify, pulling strings at Ruby Central, forces Bundler and RubyGems takeover
7 months ago
- Ruby Central took over RubyGems and Bundler projects without maintainers' consent.
- Shopify pressured Ruby Central to take control, threatening to withdraw funding.
- Sidekiq withdrew $250,000/year sponsorship after Ruby Central platformed DHH at RailsConf 2025.
- HSBT and Marty Haught executed the takeover, reducing maintainers' permissions.
- Ruby Central misrepresented the takeover as a supply chain security measure.
- Maintainers, including André Arko, were locked out of GitHub and gem ownership.
- Shopify organized an on-call rotation to replace the previous maintainers.
- Ruby Central's board voted for the takeover despite understanding the risks.
- The RubyGems source code and service were conflated to justify the takeover.
- Spinel, a new cooperative, is developing 'rv' as an alternative to RubyGems and Bundler.
This month in Servo: variable fonts, network tools, SVG
7 months ago
- Servo merged 447 pull requests in August, marking another record month.
- Implemented rendering inline SVG elements, improving website appearance.
- Added support for CSS 'font-variation-settings' on desktop platforms.
- Developer tools advanced with a functional network monitor panel and JS debugger improvements.
- Fixed hit testing crashes by making the operation synchronous.
- Upgraded to SpiderMonkey v140 and implemented parts of the Trusted Types API.
- IndexedDB implementation progressed, now supporting autoincrement keys and error reporting.
- CSS geometry test suite passes over 99.6% due to new implementations.
- Performance improvements include throttling the document rendering loop to 60 FPS.
- Servo's WebDriver implementation now passes 80% of conformance tests.
- servoshell improvements include favicons in the tab bar and better popup dialog handling.
- Servo's funding increased to $5,552/month, supporting CI servers and maintainers.
MkDocs – Update on our foundational work
7 months ago
- Material for MkDocs has been in a feature freeze due to unresolved technical and organizational challenges with MkDocs, its upstream dependency.
- The maintainer of MkDocs announced plans to work on a SaaS offering and a new theme, with intentions to remove plugin support, which conflicts with Material for MkDocs' vision.
- Material for MkDocs has been developing a new foundation over the past 16 months, with an initial release including new search features expected by the end of the year.
- Users concerned about the impact on their business are encouraged to reach out for an enterprise feedback call.
The Other Linux Logo
7 months ago
- Linux logo designed for sharing, use, and editing.
- New options added based on feedback from Reddit and omg! ubuntu!.
- Users can create and download their own version of Tux.
- Tux logo is loved but lacks simplicity for small sizes.
- The Other Linux Logo is more icon-friendly and adaptable.
- Aim to provide choices to represent Linux's awesomeness.
Plan 9 from User Space
7 months ago
- Plan 9 libraries and programs ported to Unix.
- Installation involves running ./INSTALL, which builds mk and uses it for the rest of the installation.
- Detailed installation instructions are available in install.txt and online at https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/man/man1/install.html.
- Documentation is available online and locally after a successful installation (use '9 man 1 intro').
- Intro(1) lists man pages detailing new features or differences from Plan 9.
- Contributions are welcome, especially ports to other architectures.
- Git can be used to keep the local copy updated; see '9 man git' for details.
- Mailing list: https://groups.google.com/group/plan9port-dev.
- Issue tracker: https://github.com/9fans/plan9port/issues.
- Submit changes via pull requests: https://github.com/9fans/plan9port/pulls.
- Contact Russ Cox at [email protected].
Our Stewardship: Where We Are, What's Changing and How We'll Engage
7 months ago
- Ruby Central is committed to maintaining the stability, safety, and trustworthiness of the Ruby Gems ecosystem.
- Temporary procedural changes have been implemented for privileged access to RubyGems repositories and production systems to enhance security and accountability.
- Operator and Contributor Agreements are being finalized to define access and contributions clearly, ensuring no single point of failure.
- Recent reviews revealed risks from single-individual control over systems, prompting swift action to strengthen security and compliance with privacy laws.
- Communication improvements are underway, including regular updates, FAQs, and security briefings, to rebuild community trust.
- Ruby Central assures the community that gem ownership changes follow established procedures and are not unilaterally altered by Ruby Central.
- The Board acted independently in making these changes, with no financial conditions tied to the actions taken.
- Weekly updates will be published on Fridays to keep the community informed on progress and next steps.
Mira Murati's Stealth AI Lab Launches Its First Product
7 months ago
- Thinking Machines Lab, cofounded by OpenAI researchers, launched Tinker, a tool automating custom frontier AI model creation.
- Tinker aims to make frontier AI capabilities more accessible to researchers, developers, and hobbyists by simplifying fine-tuning processes.
- The tool supports fine-tuning Meta's Llama and Alibaba's Qwen via supervised or reinforcement learning, with users able to download their models.
- Thinking Machines Lab raised $2 billion in seed funding, valuing the startup at $12 billion, with a team including OpenAI veterans like Mira Murati and John Schulman.
- Tinker's reinforcement learning functionality is praised by beta testers for enabling specialized tasks and simplifying the fine-tuning process compared to starting from scratch.
- The company plans to eventually charge for Tinker's API, currently free, and is implementing measures to prevent misuse of open-source models.
- Thinking Machines Lab publishes fundamental research on model training, supporting tools like Tinker, and advocates for openness in AI model development.
- Murati hopes Tinker will counter the trend of commercial AI models becoming increasingly closed, promoting broader access to frontier AI research.
Many Debian/Ubuntu Packages for Intel Accelerators and More Have Been Orphaned
7 months ago
- Several Intel-related Debian packages have been orphaned due to developer departures.
- Affected packages include accel-config, qatengine, qatlib, qatzip, intel-cmt-cat, intel-lpmd, ipp-crypto, intel-ipsec-mb, numatop, psst, thermald, and thunderbolt-tools.
- No new maintainers have stepped up from Intel or the Debian community.
- This impacts Ubuntu and other Debian-based distributions.
- Orphaned packages may lead to outdated software or reliance on manual builds.
- Intel has also ended other open-source projects like x86-simd-sort and Clear Linux.
- Long-term maintenance issues could hinder the use of Intel accelerators on Debian systems.
- The situation calls for community or organizational intervention to restore package maintenance.
Toybox: All-in-one Linux command line
7 months ago
- Toybox is an all-in-one Linux command line tool.
- Static binaries for various targets can be downloaded from http://landley.net/toybox/bin.
- Building Toybox follows the Linux kernel idiom: 'make menuconfig; make; make install'.
- Toybox can be cross-compiled using an appropriately prefixed cross compiler toolchain.
- Toybox produces a multicall binary that acts differently based on the name it was called by.
- The 'toybox' command can list available commands and run them without installation.
- Configuration is done via '.config' file, similar to the Linux kernel.
- Toybox includes a simple system builder (scripts/mkroot.sh) for creating Linux systems.
- Presentations and talks about Toybox are available on various topics.
- Contributions to Toybox should be sent to the mailing list or via git patches.
Show HN: Tangled – Git collaboration built on AT Protocol
7 months ago
- Tangled is a new social-enabled git collaboration platform built on atproto.
- Developers have complete ownership of their code and open source communities can self-govern.
- Lightweight git repo hosting using knots—tiny, headless servers for git operations.
- Fine-grained role-based access control and SSH for push and pull operations.
- Improved pull request model with round-based flow and inter-diffing between rounds.
- Support for stacked pull requests using Jujutsu's change IDs.
- Quick drive-by changes using git diff or git format-patch.
- Trending timeline feature.
State of the Bird 2024/25
7 months ago
- Thunderbird expanded beyond desktop to smartphones and web browsers, launching Thunderbird for Android in fall 2024.
- Celebrated 20 years of Thunderbird in December 2024 and introduced Thunderbird Pro, including the Appointment service in closed beta.
- Shifted to a Monthly Release channel for more frequent updates, improving responsiveness and personalization.
- Thunderbird for Android launched after two years of development, transforming K-9 Mail into a modern Thunderbird app.
- Development of Thunderbird for iOS began, focusing on JMAP for better synchronization and efficiency.
- Announced Thundermail, a privacy-focused webmail service, and continued development on Thunderbird Pro services like Thunderbird Send.
- 2024 financial contributions reached $10.3 million, with 335,000 individual donors, emphasizing community support over large benefactors.
- Team expanded to 43 full-time staff, focusing on mobile development, web services, and desktop improvements.
- Community contributions included over 20,000 people in coding, support, and translations, with 70 translation locales.
- Encouraged community engagement through Mozilla Connect, implementing user-suggested ideas for both desktop and mobile.
Open-Source Agentic AI
7 months ago
- Open-Agent.io is an open-source alternative to Claude Agent SDK, ChatGPT Agents, and Manus.
- Agentic AI systems can perform real-world tasks by operating computers, browsers, and phones like humans.
- Open-Agent.io allows users to chat with cutting-edge models while a multi-agent system completes tasks.
- The platform is customizable, integrating OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and open-source models.
- Features include spec & context engineering, multi-agent collaboration, and self-hostability.
- Users can deploy Open-Agent.io using Docker Compose after configuring API keys.
- The project welcomes contributions, ideas, and improvements from the community.
- Open-Agent.io builds upon ideas from projects like AFFiNE and the broader open-source agentic AI community.
- Licensed under Apache 2.0.
Tangled: A social coding platform built with ATProto and Git
7 months ago
- Tangled is a new social-enabled git collaboration platform built on atproto.
- Developers have complete ownership of their code and open source communities can self-govern.
- Lightweight git repo hosting using knots—tiny, headless servers for git operations.
- Fine-grained role-based access control and SSH for push/pull operations.
- Improved pull request model with round-based flow and inter-diffing between rounds.
- Stacked pull requests using Jujutsu's change IDs.
- Quick drive-by changes using git diff or git format-patch.
- Trending timeline feature.
Windows Subsystem for FreeBSD (WSFB)
7 months ago
- Experimental project to run FreeBSD on WSL2 with minimal changes to the FreeBSD base system.
- Goals include enabling FreeBSD to run natively on WSL2 and contributing improvements back to open-source components.
- Current progress includes successful boot, basic functionality, and ongoing work on networking, I/O, and process management.
- Features include initial boot support, full console command execution, and in-progress networking support.
- Contributions welcome in the form of feedback, testing, bug reports, and discussions.
- Project is open-source (license TBD) and not affiliated with Microsoft or FreeBSD organizations.

first prev6next

About|Login

#opensource

Gnome 49 Release

Bringing CAD-like workflows to the mesh environment

Tongyi DeepResearch: A New Era of Open-Source AI Researchers

From suspicion to published curl CVE

Help Us Raise $200k to Free JavaScript from Oracle

Xmonad seeking help for Wayland port

Shopify, pulling strings at Ruby Central, forces Bundler and RubyGems takeover

This month in Servo: variable fonts, network tools, SVG

MkDocs – Update on our foundational work

The Other Linux Logo

Plan 9 from User Space

Our Stewardship: Where We Are, What's Changing and How We'll Engage

Mira Murati's Stealth AI Lab Launches Its First Product

Many Debian/Ubuntu Packages for Intel Accelerators and More Have Been Orphaned

Toybox: All-in-one Linux command line

Show HN: Tangled – Git collaboration built on AT Protocol

State of the Bird 2024/25

Open-Source Agentic AI

Tangled: A social coding platform built with ATProto and Git

Windows Subsystem for FreeBSD (WSFB)