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FOSS

FOSS is an umbrella initialism for Free and Open Source Software. It attempts to bring together two rival yet closely related factions in the world of software development: the Free Software movement, and the Open Source community.

Homebrew 6.0 released with new security mechanism, Linux sandbox and more

Homebrew was "less vulnerable 10 years ago than npm is today," project lead tells us

System76 boss reckons he can liberate the entire PC stack... just give him another 15 years

Bootstrapped Linux box-botherer flogs new Thelio kit, talks up COSMIC, and politely declines to bolt AI onto everything

Firefox 152 understands 'Sssh!'

As Google continues crippling Chrome ad-blockers, it's a good time to try Firefox

Linux kernel 7.1 sends Intel 486 support to silicon heaven

More than 140,000 lines of code bite the dust as ancient CPUs, bus mice, and other legacy leftovers face the chop

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ERP users may soon get ahead by going headless, says Rimini Street boss

Look to AI agents and open source to escape the vendor-driven upgrade cycle

France's digital sovereignty push is struggling to escape the Microsoft gravity well

Nextcloud rollout shows locally controlled storage is one thing; getting users off Office is quite another

A modest proposal: Reformat everything to make documents more palatable to AI

What's up, DocLang?

Red Hat gives Ubuntu a bootc up the backside at Canonical shindig

Bootable containers pitch shows how distro can be managed with familiar OCI tooling

Flatpak-NG sounds like bad news for systemd refuseniks

Linux app packaging rethink could leave alternative-init distros in the cold

MX Linux 25.2 provides possible refuge from AI as well as systemd

Plus, Raspberry Pi edition finally catches up

Blockbuster new Raspberry Pi project turns any screen into old-school VCR

Who needs fancy menus and high definition? 240-MP will play your media files like it's 1999

GitHub pulls pin on npm's auto-run scripts

Shai-Hulud worm exploited exactly this. Better late than never, says everyone except the malware authors

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Miasma worms its way onto GitHub as attack kit goes open source

As if there weren't enough package poisonings to worry about

LibreOffice brands Euro-Office a 'de facto ally' of Microsoft's lock-in strategy

The Document Foundation accuses newly launched Euro-Office of undermining digital sovereignty by defaulting to Microsoft's OOXML document format

Devs know AI code is riddled with holes, but ship it anyway

Pressure to deploy wins out over security as four in five orgs confess to breaches from vulnerable apps

Python JIT compiler project under threat after steering council says proper process wasn't followed

No new features to be submitted to main branch, existing code removed in 6 months if new proposal not created and accepted

History of CentOS: How a biochemist's Linux hobby project became the enterprise world's default operating system

When a community came together after Red Hat said Windows was 'probably the right product'

'Please do not vibe f--- up this software': Broken backups spark AI coding row in rsync project

Users probe backup failures find Claude-assisted commits. Veteran engineer retorts: "I did not just vibe-code 'convert test suite to python'."

Nobody needs Mythos or 0-days to build a chaos-causing computer worm – free open source models work just fine

'Attackers can now cheaply operationalize known vulnerabilities at scale,' boffins tell The Reg

Netflix wiz creates app to slash AI bills, then open sources it

Project Headroom could save you big money, too

Wikipedia editors plot strike and banner sabotage after Wikimedia layoffs

Foundation sparks revolt after disbanding team responsible for many community-requested fixes and moderation tools

QEMU mulls relaxing AI contribution ban

Red Hat engineer reckons the balance of risk has shifted, but core code stays off limits

That an app 'Fits on a Floppy' is still a useful measure in 2026

In a world of mass-produced bot-slopware, small is more beautiful than ever

ReactOS brings its Windows NT tribute act to ARM64

Experimental build boots on Raspberry Pi 5, but for now the joy is mostly in getting there

California may let Linux bypass age check

Exemption in amendment offers relief to open source software makers

OpenBSD 7.9 arrives, a diamond in the rough proud of every sharp edge

Sixtieth release adds more cores, delayed hibernation, and basic Wi-Fi 6 without losing its ascetic streak

Google has seriously leaned into AI enshittification lately

Could the Chocolate Factory's mission to reshape the web backfire?

Fedora: Microsoft is all aboard, but Deepin is dumped

Red Hat’s free distro loses a desktop, but makes an important new friend

Clear your calendar, Drupal user: You have a critically urgent patch to install

The org’s staying mum on the details, but Wednesday’s fixes reach back to unsupported 8.9 branches

TanStack weighs invitation-only pull requests after supply chain attack

Shai-Hulud worm exploited GitHub Actions misconfiguration to poison shared cache, now project weighing nuclear option on unsolicited contributions

Google tells database devs to lean hard on AI for PostgreSQL work

Cloud giant says humans remain accountable, even when code gets an assist from the machines

LocalSend puts your sneakernet out of business

Like AirDrop, minus the Apple lock-in

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KDE bags €1.3M as Europe realizes it might need an OS of its own

Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund backs the desktop project while public sector interest in homegrown alternatives grows

dBase debased: Database titan fades to black after 47 years

Blog post mourning decline appears to have helped knock what was left of the veteran app's online presence offline

Malware crew TeamPCP open-sources its Shai-Hulud worm on GitHub

Where it’s been well and truly forked, seemingly without Microsoft’s code locker noticing

Rodent-obsessed developer creates Ratty to bring 3D graphics to the command line

Inspired by TempleOS, this terminal emulator is just about as bonkers

Debian 14 cracks down on unreproducible packages

Dull but important … so, a bit like Debian itself, really

Both Fedora and Ubuntu will get AI support – soon

Furores are fermenting in the forums

macOS 27 threatens to bury Time Capsule, FOSS brings a shovel

Apple's old backup boxes only speak AFP and SMB1, but NetBSD under the hood gives them one last shot

NHS code clampdown draws open source backlash

Plus a petition for the UK Civil Service to go FOSS by default

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NHS to close-source hundreds of GitHub repos over AI, security concerns

Healthcare giant's maintainers handed May deadline to enact the change

Hands off my trademark! Notepad++ dev threatens legal action against macOS port

It's not the fork that's the problem, it's the attempt to make it look official, says original Notepad++ dev Don Ho

Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

Both Cupertino and Google are imposing ever stricter limits on their phones – but you have alternatives

Fedora 44 is out – countless versions of it

New sealed bootable container images and Stratis storage, too