Four openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots this week brought new versions of software along with new versions of KDE’s Plasma and Frameworks as well as python-setuptools and many other packages.

The most recent snapshot, 20181009, updated KDE’s Plasma 5.14. The new Plasma version has several new features like the new Display Configuration widget for screen management, which is useful for presentations. The Audio Volume widget has a built in speaker test feature moved from Phonon settings and the Network widget now works for SSH VPN tunnels again. The Global menu now supports GTK applications as well. Mozilla Firefox 62.0.3 fixed a few Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures including a vulnerability in register allocation of JavaScript that can lead to type confusion, which allows for an arbitrary read and write. The cpupower package, which is a collection of tools to examine and tune power, was updated to version 4.19 and deleted some patches that are now part of the mainline. Source-control-management system mercurial 4.7.2 fixed a potential out-of-bounds read in manifest parsing C code. Other packages including in the snapshot were inxi 3.0.26, lftp 4.8.4, libinput 1.12.1, okteta 0.25.4 and vm-install 0.10.04

Snapshot 20181004 included several package updates as well. NetworkManager-openvpn 1.8.6 fixed an endless loop checking for encrypted certificate. The open source antivirus engine clamav 0.100.2 disabled the opt-in minor feature of OnAccess scanning on Linux systems and will re-enabled in a future release. Users who enabled the feature in clamd.conf will see a warning informing them that the feature is not active. The Linux Kernel was updated to 4.18.11 and had several fixes for Ext4. Developers using python-setuptools 40.4.3 will see a few changes from the previous 40.2.0 version that was in Tumbleweed like the vendored pyparsing in pkg_resources to 2.2.1. Those using Samba will see a fix for cluster CTDB configuration with the 4.9.1 version. Caching proxy squid 4.3 updated systemd dependencies in squid.service and vlc 3.0.4 improve support for broken HEVC inside MKV.

There were a total of four openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots this week that updated packages like VIM, Xen, Git and ImageMagick.

The latest snapshot, 20180925, updated three packages. All the packages updated in this snapshot were zero dot packages. The updated packages were obs-service-set_version 0.5.10, purple-carbons 0.1.6 and shotwell 0.30.0. The obs-service-set_version 0.5.10 version fixed a zip file crash associated with python. The version change regarding purple-carbons 0.1.6 was basically cleaning up the code. The shotwell 0.30.0 package updated translations and fixed random segfaults in GNOME settings.

The 20180924 snapshot updated a little more than a handful of packages. Among the package updates were hdf5’s jump from version 1.10.1 to 1.10.3. The HDF5 package is a high performance data software library and file format to manage, process, and store heterogeneous data. The version added a few patches and had an upstream fix that dropped a warning patch. The text-mode web browser links 2.17 package had multiple changes. Among some of the most important fixes for the package was verifying SSL certificates for numeric IPv6 addresses and fixing an infinite loop that happened in graphics mode if the user clicked on OK in the “Miscellaneous options” dialog when more than one window was open. The nano 3.1 version fixed a fix a misbinding of ^H that had an effect with some terminals on certain systems. Three rubygem packages were also updated in the snapshot. The packages were rubygem-marcel 0.3.3, rubygem-sass 3.6.0 and rubygem-uglifier 4.1.19.

My learning experience in the free software community went beyond technology. I also learned a lot about people, about how they work together, about organization, about leadership. I became a member of the board of KDE e.V., the foundation behind the KDE community, and this was the ideal place to learn about a lot of the non-technical aspects.
I’m an engineering manager and distinguished engineer at SUSE today. My free software work was essential in developing the technical skills which make me a distinguished engineer and the leadership skills which make me a manager. I’m still contributing to free software. It’s part of my job. It still is a way to learn, and it keeps me grounded.

Also: openSUSE.Asia Summit

SUSE will soon have a new owner, but it remains focused on easing the cloud native migration path for enterprise customers. In an interview with SDxCentral at this week’s Open Source Summit event in Vancouver, British Columbia, SUSE CTO Thomas Di Giacomo said the company plans to invest more into its core operations, but will also look at new acquisitions.

That investment push comes on the heels of Swedish private equity fund EQT VIII announcing plans to acquire SUSE for $2.5 billion. SUSE has been owned by Micro Focus since late 2014 where it has operated as a semi-independent business under CEO Nils Brauckmann.