A new project, targeting Linux for the proverbial final frontier—outer space—was the subject of a talk (YouTube video) at the Embedded Linux Conference, which was held as part of Open Source Summit Europe in Amsterdam in late August. Ramón Roche introduced Space Grade Linux (SGL), which is currently incubating as a special interest group (SIG) of the Embedding Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA) project. The idea is to create a distribution with a base layer that can be used for off-planet missions of various sorts, along with other layers that can be used to customize it for different space-based use cases.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, libhtp, modsecurity-apache, shibboleth-sp, and wireless-regdb), Fedora (chromium, kea, tcpreplay, and yq), Mageia (rootcerts, nspr, nss & firefox and thunderbird), Red Hat (python3), and SUSE (7zip, chromedriver, go1.25, libQt5Pdf5, libsixel-bash-completion, libsoup2, libwireshark18, netty, rav1e, and trivy).

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.16.5, 6.12.45, 6.6.104, 6.1.150, 5.15.191, 5.10.242, and 5.4.298 stable kernels. Each contains important fixes throughout the kernel tree; users should upgrade.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (httpd:2.4, kernel, pam, postgresql:12, and python3.12), Debian (clamav and node-cipher-base), Fedora (exiv2 and libsixel), Oracle (httpd, kernel, pam, postgresql:12, postgresql:13, postgresql:15, and udisks2), SUSE (gimp, libmupen64plus-devel, munge, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, ovmf, postgresql15, python-aiohttp, python-Django, rav1e, redis, and ruby2.5), and Ubuntu (ffmpeg, kdepim, kf5-messagelib, kmail, kmail-account-wizard, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.8, linux-azure-nvidia, php7.0, php7.2, php7.4, protobuf, python-django, ruby2.5, ruby2.7, ruby3.0, ruby3.2, ruby3.3, and rubygems).

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (postgresql16, postgresql:16, python3.11, and thunderbird), Debian (firebird4.0, libcommons-lang3-java, mbedtls, nodejs, openvpn, and ruby-saml), Fedora (cef, chromium, docker-buildx, exiv2, firefox, rocm-rpp, and udisks2), Oracle (postgresql:16), Red Hat (fence-agents, firefox, gdk-pixbuf2, httpd, kernel, kernel-rt, libarchive, libxml2, multiple packages, postgresql, postgresql16, postgresql:15, postgresql:16, python3.11, python3.12, python39:3.9, and thunderbird), Slackware (udisks2), SUSE (go-sendxmpp, helm, ImageMagick, javamail, jq, kea, kernel, libarchive, libsoup, libssh, libxml2, openssl-3, postgresql14, postgresql15, python, python-future, systemd, and xz), and Ubuntu (open-vm-tools and python2.7).

The GNOME project, which recently celebrated its 28th birthday, has never had a formal technical governance; progress has been driven by individuals and groups that advocated for—and worked toward—a particular goal in an ad hoc fashion. Longtime GNOME contributor Emmanuele Bassi would like to see that change by adding cross-project teams and a steering committee for the project; to that end, he gave a talk (YouTube video) at GUADEC 2025 in late July on his idea to establish some technical governance for the project. He also put together a blog post with his notes from the talk. The audience reaction was favorable, so he has followed up on the GNOME discussion forum with an RFC on governance to try to move the effort along.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (aide, firefox, kernel, and mod_http2), Debian (chromium and unbound), Fedora (mod_auth_openidc), Oracle (fence-agents and kernel), SUSE (ignition, jetty-minimal, kernel, libmozjs-128-0, matrix-synapse, postgresql13, postgresql15, postgresql16, and postgresql17), and Ubuntu (kernel).

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel and tomcat9), Debian (iperf3, mupdf, qemu, thunderbird, and unbound), Fedora (glab, kubernetes1.31, kubernetes1.32, kubernetes1.33, and toolbox), Oracle (kernel and tomcat9), Red Hat (firefox, kernel, kernel-rt, and squid), SUSE (abseil-cpp-devel, aide, flake-pilot, gdk-pixbuf, glibc, go-sendxmpp, ImageMagick, jetty-annotations, jupyter-bqplot-jupyterlab, libtiff-devel-32bit, pam, pdns-recursor, ruby3.4-rubygem-activerecord, rust-keylime, terragrunt, and thunderbird), and Ubuntu (linux-azure and linux-azure-fips).

The Microdot web framework is quite small, as its name would imply; it supports both standard CPython and MicroPython, so it can be used on systems ranging from internet-of-things (IoT) devices all the way up to large, cloudy servers. It was developed by Miguel Grinberg, who gave a presentation about it at EuroPython 2025. His name may sound familiar from his well-known Flask Mega-Tutorial, which has introduced many to the Flask lightweight Python-based web framework. It should come as no surprise, then, that Microdot is inspired by its rather larger cousin, so Flask enthusiasts will find much to like in Microdot—and will come up to speed quickly should their needs turn toward smaller systems.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (libarchive, mingw-sqlite, pki-deps:10.6, and tomcat), Debian (chromium and firefox-esr), Fedora (python3.6 and suricata), Oracle (go-toolset:rhel8, kernel, libarchive, mingw-sqlite, tomcat, and xterm), Red Hat (kernel), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (aws-efs-utils, docker-machine-driver-kvm2, nova, pluto, polaris, and python310), and Ubuntu (ceph, gcc-10, gcc-11, gcc-12, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-hwe-6.14, linux-oem-6.14, linux-ibm, linux-intel-iotg, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-iot, poppler, and tiff).

Ken Jin welcomed EuroPython 2025 attendees to his talk entitled "Building a new tail-calling interpreter for Python", but noted that the title really should be: "Measuring the performance of compilers and interpreters is really hard". Jin's efforts to switch the CPython interpreter to use tail calls, which can be optimized as regular jumps, initially seemed to produce an almost miraculous performance improvement. As his modified title suggests, the actual improvement was rather smaller; there is still some performance improvement and there are other benefits from the change.

The Git distributed version-control system has released version 2.51, with "506 non-merge commits since v2.50.1, contributed by 91 people, 21 of which are new faces". It brings multiple new features, some of which are highlighted in a post on the GitHub blog. It includes some performance improvements for multi-pack indexes (MIDXs), a way to import and export stash entries so they can be migrated more easily, and smaller pack files:

Git 2.51 takes the spirit of that change and goes a step further by introducing a new way to collect objects when repacking, called "path walk". Instead of walking objects in revision order with Git emitting objects with their corresponding path names along the way, the path walk approach emits all objects from a given path at the same time. This approach avoids the name-hash heuristic altogether and can look for deltas within groups of objects that are known to be at the same path.

As a result, Git can generate packs using the path walk approach that are often significantly smaller than even those generated with the new name hash function described above. Its timings are competitive even with generating packs using the existing revision order traversal.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (go-toolset:rhel8, kernel, and kernel-rt), Fedora (chromium), Oracle (libxml2), Red Hat (go-toolset:rhel8, golang, kernel, kernel-rt, openjpeg2, rsync, and tigervnc), and SUSE (apache-commons-lang3, chromedriver, fractal, framework_tool, go1.23-openssl, go1.24-openssl, grub2, gstreamer-devtools, gstreamer-plugins-rs, jasper, libavif, lighttpd, nginx, podman, postgresql13, postgresql14, postgresql15, postgresql16, python311-pypdf, ruby2.5, rust-keylime, tiff, tomcat, tomcat10, and tomcat11).

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, python3.11-setuptools, thunderbird, and toolbox), Debian (chromium), Fedora (open62541 and perl-Authen-SASL), Oracle (git, kernel, konsole, and webkit2gtk3), SUSE (framework-inputmodule-control and poppler), and Ubuntu (apache2, mysql-8.0, mysql-8.4, node-qs, request-tracker5, and ruby-sidekiq).

The Indico event-management tool has been in development at CERN for two decades at this point. The MIT-licensed web application helps organize conferences, meetings, workshops, and so on; it runs on Python and uses the Flask web framework. Two software engineers on the project, Dominic Hollis and Tomas Roun, came to EuroPython 2025 in Prague to talk about Indico, its history, and some metrics about its community. There is a bit of a connection between Indico and the conference: in 2006 and 2007, the tool was used to manage EuroPython.

Richard Hughes, creator and maintainer of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS), has written a blog post about the sustainability plan he has put together for the service. He is calling for the vendors that use the service to help fund its development and maintenance going forward.

The Linux Foundation is kindly paying for all the hosting costs of the LVFS, and Red Hat pays for all my time — but as LVFS grows and grows that's going to be less and less sustainable longer term. We're trying to find funding to hire additional resources as a "me replacement" so that there is backup and additional attention to LVFS (and so that I can go on holiday for two weeks without needing to take a laptop with me).

This year there will be a fair-use quota introduced, with different sponsorship levels having a different quota allowance. Nothing currently happens if the quota is exceeded, although there will be additional warnings asking the vendor to contribute. The "associate" (free) quota is also generous, with 50,000 monthly downloads and 50 monthly uploads. This means that almost all the 140 vendors on the LVFS should expect no changes.

(Thanks to Paul Wise.)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, jackson-jaxrs-providers, and jackson-modules-base and libxml2), Debian (distro-info-data, gnutls28, modsecurity-crs, and node-tmp), Fedora (chromium, incus, perl, perl-Devel-Cover, perl-PAR-Packer, polymake, varnish, and xen), Red Hat (kernel, kernel-rt, and rhc), and SUSE (chromedriver, ffmpeg-4, go1.23, go1.24, go1.25, govulncheck-vulndb, himmelblau, iperf, keylime-ima-policy, net-tools, sqlite3, texmaker, tomcat, and zabbix).

Debugging in Python is not like it is for some other languages, as there is no way to attach a debugger to a running program to try to diagnose its ills. Pablo Galindo Salgado noticed that when he started programming in Python ten years ago or so; it bugged him enough that he helped fill the hole. The results will be delivered in October with Python 3.14. At EuroPython 2025, he gave a characteristically fast-paced and humorous look at debugging and what will soon be possible for Python debugging—while comparing it all to medical diagnosis.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (glibc, kernel, libxml2, python-requests, and python-setuptools), Debian (chromium), Fedora (chromium, firefox, gdk-pixbuf2, iputils, libsoup3, libssh, perl, perl-Devel-Cover, perl-PAR-Packer, polymake, and poppler), Gentoo (Composer and Spreadsheet-ParseExcel), Oracle (glibc, kernel, libxml2, python-setuptools, sqlite, and virt:rhel and virt-devel:rhel), Red Hat (libxml2), SUSE (grub2, libarchive, libgcrypt, and python311), and Ubuntu (cifs-utils and poppler).

Antonio Cuni, who is a longtime Python performance engineer and PyPy developer, gave a presentation at EuroPython 2025 about "Myths and fairy tales around Python performance" on the first day of the conference in Prague. As might be guessed from the title, he thinks that much of the conventional wisdom about Python performance is misleading at best. With lots of examples, he showed where the real problems that he sees lie. He has come to the conclusion that memory management will ultimately limit what can be done about Python performance, but he has an early-stage project called SPy that might be a way toward a super-fast Python.