News Briefs

• Greg Kroah-Hartman released Linux kernel 4.19 and handed the kernel tree back to Linus, writing "You can have the joy of dealing with the merge window."
• Firefox 63.0 was released. With this new version, "users can opt to block third-party tracking cookies or block all trackers and create exceptions for trusted sites that don't work correctly with content blocking enabled". In addition, WebExtensions now run in their own process on Linux, and Firefox also now warns if you have multiple windows and tabs open when you quit via the main menu. You can download it from here.
• Richard Stallman announced the "GNU Kind Communication Guidelines". Stallman writes that in contrast to a code of conduct with punishment for people who violate the rules, "the idea of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines is to start guiding people towards kinder communication at a point well before one would even think of saying, 'You are breaking the rules'." The initial version of the GNU Kind Communications Guidelines is here.
• Linus Torvalds discusses his return to Linux in an interview with ZDNet, and says he's "starting the usual merge window activity now". Regarding the Code of Conduct, he says: "I want to leave it alone, and wait until we actually have any real issues. I'm hoping there won't be any, but even if there are, I want the input to be colored more by real and *actual* concerns, rather than just people arguing about it." See the article for more details on what he's been doing and other news from the Maintainers Summit.
• The Tor Project has announced that Mozilla will match all donations to the project through the end of the year. ZDNet reports that Mozilla matched $200,000 in donations to Tor last year. This year, Tor plans to use the funds to "increase the capacity modularization and scalability of the Tor network"; "better test for, measure, and design solutions around internet censorship"; and "strengthen development of the Tor Browser for Android".
• A painting created by an open-source neural network sold recently for $432K at a London auction house. Obvious is the group behind the work that "used 19-year-old Robbie Barrat's GAN package, available here on Github, and sourced paintings from Wiki Commons" to create the painting. See the post on TNW for details on the "first portrait ever sold at auction that was made with the assistance of an AI".
• A team of European researchers has created MixedEmotions, an open-source toolkit that can automatically assess emotions in text, audio and video. According to PhysOrg, "There is a growing demand for automatic analysis of emotions in different fields. The possible applications are wide, including call centers, smart environments, brand reputation analysis and assistive technology." Read more here about emotion detection and the complexities involved in adapting these tools to other languages.
• IBM announced its acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion. Interesting note: Bob Young, founder of Red Hat, was Linux Journal's first editor in chief.
• Braiins Systems has announced Braiins OS, which claims to be "the first fully open source system for cryptocurrency embedded devices". FOSSBYTES reports that the initial release is based on OpenWrt. In addition, Braiins OS "keeps monitoring the working conditions and hardware to create reports of errors and performance. Braiins also claimed to reduce power consumption by 20%".
• Ubuntu 19.04 will be called Disco Dingo, and the release is scheduled for April 2019. Source: OMG! Ubuntu!.
• System76 announces it will donate a portion of its profits from laptop sales to open-source projects until January 3, 2019. Projects include KiCad, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA). In addition, System76 is holding a laptop sale—you can save $30–$100 on a laptop or $160–$370 with upgraded components.