Late Night Linux

Discord delays their age-gating rollout but legislators are pushing for operating systems including Linux to verify ages, LLM licence laundering might mean the end of copyleft, and how and why you might want to detect Meta’s spy camera glasses.

News

Getting Global Age Assurance Right: What We Got Wrong and What’s Changing

US state laws push age checks into the operating system

California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup

I have actually read the text of California law CA AB1043 and, honestly, I don’t hate it

Do you really think that circumventing these things will always be a simple firmware mod or hardware hack?

Relicensing with AI-assisted rewrite – Tuan-Anh Tran

Chardet dispute shows how AI will kill software licensing, argues Bruce Perens

No right to relicense this project

Hide from Meta’s spyglasses with this new Android app

Dear Meta Smart Glasses Wearers: You’re Being Watched, Too

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The freedom to install what you want on stock Android ROMs is still in jeopardy, an interesting update on SETI@home, Intel looks to contribute to graphics on Linux, and Mozilla works towards Web standards. Plus making a Wii U gamepad, UPS software, free NASA ebooks, and making cool posters with mapping data in Discoveries.

News/Discussion

The FDroid website has a new banner on top to remind visitors that #Google did not change course and Android will be locked-down in under 200 days

Keep Android Open

Open letter to Google

FLX1s

Enthusiasts used their home computers to search for ET—scientists are homing in on 100 signals they found

Intel Hiring More Linux Developers – Including For GPU Drivers / Linux Gaming Stack

Launching Interop 2026

Discoveries

Creating a Wii U gamepad

Network UPS Tools

NASA eBooks

MapToPoster

maptoposter-docker

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Discord’s new age gating policy might be a real opportunity for open source but it’s not clear that we have anything that can compete, the complex and bizarre tale of an AI agent writing a blog post attacking a FOSS maintainer, why we lost some trust in a major tech publication, the Firefox AI kill switch arrives, and a quick KDE Korner.

News

Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 27th June from 6pm until late

Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally

Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach

Hackers Expose Age-Verification Software Powering Surveillance Web

I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here’s What I Actually Handed Over.

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – More Things Have Happened

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

The obnoxious GitHub OpenClaw AI bot is … a crypto bro

Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

Sorry all this is my fault

Firefox 148 Now Available With The New AI Controls / AI Kill Switches

KDE Korner 4

A quick anti-FUD FAQ to debunk “the KDE is forcing systemd!” hoax

KDE endorses the UN’s Open Source Principles

Plasma 6.6

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The professional-grade audio workstation Ardour has a great new version, LinkedIn does a shocking but not surprising amount of browser fingerprinting, Firefox is getting a button to turn off the AI nonsense, a new way to prevent slop “contributions” to your project, another tale of someone failing to switch to Linux, and why we should talk more about why open source software can be better than proprietary alternatives. With guest host Kevin from Linux Dev Time.

News/discussion

Ardour 9.0 — What’s new

Linkedin-extension-fingerprinting

AI controls are coming to Firefox

Introducing Vouch: explicit trust management for open source

I went back to Linux and it was a mistake

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Pricing and release dates for the new Steam hardware are delayed, Xfce is getting a new Wayland compositor that’s written in Rust but it might take a while, the Sudo dev could do with sponsorship, Lennart Poettering and friends are cooking up something (but it’s not exactly clear what that is), KDE Linux is progressing nicely, and more. With guest host Kevin from Linux Dev Time.

News

Steam Hardware: Launch timing and other FAQs

Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor

Xfwl4 (Xfce’s Wayland Compositor) FAQ

Xubuntu Development Update February 2026

Sudo’s maintainer needs resources to keep utility updated

Ikea’s new Matter smart home devices are having connection problems

Introducing Amutable

Busy months in KDE Linux

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Malware in the Snap store highlights the risks of modern package management, but users accidentally ending up with a totally different desktop environment shows the perils of the older approach. Plus the UK government wants to do more age-gating, and we hear about a project to get kids into Free Software.

News

Malware Peddlers Are Now Hijacking Snap Publisher Domains

Linux Mint user gets Gnomed

It looks like they followed these instructions to install Proton VPN (including selecting gdm)

They aren’t alone

AWS flips switch on Euro cloud as customers fret about digital sovereignty

UK government rolls back key part of digital ID plans

Lords back UK social media ban for under-16s

Under-16 social media ban would expand age-gating for millions and silence young people

UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

Mission:Libre

Carmen tells us about her project that aims to get kids into Free Software.

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Wikipedia is 25 years old and has found a good way to deal with the AI scraping problem, the Python Software Foundation funds the security work they had planned, curl’s bug bounty program is ending, Raspberry Pi has new underwhelming hardware, and European AWS hasn’t won Félim over. Plus a reminder about the upcoming OggCamp event, and a call for participation.

News

Wikipedia celebrates 25 years of knowledge at its best (and does deals with more AI companies)

Wikipedia volunteers spent years cataloging AI tells. Now there’s a plugin to avoid them

Anthropic invests $1.5 million in the Python Software Foundation and open source security

The end of the curl bug-bounty

Introducing the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2: Generative AI on Raspberry Pi 5

Raspberry Pi Flash Drive available now from $30: a high-quality essential accessory

AWS flips switch on Euro cloud as customers fret about digital sovereignty

OggCamp 2026

OggCamp crew lead Andy Piper tells us about the upcoming unconference.

Call for volunteer crew

Call for papers

Check out Andy’s podcast

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We cover your feedback including follow-up on old tablets as clocks, Firefox alternatives, and moving off Gmail. Plus building synths in Rust, FOSS isometric diagrams, a powerful network analysis tool for Android, and some cool ambient music in discoveries.

Discoveries

CAW

FossFlow

Félim’s bad diagram

Blade Runner Radio

LUX on Bandcamp

Network Survey

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Hype is really starting to build for Valve’s upcoming Steam hardware and other great gaming news, Stack Overflow is losing to LLMs, old men like Félim don’t want to lose middle click paste, our optimism about Google continuing to release Android source code was misplaced, and Bose demonstrates how to kill a product.

News

The Steam Machine’s Price Might Have Just Leaked And It’s Not What We Hoped For

Canonical Builds Steam Snap For Ubuntu ARM64 Leveraging FEX

Revised Steam Survey For December 2025 Puts Linux Gaming Marketshare At 3.58%

GeForce NOW coming to Linux

Stack Overflow graph

GNOME dev gives fans of Linux’s middle-click paste the middle finger

Google will now only release Android source code twice a year

Bose open-sources its SoundTouch home theater smart speakers ahead of end-of-life

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It’s that time of year where we look back at our 2025 predictions, and make some new ones for 2026.

Will mentioned The Enshittifinancial Crisis and an article about solar panels.

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