Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 11, 2026

• PR Newswire ☛ DataStrike Expands Linux Managed Services Practice as Demand for Secure Open-Source Infrastructure Accelerates

  DataStrike, a leader in data infrastructure managed services, today announced the expansion of its Linux managed services practice following increased customer demand for secure, scalable open-source infrastructure support. As part of the expansion, the company hired Jon Cain as Senior Linux infrastructure Engineer to lead the Linux practice. DataStrike supports enterprise clients managing increasingly complex Linux environments across database, application and AI workloads.

• LWN ☛ Trying to make sense of package-manager metadata

  Package managers for operating systems and programming languages have been around for decades. Each package manager, and its accompanying packaging format, has been shaped by the needs of its respective ecosystem, but there is a growing need to make use of package metadata for more than software management: for example, in vulnerability scans, software bills of materials (SBOMs), and more. On May 19, Damián Vicino spoke at the Open Source Summit North America 2026 about his experiences in the past year trying to make sense of the varied metadata provided by more than 20 package managers.

• LWN ☛ A trademark dispute over MeshCore [LWN.net]

  MeshCore is a relatively new project, started in January 2025, that aims to build a scalable mesh network using low-power long-distance radios. While many other projects of the same general nature have been tried before, MeshCore grew quickly because of its more efficient message routing and enthusiastic community. In early 2026, an early proponent of the project made a sudden shift that left the rest of the community stunned and embroiled in a trademark dispute.

  MeshCore is a MIT-licensed portable C++ library that has been adapted to a range of long-range radio (LoRa) devices. The project also provides a web-based flasher to load pre-made firmware onto supported devices, Home Assistant integration, and bindings for other languages. Unlike Meshtastic (another LoRa mesh-networking project that LWN covered in 2025), it uses an actual distributed routing protocol, rather than relying on a gossip protocol. Unlike Reticulum, it aims to be simple and usable on low-power embedded devices. There are more than 40,000 users all across the world identified by the MeshCore node map, many of whom use the project for reliable radio communication while hiking, to collect data from remote sensors, or simply because they're interested in radio mesh networks.

• SaaS/Back End/Databases

  • PostgreSQL ☛ Pgpool-II 4.7.2, 4.6.7, 4.5.12, 4.4.17 and 4.3.20 released.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Tiger Data launches PostgreSQL extension designed for Hey Hi (AI) agents

    Tiger Data today introduced a managed PostgreSQL database service designed specifically for Hey Hi (AI) agents, saying conventional database architectures are poorly suited to a future in which software is increasingly built and operated by autonomous agents.

• FSF / Software Freedom / Digital Sovereignty

  • FSF ☛ FSF Events: Free Software Directory meeting on IRC: Friday, June 12, starting at 12:00 EDT (16:00 UTC)

    Join the FSF and friends on Friday, June 12 from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

• Licensing / Legal

  • Sergio Visinoni ☛ How to Run a Technical Due Diligence: The Fine Prints

    There are a couple of legally binding agreements where your involvement as the one in charge of the technical aspects of the acquisition is fundamental. One will require an involvement from your side that makes you effectively a co-owner, while the second one will mainly require your input to be watertight and comprehensive.

    These two documents are, respectively, the Transition Service Agreement (TSA) and the Share Purchase Agreement (SPA).

    Let’s have a look at both, starting from the one that will require a significant contribution from your end, the TSA.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Inside Towers ☛ Public Safety Communications ‘Under Assault’

    A recent housing bill passed in Indiana contains a provision that says emergency communications cannot be mandated in new commercial buildings. That law goes into effect this month.

    The Safer Buildings Coalition is concerned this kind of provision could spread to other states. Safer Buildings Coalition Executive Director Chief Alan Perdue (Ret.) cited similar laws that have been introduced in Florida and North Carolina to Inside Towers. “We’re trying to make people aware that First Responders need communications,” said Perdue.

  • Buttondown LLC ☛ Nontrailing separators do not spark joy

    The difference is the last comma. The JSON grammar specifies that a comma can separate two members of an object but not postcede ("trail") a member. I think this was a design mistake. Say we want to add two new keys to the struct, one before the "a" member and one after the "c" member. Here's what it would look like if trailing commas were permitted: [...]