News briefs for July 29, 2019.

Linux kernel 5.3-rc2 is out. Linus Torvalds writes, "There are fixes all over, I don't think there's much of a pattern here. The three areas that do stand out are Documentation (more rst conversions), arch updates (mainly because of the netx arm platform removal) and misc driver fixes (gpu, iommu, net, nvdimm, sound ..). But there's a smattering of fixes all over (core kernel, netfilter, filesystems, you name it). I don't think anything stands out as particularly damning."

Latte Dock v0.9 stable is now officially available after a full year of development. This version includes many improvements and enhancements, such as new colors painting, new indicators, multiple layouts, flexible settings and more. You can get Latte Dock from download.kde.org or from store.kde.org.

GitHub confirms that it has blocked developers from certain countries in compliance with US export law. TechCrunch reports that "GitHub, the world's largest host of source code, is preventing users in Iran, Syria, Crimea and potentially other sanctioned nations from accessing portions of the service, chief executive of the Microsoft-owned firm said." The article also quotes a tweet from Nat Friedman over the weekend: "It is painful for me to hear how trade restrictions have hurt people. We have gone to great lengths to do no more than what is required by the law, but of course people are still affected. GitHub is subject to US trade law, just like any company that does business in the US."

The Khronos Group today announced "the ratification and public release of the OpenXR 1.0 specification together with publicly available implementations and substantial ecosystem momentum. OpenXR is a unifying, royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance, cross-platform access to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)—collectively known as XR—platforms and devices." You can get the specification at Khronos.org or via GitHub.

Netflix has joined the Academy Software Foundation. According to the press release, Netflix has joined the ASWF—"a neutral forum for open source software development in the motion picture and media industries"—as a member. In addition, OpenTimelineIO has been accepted as a hosted project, and it's one of the first projects Netflix will contribute to. From the press release: "OpenTimelineIO (OTIO) is an Open Source API and interchange format that facilitates collaboration and communication of editorial data and timeline information between a studio's Story, Editorial, and Production departments all the way through Post-Production."