Mozilla's Firefox 59 Released, New Agones Project, SparkyLinux 5.3 Available, Hunt for Exoplanets and More

News briefs for March 13, 2018.

Mozilla's Firefox 59 is available for download. See the wiki for more information on its new features, including the "option to stop websites from asking to send notifications or access your device's camera, microphone, and location".

Google and Ubisoft announced today a new project called Agones, an "open-source alternative for managing and hosting multiplayer game servers". According to the TechCrunch report, the project uses the "Google-incubated Kubernetes container project as it core tool for orchestrating and scaling a fleet of multiplayer game servers."

In more Google news, the company recently announced it is open-sourcing its planet-hunting algorithm, so that "anyone can download the code and help hunt for exoplanets in Kepler data", as Motherboard reports.

SparkyLinux 5.3 "Nibiru" released new live/install ISO images over the weekend. SparkyLinux 5.3 is based on the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster", and it provides a "fully featured operating system with lightweight desktops: LXQt, MATE and Xfce". SparkyLinux 5.3 also adds a "new tool for cleaning your system from old files and configs: bleachbit", among other things.

Reminder: applications for Google Summer of Code 2018 are being accepted now through March 27, 2018 at 16:00 UTC. For more information, the official rules and to apply, go here. Since its beginning 13 years ago, the program has "brought together 13,000+ student participants and 12,000 mentors from over 125 countries worldwide. Google Summer of Code has produced 33,000,000+ lines of code for 608 open source organizations."

Jill Franklin is an editorial professional with more than 17 years experience in technical and scientific publishing, both print and digital. As Executive Editor of Linux Journal, she wrangles writers, develops content, manages projects, meets deadlines and makes sentences sparkle. She also was Managing Editor for TUX and Embedded Linux Journal, and the book Linux in the Workplace. Before entering the Linux and open-source realm, she was Managing Editor of several scientific and scholarly journals, including Veterinary Pathology, The Journal of Mammalogy, Toxicologic Pathology and The Journal of Scientific Exploration. In a previous life, she taught English literature and composition, managed a bookstore and tended bar. When she’s not bugging writers about deadlines or editing copy, she throws pots, gardens and reads.

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