The Perl community has released a fix to the sprintf function that was recently discovered to have a buffer overflow in very specific cases. All Perl users should consider updating immediately. Dyad Security recently released a security advisory explaining how in certain cases, a carefully crafted format string passed to sprintf can cause a buffer overflow. This buffer overflow can then be used by an attacker to execute code on

If you have been wondering how you can help out, here is one way A quick introduction: If you don't know me, I am looking after many of the perl.org services with Robert Spier. When I started I helped look after the majordomo system it was running on then Soon after I moved the lists and the websites we hosted to a computer under my desk at "ValueClick":http://www.valueclick.com/ where I

The Perl community has updated the core module Sys::Syslog to help alleviate a security hole in the Webmin web administration package. All Webmin users should update immediately to the updated version of Sys::Syslog. Dyad Security released a security advisory explaining how arbitrary, untrusted data can get passed by Webmin into Perl's Sys::Syslog module as a sprintf format string. This allows an attack to create arbitrarily large strings, overwhelming server resources

Last week I attended the first annual Gartner Open Source Summit Gartner is a major IT market researcher and consultant, specifically for large businesses. The fact that this conference exists speaks volumes for the penetration of open source in all sorts of IT shops. OSS hung under the radar for quite a while because it doesn't show up in any of the traditional data that analysts use to measure market

If you've read through the first few posts here on the brand-new TPF blog The Perl Foundation is dedicated to the advancement of the Perl programming language through open discussion, collaboration, design, and code. Of course, much of my "help" has consisted of me asking others to do the real heavy lifting. Many of the items in Richard's earlier summary of activities are a result of me poking and prodding,

One of the things we're trying to improve over here is reporting. Not only do People Want To Know what it is that we're doing, but being a not-for-profit we have some regulatory needs to get our reporting act together. Over the past week I've been working on the reporting strategy for the Steering Committee. Progress has been made on this front. I've created a draft reporting template that seems

Below is the bid submitted by the Vancouver group. Location: Vancouver, Canada. Located on the west coast of Canada, Vancouver is a novel choice for YAPC. Vancouver is the largest city in the province of British Columbia and the third largest city in Canada. It's surrounded by water on three sides and is nestled alongside the Coast Mountain Range. Vancouver is home to spectacular natural scenery and a bustling metropolitan

Below is the bid submitted by the Chicago group. Chicago was selected to host YAPC::NA::2006. Overview Who we are Why Chicago? Dates and Location Facilities Facility Location Facility Layout and Capacity A/V and Internet arrangements Cost Summary Individual Costs: $245 Travel Conference Fees Per Person: $55 Conference: Possible! Accommodations Low-Cost Arrangements Hotels Transportation

Below is the bid submitted by the Boston group. NAME SYNOPSIS CRITERIA Estimated Costs Site 1: University of Massachusetts: Boston Campus Site 2: Simmons College Site 3: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Readily Accessible Location Public Transportation Facilities UMass Boston Simmons MIT Internet Access from Conference Location Internet Access from Accomodations New Location Affordable

The Perl Foundation was established in December 2001, but is a mystery to many people. Today we announce The Perl Foundation Blog at blog.perlfoundation.org Atom and RSS Perl Foundation News is the place to read updates on what members of the Foundation's working groups are working on and for other project-related announcements. Where before a working group member might post an update to his use.perl journal, or a meditation on

Most folks probably aren't aware of this, but Stichting NLnet is sponsoring quite a bit of Parrot's development. We report to them every two months about the state of Parrot so they can feel comfortable with how it's going. Unfortunately, I had too much on my plate to be the grant manager for Parrot and Dave Rolsky volunteered to step in and help out. He now communicates the Parrot development

As many folks know, the Perl Foundation Grant Committee is responsible for awarding and managing grants to improve the Perl language and benefit the Perl community. What many don't know is how this works. First, I'm Curtis "Ovid" Poe. You may have encountered me on Perlmonks or used some of my CPAN modules I currently sit on the Perl Foundation steering committee and I'm the grant secretary for the grant

I was previously posting TPF conferences-related information to my personal blog on use.perl.org. Now we have this excellent TPF blog for TPF info, so I'll be posting here. As I said in a previous post all of the bids this year were quite good. To give a little more transparency into the voting process, you can see the anonymous vote breakdowns below: Boston Chicago Vancouver 2840 2980 2690

Disclaimer This might be the first news.perlfoundation.org blog posting entered. It's not the "inaugural announcement", though. Andy Lester, the TPF SC PR guy, is crafting that now and a link to it will be posted to all the usual locations when it's ready. What this is all about This blog is hosted at The Perl Foundation. We hope to open up more communication with the Perl community by talking, mostly