News briefs for April 4, 2018.

Richard Stallman writes "A radical proposal to keep personal data safe"[1] in The Guardian: "The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place."

WordPress 4.9.5 was released[2] yesterday. This is a security and maintenance release, and it fixes 28 bugs, so be sure to update right away. To download or view the changelog, go here[3].

Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais writes about the company's commitment to Linux[4] after de-listing Steam Machines (it's still available, just not from the main navigation bar on the site due to low traffic): "While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves, our reasons for striving towards a competitive and open gaming platform haven't significantly changed. We're still working hard on making Linux operating systems a great place forgaming and applications." He then went on to say "we're continuing to invest significant resources in supporting the Vulkan ecosystem, tooling and driver efforts. We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large." (Source: Phoronix's "Valve Reaffirms Commitment To Linux, SteamOS"[5]).

Amazon announced[6] the new Gadgets Skill API (beta), which will allow developers to build games for Echo Buttons.

The Fedora Project announced[7] the release of Fedora 28 Beta. Features include Modular Repository for Fedora Server, 64-bit Arm is now a primary architecture for Fedora Server, the inclusion of GNOME 3.28, VirtualBox Guest Additions and more.

Read more from our friends at Linux Journal