#FOSSY2026 Picolibc - a C library for embedded systems - Keith Packard
https://2026.fossy.ca/schedule/presentation/384/

Building an embedded C library. Why? AltOS 8051 moved to ARM. Newlib too large. Some AltOS targets have only 4kB RAM. Malloc is unacceptable in safety-critical systems. Partially derived from AVR stdio (made POSIX 2018/C23), newlib math. Small as practical, bounded recursion, don't rely on a file system. -Werror or bust. Enable -fanalyzer (storage leaks, unbalanced locking). Own ubsan implementation (just trap). Use symbol attributes (nonnull, format, etc.) So many tests. Every change needs a test. More test code than source code. Linux syscall layer for x86 and arm.

#FOSSY2026 KCFI Comes to GCC: Code-Reuse Defenses for the Linux Kernel - Kees Cook
https://2026.fossy.ca/schedule/presentation/390/

Stop any redirection of code (reusing existing code) with indirect function calls. Forward edge. What are the expected targets for indirect function calls. Must have same prototype. Put hash of prototype before function. Crash course on GCC internals. Front end adds -fsanitize=kcfi. itanium c++ mangling, hashed. RTL wrapper for new type of 'CALL". inline handling. 4 backend arches, i386 (x86_64), aarch64, arm, riscv. Half code is regression testing. Fun bug for cross call merging. Create "KCFI check and call" RTL instruction. Hard to get review across the entire series. But looks like all parts have gotten reviews now. Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger.

WATCH: If you’re interested in turning streets for cars into places for people, aka “pedestrian streets” (a VERY limiting term), watch (and share) my new podcast interview with the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement area, which I’ve been advising lately.

Discusses Vancouver’s pedestrianized Granville Street that I’ve been helping with, but relevant to ANY city. And once you’ve watched it, come out and visit Granville Street! https://youtu.be/5Yi1wW3e8N8?si=Bup3GGhbEB76G5s0

LLVM Bay Area Monthly Meetup (Mon Aug 10 ‘26 6pm)

https://discourse.llvm.org/t/llvm-bay-area-monthly-meetup-mon-aug-10-26-6pm/91486

So Fediverse, last week I was laid off by my employer, Elastic, as part of a wider reorg that made my position redundant. 7% of the global workforce was impacted, so I'm not alone in this 😢

I would appreciate boosts as I'm now looking for my next job. Preferably in community open source, but with the crazy market, a mortage and a baby I appreciate any lead.
I'm a backend engineer with strong #cloudinfrastructure , #devops and #observability skills. I spent the last 5 years working with Golang, but have previous experience with Ruby, Python, PHP and JavaScript (that shows how old I am I guess).
I'm searching remotely from Italy.

Thank you!

#FediHire #fedihire_europe #fedihire_it

We're going to be hiring someone to work on CHERIoT software things soon. Full remote, but UK Only (for various funding purposes, we need more people in the UK). Happy to talk to junior people who have some C/C++/Rust experience. You'll initially be mostly writing C++, though we expect this to move to more Rust over the next year or so.

Some of the job will be driver development gruntwork (here is a datasheet, here is a software interface for this device class, please write a driver for the device that exposes the interface), some will be at a higher level of the stack (so, how do you design a secure, compartmentalised {something} stack?).

If these sound interesting, let me know!

EDIT: The hiring manager is going to be out for the next couple of weeks, so I'll probably be a bit slow to set up interviews / respond. If you see this in a week or two, don't assume you're too late!

#GetFediHired #CHERIoT

"Cars can be weapons, and the ubiquity of guns and cars in our society means a single crazy person is always going to be able to do huge amounts of damage if they want to. The only way to stop that is to limit them, which nobody in power seems to want to do."

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/08/02/summer-bummer-annual-car-free-street-event-squeezed-in-nypd-overkill

"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."

https://www.404media.co/google-earths-new-ai-lets-anyone-fabricate-completely-bullshit-satellite-images/

Waaaaa! Linux Plumbers Conference 2026 registrations are open! /me types madly. Done, registered, see you in Prague in October :-)

Linux Plumbers Conference 2026 registration open

https://lwn.net/Articles/1084938/ #LWN #Linux #LPC

A friend’s dad was hit by a driver while riding in the bike lane. He’s a local musical legend who rode his 1973 Schwinn around Santa Monica daily. He’s recovering from brain surgery and multiple fractures. Please share if you can. I wish this kind of thing were already designed out of our streets. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-stan-heal

Local stratum 1 GPS NTP time server, yay!

Now to see how it copes with sun and rain. The bag is an extra precaution. Tracking 36 satellites and using 19, over three networks.

Current PPS tracking with σ=16ns

Current jitter measured at FireBrick (NTP client) of 0.08ms, and latency of 0.7ms. Selected over any pool (via Internet) servers, understandably.

PoE

#PCB #ESP32 #GPS #NTP

Good morning friends. What are your favorite blogs? Not newsletters, not news sources: personal blogs. I'm looking for replace some of my reading material and I am looking for bona fide humans words to put into my eyes. Boosts welcome. Thanks!

The kids are alright. From an email I received today:

I am writing to express my huge appreciation for your incredible work and dedication to maintaining curl—one of the most essential building blocks of the modern internet.

I am a 16-year-old IT student from Poland. Inside my home server laboratory, your tool is a vital part of my daily life. Whether I am writing backend web tools, integrating APIs, or creating system automation scripts, curl is always the absolute backbone of my setups.

https://inbox.sourceware.org/gcc/CAHt=NyPsTpkp+cZ=MyYAjprMHzo_RkbSPAkZnaB1Bp-2rytbPw@mail.gmail.com/

GNU Tools Weekly News Week 43 (June 21, 2026)

Release updates for GNU toolchain:
* GCC 14 branch is frozen
* https://inbox.sourceware.org/gcc/7qp3n3rq-3935-0qnn-s4s9-425230sso679@fhfr.qr/
* GCC 14.4.0 RC1 is done
* https://inbox.sourceware.org/gcc/864p303q-o5n8-s3q4-9901-24o31420p21s@fhfr.qr/

GNU toolchain conference reminders:
* FOSSY 2026 toolchain track North America, Aug 6-9 (Vancouver, Canada)
* GNU Tools Cauldron 2026, Fri-Sun, October 2-4 (Prague, Czechia)
* https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2026
* https://conf.gnu-tools-cauldron.org/prg26/cfp
* Toolchains Track at LPC 2026, October 7th (Prague, Czechia)
* https://inbox.sourceware.org/gcc/CAKwvOdkaE7nHQbMRKBHmY6jE326bx=czi8yeL2qypsOj3Pq+Og@mail.gmail.com/
* https://lpc.events/event/20/abstracts/

General/big GNU toolchain news (including sourceware news):
* Acceptance of GCC WebAssembly Backend
* https://inbox.sourceware.org/gcc/CAGWvny=AE17wQU5mfz8UGWybVBSsb_ffqHcthS78g8zdzK6xSw@mail.gmail.com/
* Joel Brobecker is stepping down as a gdb release manager
* https://inbox.sourceware.org/gdb-patches/536dc95f-540f-4a1a-9ccc-73b34eb50819@simark.ca/T/

GCC easy issue to tackle of the week:
* strlen(s) != 0 not folded into *s (when separate statements)
* https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=92408
* Reach out to Andrea Pinski <andrew.pinski@oss.qualcomm.com> for
mentoring on this issue.
* Previous ones are listed on https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/EasyIssuesOfTheWeek

GCC commits:
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1560 ... r17-1732 173 commits
* Ada updates (Thanks Marc)
* Bug fixes.
* Diagnostics improvements.
* Constructor Flare extension adjustments.
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1633-g881cb10e96d875 ...
https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1653-g52f6d044261933
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1688-g343265c50f930c ...
https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1701-g3b0af59dc9e67f
* match.pd: Recognize integer spaceship operator patterns
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1582-g7659926b80deaf
* c++, libcpp: Add -std=c++2[9d] and -std=gnu++2[9d] options
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1595-g0c5c6249a2e9a7
* prange was improved and used
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1601-g8b45cd81fc3509 ...
https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1604-gca582ee36820a3
* Add vec_deconstruct costing kind
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1655-g7d351b07e5b85c
* match: mask/sub sign-extension idiom to sign extension
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1680-gc05164c348242b
* match: Optimize bit_ior/bit_and {bit_not} rshift to min/max
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1683-g43356828d897ad
* PHIOPT (ifcvt): load commonization/factoring
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1703-g3c0fd2976ab4f4 ...
https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1705-gcf64e6b0e07355
* Match: Support unsigned scalar SAT_MUL form 13
* https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1730-g971f8d5b5fd5ce ...
https://gcc.gnu.org/r17-1732-ga05799c29c50d7

GCC bugzilla stats
* 128 new issues filed
* 91 issues closed

glibc commits:
* riscv: Add RVV memmove for both multiarch and non-multiarch builds
* https://sourceware.org/cgit/glibc/commit/?id=60f7247847ba7244541fc783079c298416756399

I did Compiler Explorer's monthly accounts, and for the first time in ages we only broke even. Usually we run at a small surplus (which I save) & we have a year contingency saved up.

If you want to support us:

* Buy stuff: https://shop.compiler-explorer.com/
* Patron/GH: "Other" menu on CE

Would appreciate a repost - thanks so much! :)

Kernel Recipes 2026 registration will open on June 19. We will start publishing the conference schedule in coming days.

Stay tuned! #kr2026