Several large projects are in the middle of big updates, and we discuss reports about each of their progress.

KDE and VLC got some big updates, MATE got a nice new feature, and Ubuntu's pondering opt-out telemetry.

The GNOME think tank is at it again, the Librem 5 is progressing nicely, Wine 3.0 is out, and Nextcloud launches a new Google Hangouts alternative.

A performance feature is exploited as a security flaw, a VPN company's been making the rounds with open-source sponsorship, and text editors and desktop icons go out of style.

Ubuntu 17.10's download link was taken down mid-week, a popular Linux publication goes out of business, and we discuss the inclusion of ad blockers built in to major web browsers.

Intel hides a proprietary derivative of MINIX inside all of its processors, Sway announces it's dropping support for NVIDIA graphics cards, and LibreOffice gets hit with trolls in the middle of its botched community mascot contest.

Fedora's having trouble deciding between freedom and popularity, LibreOffice is getting a new mascot, and Purism's on the verge of reaching their crowdfunding goal for the Librem 5.

Another popular GNOME extension is canned, Nextcloud gets client-side encryption, and Ubuntu 17.10 gets some last-minute UI enhancements.

GNOME wants a piece of the smartphone action, PS4 controllers work great on Fedora, and PipeWire's going to solve all of our A/V problems.

Purism's partnering with KDE for their new phone, GNOME 3.26 is released, and a cross-platform Bluetooth bug causes a security issue for some Linux systems.