Welcome to the LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 20, 2018 [LWN.net]

This edition contains the following feature content:

A 2018 retrospective: our look back at the year that was.
Python gets a new governance model: the long discussion has come to an end, and the Python project has picked a committee model going forward.
Handling the Kubernetes symbolic link vulnerability: how a serious security vulnerability was diagnosed and fixed.
Relief for retpoline pain: attempts to claw back some of the performance lost to Spectre mitigation.
Linux in mixed-criticality systems: another attempt to make Linux available on systems handling safety-critical tasks.

This week's edition also includes these inner pages:

Brief items: Brief news items from throughout the community.
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

Note that this is the final LWN.net Weekly Edition for 2018; we will be taking next week off for some much-needed rest. Happy holidays to all of our readers!

Please enjoy this week's edition, and, as always, thank you for supporting LWN.net.