Debian Weekly News - May 3rd, 2005

Posted by dave on May 4, 2005 2:09 PM EDT
Mailing list; By Martin Schulze
Mail this story
Print this story

Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. As a hint of a working testing queue, the first package has been uploaded directly into testing. Many people are pleased that the It has been appreciated a lot that the NEW queue is processed again. However, Anand Kumria suggested packages should be referred to the technical committee when a decision had not been made within two months.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/18/
Debian Weekly News - May 3rd, 2005
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. As a hint of a working testing queue, the first package has been [1]uploaded directly into testing. Many people are pleased that the It has been appreciated a lot that the [2]NEW queue is processed again. However, Anand Kumria [3]suggested packages should be referred to the [4]technical committee when a decision had not been made within two months.

1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-testing-changes/2005/05/msg00000.html 2. http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/04/msg00380.html 4. http://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte

Leadership Team Meeting. Andreas Schuldei sent in the [5]minutes of the leadership team meeting last week in which he was appointed as secretary. Topics discussed during the meeting were a contact address, funding, for attendance at [6]aKademy 2005 in particular and a new name. Additionally they resolved to invite Benjamin Hill to join the team.

5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/04/msg00401.html 6. http://dot.kde.org/1111445162/

Dealing with PHP Application Design Flaws. Martin Schulze [7]asked about PHP applications that have non-silent include files placed in the web directory. Such files are accessible via HTTP and can be used for cross-site scripting [8]attacks or [9]disclose information unintendedly. Henrique Holschuh [10]added that configuration files should reside in /etc and not be accessible from the outside.

7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-security/2005/04/msg00103.html 8. http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2005-0870 9. http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2005-0459 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-security/2005/04/msg00106.html

Sarge Release Update. Andreas Barth sent in another [11]status report on the sarge release. The infrastructure for testing-security is more or less in place and two new ARM buildds have been added. He explicitly noted that all packages in sarge need to build from source. He also asked for no uploads with major changes to unstable which could cause problems in sarge.

11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/04/msg00023.html

Debian Administration Website. Steve Kemp posted an [12]update on his Debian administration [13]website. The site is now getting about 2,500 article views per day. Some of the tips and tricks about maintaining Debian computers that originally appeared in English have also been translated into [14]Polish and [15]Turkish. The site is also available to be [16]syndicated for RDF users.

12. http://www.debian-administration.org/?article=131 13. http://www.debian-administration.org/ 14. http://www.debianusers.pl/ 15. http://www.debian-tr.org/ 16. http://www.debian-administration.org/?about=Syndication

Debian Conference Update. Andreas Schuldei [17]announced the final list of talks for the upcoming conference and reported that Debian has received more then EUR 100,000 as donations. As a novelty this year the Debian team will present Debian to the natives one day before the conference. He encouraged the attendees to use the meeting for working together with other developers face to face.

17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/04/msg00022.html

Policy for Scheme Implementations. Jorgen Schäfer [18]reported that the [19]Scheme Requests for Implementation process is trying to [20]standardise interpreter names for Scheme scripts. Since this introduces a name conflict if two implementations of Scheme both want to support this scheme he proposed a [21]Scheme policy for Debian that asks for the interpreter name to be managed by update-alternatives.

18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/04/msg01000.html 19. http://srfi.schemers.org/ 20. http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-22/srfi-22.html 21. http://people.debian.org/~forcer/debian-scheme-policy/debian-scheme-policy.html/

State of Debian. Linux Weekly News [22]reported on Bdale Garbee's talk at this year's Debian [23]mini-conference at Linux Conference Australia. He talked about how leadership works in Debian and introduced the project leadership team (SCUD). He also floated a proposal to replace the [24]DPL with an elected board. This would require an amendment to the Debian [25]constitution, though. The idea is still in the early stages, and will be further discussed in July at this year's [26]Debian Conference in Helsinki, Finland.

22. http://lwn.net/Articles/132521/ 23. http://www.debian.org/events/2005/0418-linuxconf 24. http://www.debian.org/devel/leader 25. http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution 26. http://www.debconf.org/debconf5/

Bug Squashing Long Weekend. Frank Lichtenheld [27]announced the bug squashing weekend from May 5th to May, 8th. It will start on Thursday since in many countries this day is a holiday. After all freeze blockers seem to be gone finally, it's time to work on the remaining release blockers. He asked developers to work on important and security bugs as well, in addition to release-critical bugs.

27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/05/msg00000.html

Release Team Meeting. Andreas Barth posted [28]minutes of release team meeting in which the sarge release was discussed. They came to the conclusion that the freeze can get into effect as of now. When the archive is frozen, the release team will accept corrections for important and above bugs, l10n and documentation updates via unstable. Via testing-proposed-updates, only release-critical bug fixes, l10n and documentation updates are accepted.

28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/05/msg00008.html

Web Applications in Debian. After a [29]discussion on PHP applications and due to the large number of web application packages Neil McGovern [30]asked for a mailing list to handle such topics. Alexis Sukrieh would also [31]like to extend the [32]Debian Policy Manual with regards to web applications. Pascal Hakim finally [33]created the [34]list.

29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-security/2005/04/msg00103.html 30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/04/msg01144.html 31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/04/msg01147.html 32. http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ 33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/05/msg00075.html 34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-webapps/

Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed.

* DSA 715: [35]cvs -- Unauthorised repository access. * DSA 716: [36]gaim -- Denial of service. * DSA 717: [37]lsh-utils -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 718: [38]ethereal -- Buffer overflow. * DSA 719: [39]prozilla -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 720: [40]smartlist -- Unauthorised un/subscription.

35. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-715 36. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-716 37. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-717 38. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-718 39. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-719 40. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-720

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive [41]recently or contain important updates.

41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main

* [42]apt-rpm-repository -- Tools to create an APT RPM repository. * [43]glob2 -- State-of-the-art Real Time Strategy (RTS) game. * [44]imapsync -- IMAP synchronisation, copy and migration tool. * [45]poc-streamer -- MP3/Ogg multicast/HTTP streamer and MP3 cutting tool. * [46]pystatgrab -- Interface to the libstatgrab library for Python. * [47]rageircd -- Versatile and flexible IRC Server daemon. * [48]rbscrobbler -- Send Rhythmbox track information to audioscrobbler. * [49]spfquery -- Sender Policy Framework library, written in C. * [50]svnmailer -- Extensible subversion commit notification tool. * [51]tqsllib1 -- QSL signing routines for the Logbook of the World (LoTW). * [52]trashapplet -- Trash applet for GNOME. * [53]tuxmath -- Math game for kids with Tux. * [54]wyrd -- Text-based scheduler application.

42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/apt-rpm-repository 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/glob2 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/imapsync 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/poc-streamer 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/pystatgrab 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/rageircd 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/rbscrobbler 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/spfquery 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/svnmailer 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/tqsllib1 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/trashapplet 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/tuxmath 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/wyrd

Orphaned Packages. 5 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 225 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [55]WNPP pages for the full list, and please add a note to the bug report and retitle it to ITA: if you plan to take over a package.

55. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

* [56]laptop-netconf -- Network detection and configuration program for laptops. ([57]Bug#307071) * [58]libmkdoc-xml-perl -- MKDoc XML Toolkit. ([59]Bug#307072) * [60]libpetal-perl -- Perl Template Attribute Language - TAL for Perl. ([61]Bug#307073) * [62]ltsp-utils -- Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) administration utilities. ([63]Bug#306902) * [64]phpdoc -- Documentation for PHP4 and PHP3. ([65]Bug#306670)

56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/laptop-netconf 57. http://bugs.debian.org/307071 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libmkdoc-xml-perl 59. http://bugs.debian.org/307072 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libpetal-perl 61. http://bugs.debian.org/307073 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ltsp-utils 63. http://bugs.debian.org/306902 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/phpdoc 65. http://bugs.debian.org/306670

Removed Packages. 5 packages have been [66]removed from the Debian archive during the past few weeks:

66. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt

* xdelta2 -- version-control utility which works with binary files [67]Bug#304051: Request of Maintainer, Buggy, unmaintained upstream * cyrus-sasl -- Cyrus SASL API implementation (RFC 2222) [68]Bug#305119: Request of Maintainer, Outdated, deprecated * catalog -- Tool to create, maintain and display Yahoo! like directories [69]Bug#187128: Request of Maintainer, QA, orphaned for two years, hardly used * phluid -- Imlib2 based Window Manager for X [70]Bug#297440: Request of Maintainer, Unused, dead upstream, contains non-free fonts * orp-classpath -- Free java class libraries (specific to ORP JVM) [71]Bug#306291: Request of QA, uninstalleable, dead upstream

67. http://bugs.debian.org/304051 68. http://bugs.debian.org/305119 69. http://bugs.debian.org/187128 70. http://bugs.debian.org/297440 71. http://bugs.debian.org/306291

Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the [72]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [73]dwn@debian.org.

72. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 73. mailto:dwn@debian.org

-- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [e-mail:debian-news-REQUEST@lists.debian.org] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [e-mail:listmaster@lists.debian.org]

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: Newsletter; Groups: Debian

« Return to the newswire homepage

This topic does not have any threads posted yet!

You cannot post until you login.