Debian Weekly News - March 14th, 2006

Posted by tadelste on Mar 14, 2006 12:54 PM EDT
Mailing list; By Martin Schulze
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/11/ Debian Weekly News - March 14th, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 11th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Raphaël Hertzog [1]started to write down the design of a [2]collaborative maintenance infrastructure and created a mailing-list for further discussions.

1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg01826.html 2. http://wiki.debian.org/CollaborativeMaintenance

Debian QA Meeting in Extremadura. Martin Michlmayr [3]called for participation at the Debian Quality Assurance [4]meeting in December in Extremadura, Spain. It is intended to help coordinate the QA work in Debian and is limited to 20 people. The Region of Extremadura will kindly cover travel expenses for attendants from Europe.

3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00006.html 4. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianQAExtremadura2006

Debian Backup Server. Joey Schulze [5]announced a dedicated backup server for important Debian resources excluding the buildd systems. The backup of a resource consists of 10 to 100 versions. Since a history of changes is maintained on the backup machine Debian administration can roll back a resource to an older version and also extract differences between past versions on demand.

5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00005.html

Updates from the Debian Kernel Team. Bastian Blank [6]reported about the work of the Debian kernel team. The most visible change is the move from kernel-image- packages to linux-image- packages. There has also been excitement about a new x86 SMP patch, which would allow a reduction in the current number of flavours. They are also working on adding VServer, Xen and UML flavours to linux-2.6.

6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00007.html

Martin 'Joey' Schulze steps down as Stable Release Manager. After continuous discrepancies with the ftpmasters, Martin 'Joey' Schulze has now [7]resigned from his position as Stable Release Manager. He has held that position since 2001 and it will now be [8]taken over by Andreas Barth and Martin Zobel-Helas.

7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00008.html 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00009.html

Results of the General Resolution about the GFDL. Manoj Srivastava [9]announced that the Debian project has decided that works licensed under the [10]GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) without unmodifiable sections are free. 369 Debian developers took part in this [11]general resolution, 428 ballots have been received in total.

9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00012.html 10. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html 11. http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001

The Role of the Project Leader. Martin Michlmayr [12]reflected on the role of the [13]leader of the Debian project (DPL). He basically states that the DPL can't solve all problems and that an often called strong leader won't be followed either. Instead of asking the DPL what they'll do to solve the problems he suggested the developers to ask themselves what they could do to improve the situation.

12. http://www.cyrius.com/journal/debian/being-dpl 13. http://www.debian.org/devel/leader

Influencing Haskell Development. Isaac Jones [14]asked the Debian community to look at Haskell98 and some of the "research" [15]extensions and give upstream developers some input about what would make Haskell more attractive. He is trying to make [16]Haskell more suitable for practical applications and reported on efforts to develop CPAN-like and apt-get-like systems for it.

14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg01899.html 15. http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/users_guide/ghc-language-features.html 16. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime

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

* DSA 988: [17]squirrelmail -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 989: [18]zoph -- SQL injection. * DSA 990: [19]bluez-hcidump -- Denial of service. * DSA 991: [20]zoo -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 992: [21]ffmpeg -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 993: [22]gnupg -- Broken signature check. * DSA 994: [23]freeciv -- Denial of service. * DSA 995: [24]metamail -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 996: [25]libcrypt-cbc-perl -- Cryptographic weakness. * DSA 997: [26]bomberclone -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 998: [27]libextractor -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 999: [28]lurker -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 1000: [29]libapreq2-perl -- Denial of service. * DSA 1001: [30]crossfire -- Arbitrary code execution.

17. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-988 18. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-989 19. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-990 20. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-991 21. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-992 22. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-993 23. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-994 24. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-995 25. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-996 26. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-997 27. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-998 28. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-999 29. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-1000 30. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-1001

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive [31]recently or contain important updates.

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

* [32]dspam -- Scalable, fast and statistical anti-spam filter. * [33]exfalso -- Audio tag editor for GTK+. * [34]fullquottel -- Tool for recognising mails/postings in tofu/top-posting style. * [35]gnudoq -- Open Source, graphical Su Doku generator and solver with printer support. * [36]gtimelog -- Minimal timelogging system. * [37]network-manager -- Network management framework daemon. * [38]nwutil -- Netwinder hardware utilities. * [39]pyroman -- Firewall configuration tool for complex networks. * [40]selinux-basics -- SELinux basic support. * [41]ssft -- Shell Scripts Frontend Tool. * [42]stroq -- Polarium/Chokkan Hitofude clone.

32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/dspam 33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/exfalso 34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/fullquottel 35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/gnudoq 36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/gtimelog 37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/network-manager 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/nwutil 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/pyroman 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/selinux-basics 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ssft 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/stroq

Orphaned Packages. 4 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 234 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [43]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.

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

* [44]unifont -- X11 dual-width GNU Unicode font. ([45]Bug#356594) * [46]visualboyadvance -- Full featured Game Boy Advance emulator. ([47]Bug#355777) * [48]wmdonkeymon -- Shows the status of edonkey's downloads in progress. ([49]Bug#356667) * [50]wmmisc -- Dock app that monitors your system. ([51]Bug#356588)

44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/unifont 45. http://bugs.debian.org/356594 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/visualboyadvance 47. http://bugs.debian.org/355777 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/wmdonkeymon 49. http://bugs.debian.org/356667 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/wmmisc 51. http://bugs.debian.org/356588

Removed Packages. 27 packages have been [52]removed from the Debian archive during the past week:

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

* swt-motif -- Standard Widget Toolkit for Motif JAR library [53]Bug#316763: Request of maintainer, buggy and mostly unused * libkpathsea-perl -- Perl interface to Kpathsea library and mktex* replacements [54]Bug#336478: Request of maintainer, outdated; better solutions exist * cpbk -- Mirroring utility for backing up your files [55]Bug#341724: Request of maintainer, dead upstream, alternatives exist: unison * kbanking -- Development files for KDE bindings of AqBanking [56]Bug#351033: Request of maintainer, merged into libaqbanking * db2 -- Berkeley database routines [57]Bug#351179: Request of QA, RC-buggy, superseded by db4.3 * ddrmat -- Linux kernel driver for using Playstation dancing mats (source) [58]Bug#351481: Request of maintainer, obsoleted by linux-2.6, hardware unavailability * pymodplug -- ModPlug mod-like music shared libraries [Python bindings] [59]Bug#351483: Request of maintainer, dead upstream, mostly unused * pyflac -- Free Lossless Audio Codec [Python bindings] [60]Bug#351484: Request of maintainer, obsolete * mol-modules-2.6.12 -- Mac-on-Linux emulator - kernel modules [61]Bug#351899: Request of maintainer, out-of-date * tclxml -- Tcl library for XML parsing [62]Bug#352330: Request of QA, has never been part of a stable release, orphaned, RC bugs, functionality available elsewhere * libapache-mod-security -- Tighten web applications security for Apache 1.x [63]Bug#352344: Request of maintainer, undistributable for legal reasons * rhdb-explain -- Tool for visualising the output of the PostgreSQL EXPLAIN command [64]Bug#352422: Request of maintainer, obsolete, functionality superseded by pgadmin3 * pointless -- Presentation tool based on OpenGL [65]Bug#352558: Request of maintainer, dead upstream, few users * pcmcia-modules-2.4.27-i386 -- PCMCIA modules for Linux (kernel 2.4.27-2-386) [66]Bug#352843: Request of maintainer, obsolete, FTBFS * openmosixview -- Graphical tool to manage an openmosix cluster [67]Bug#353416: Request of maintainer, depends on removed openmosix * openh323gk -- Transitional package [68]Bug#353437: Request of maintainer, obsolete transitional package for gnugk * ean13 -- Create an EAN-13 or UPC barcode in .xbm format [69]Bug#353521: Request of QA, under-maintained, functionality superseded by barcode, kbarcode * hsftp -- SSH client with look and feel of an FTP client [70]Bug#353541: Request of maintainer, insecure, alternatives exist * saoimage -- Utility for displaying and processing astronomical images [71]Bug#354209: Request of maintainer, superseded by saods9 * matrox-tvout -- Configure a Matrox G550 for NTSC TV output [72]Bug#354616: Request of maintainer, dead upstream * imageviewer -- Image Viewer for GNUstep [73]Bug#354785: Request of maintainer, superseded by preview.app; FTBFS * gnustep-antlr -- Objective-C Classes Needed for ANTLR Compatibility [74]Bug#354788: Request of maintainer, orphaned, broken * gnustep-gd -- Objective-C Interface to the GD Graphics Library [75]Bug#354789: Request of maintainer, orphaned, broken * simpleui.bundle -- Theme bundle for GNUstep [76]Bug#354791: Request of maintainer, orphaned, broken, superseded by camaleon * ircd -- IRC Server daemon - dummy package [77]Bug#355270: Request of QA, obsolete dummy package, superseded by ircd-ircu * bluez-sdp -- Dummy package for BlueZ SDP library. [78]Bug#355322: Request of maintainer, obsolete dummy package * po-debiandoc -- Tools for helping translation of DebianDoc-SGML documents [79]Bug#356198: Request of maintainer, dead upstream, superseded by po4a

53. http://bugs.debian.org/316763 54. http://bugs.debian.org/336478 55. http://bugs.debian.org/341724 56. http://bugs.debian.org/351033 57. http://bugs.debian.org/351179 58. http://bugs.debian.org/351481 59. http://bugs.debian.org/351483 60. http://bugs.debian.org/351484 61. http://bugs.debian.org/351899 62. http://bugs.debian.org/352330 63. http://bugs.debian.org/352344 64. http://bugs.debian.org/352422 65. http://bugs.debian.org/352558 66. http://bugs.debian.org/352843 67. http://bugs.debian.org/353416 68. http://bugs.debian.org/353437 69. http://bugs.debian.org/353521 70. http://bugs.debian.org/353541 71. http://bugs.debian.org/354209 72. http://bugs.debian.org/354616 73. http://bugs.debian.org/354785 74. http://bugs.debian.org/354788 75. http://bugs.debian.org/354789 76. http://bugs.debian.org/354791 77. http://bugs.debian.org/355270 78. http://bugs.debian.org/355322 79. http://bugs.debian.org/356198

DWN needs Contributors. If you want to continue reading DWN, please help produce it. We need volunteer writers who watch the Debian community and report about what is going on, preferably with ready-to-add items. Please see the [80]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [81]dwn@debian.org.

80. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 81. mailto:dwn@debian.org



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