Debian Weekly News - September 5th, 2006

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/36/
Debian Weekly News - September 5th, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 36th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Alexander Sack [1]called for people to test
upcoming security updates to the Mozilla packages for sarge. Ben
Hutchings has managed to [2]upload the final files for DebConf
session videos. Three documentary videos filmed by Biella Coleman fill
follow later.

 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00286.html
 2. http://womble2.livejournal.com/57100.html

Etch Release Advertisement. Gustavo Franco [3]suggested to ask for
donations specific for a release advertisement. Joey Schulze
[4]raised some questions to find get a clearer picture. The goal is
to publish advertisements in large newspapers and magazines to get a
press coverage like the past Firefox [5]campaign.

 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/2006/07/msg00049.html
 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/2006/08/msg00092.html
 5. http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/4611

New Tcl/Tk Team. Chris Waters [6]announced the foundation of the
Tcl/Tk team to co-maintain Tcl/Tk and some of it's add-ons. To
accomplish this he has created a [7]project on [8]Alioth and set up
a [9]mailing list for discussing Debian's Tcl/Tk infrastructure and
policy.

 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/08/msg00016.html
 7. http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-tcltk/
 8. http://alioth.debian.org/
 9. http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-tcltk-devel

Automatic Building of Packages. Matej Cepl [10]suggested to delete all
developer-supplied binary packages and recompile the source packages
by a [11]build daemon so that potentially build errors caused by a
broken environment are avoided. Sven Luther [12]explained that this
feature has been disabled because packages had been uploaded that
hadn't even been compiled on the developer's machine.

 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/08/msg00301.html
 11. http://www.debian.org/devel/buildd/
 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/08/msg00305.html

Swiss Bug Squashing Party. Martin Krafft [13]announced a one-day bug
squashing [14]party in Zürich, Switzerland on Saturday, September 9th,
sponsored by /ch/open, Google, and the Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory of the University of Zürich. The second bug squashing party
will take place on October 6th to 8th at the same location.

 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/09/msg00001.html
 14. http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/ch/Marathon

Permission for Quotes. Sebastian Wangnick [15]wondered if citing small
portions of text or code is allowed without asking for permission and
with ignoring a potential license and presumed that quoting as an
illustration or explanation is allowed by German [16]copyright but
using foreign code as a mandatory element in the software would not be
OK. Michael Poole [17]added that including a section of code
containing creative expression for functional purposes rather than
teaching, commentary, or similar purposes is not fair practice.

 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00001.html
 16. http://www.sakowski.de/skripte/urheber2.html
 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00003.html

Package Archive Improvements. Anthony Towns [18]explained that future
improvements of the archive software will permit packages to be
installed directly into the archive. This removes the accepted queue
and allows more than one daily archive reorganisation and mirror push.
However, this will also remove then chance to delete a package from
the queue before it gets installed which was [19]necessary four times
during past years.

 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00413.html
 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00425.html

Bug Squashing Marathon. Martin Zobel-Helas sent a [20]reminder about
the bug squashing [21]party in Vienna, Austria at September 8th to
10th and explained the process. The RC bug squashing [22]howto by
Steve Langasek gives a good introduction and is probably a must-read
for beginners. He also added a lot of tasks everybody could do to help
Debian move forward with the release of [23]etch.

 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/09/msg00003.html
 21. http://wiki.debian.org/BSPMarathon
 22. http://people.debian.org/~vorlon/rc-bugsquashing.html
 23. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/

New CD Writing Tools. Jörg Jaspert [24]called for testers of the new
cdrkit package and the new [25]wodim program. They will be shipped
with [26]etch and replace the old cdrtools collection. This [27]fork
is the result several nearly endless discussions about incompatible
licenses used upstream which not only Debian suffered from. Other
vendors are invited to participate in this [28]effort as well.

 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/09/msg00002.html
 25. http://packages.debian.org/wodim
 26. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
 27. http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debburn
 28. http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debburn

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

 * DSA 1162: [29]libmusicbrainz -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 1163: [30]gtetrinet -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 1164: [31]sendmail -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 1165: [32]capi4hylafax -- Arbitrary command execution.
 * DSA 1166: [33]cheesetracker -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 1167: [34]apache -- Several vulnerabilities.
 * DSA 1168: [35]imagemagick -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 1169: [36]mysql-dfsg-4.1 -- Several vulnerabilities.

 29. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1162
 30. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1163
 31. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1164
 32. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1165
 33. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1166
 34. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1167
 35. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1168
 36. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-1169

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [37]recently or contain important updates.

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

 * [38]apt-mirror -- APT sources mirroring tool.
 * [39]ccontrol -- Compilation controller.
 * [40]cutecom -- Graphical serial terminal.
 * [41]ddccontrol -- Program to control monitor parameters.
 * [42]ffe -- Tool for parsing flat and CSV files and converting them
   to different formats.
 * [43]fmit -- Free Music Instrument Tuner.
 * [44]gaffitter -- File subsets extractor based on genetic
   algorithms.
 * [45]gmail-notify -- GMail Notifier.
 * [46]gnoemoe -- GNOME MOO Client.
 * [47]gnome-main-menu -- GNOME start menu applet.
 * [48]indi -- Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface for
   astronomical devices.
 * [49]poa -- Partial Order Alignment for multiple sequence
   alignment.
 * [50]qemuctl -- Controlling GUI for qemu.
 * [51]quicksynergy -- GUI for easily configuring Synergy.
 * [52]ripit -- Textbased audio CD ripper.
 * [53]softgun -- ARM system emulator.
 * [54]xmmsctrl -- Small utility to control XMMS from the command
   line.

 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/apt-mirror
 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/ccontrol
 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/cutecom
 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/ddccontrol
 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/ffe
 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/fmit
 44. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/gaffitter
 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/gmail-notify
 46. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnoemoe
 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome-main-menu
 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/indi
 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/poa
 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/qemuctl
 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/quicksynergy
 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/ripit
 53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/softgun
 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/xmmsctrl

Orphaned Packages. 5 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 322 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. To find out which orphaned packages are
installed on your system the wnpp-alert program from devscripts may be
helpful.

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

 * [56]jedstate -- Extended mind for John E. Davis' text editor jed.
   ([57]Bug#385744)
 * [58]obconf -- Preferences manager for Openbox. ([59]Bug#385988)
 * [60]picasm -- Assembler for the Microchip PIC-family
   Microcontrollers. ([61]Bug#385135)
 * [62]swish++ -- Simple Document Indexing System for Humans: C++
   version. ([63]Bug#385743)
 * [64]xmms-liveice -- XMMS plugin that sends your audio to a
   shoutcast server. ([65]Bug#385965)

 56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/jedstate
 57. http://bugs.debian.org/385744
 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/obconf
 59. http://bugs.debian.org/385988
 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/picasm
 61. http://bugs.debian.org/385135
 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/swish++
 63. http://bugs.debian.org/385743
 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/xmms-liveice
 65. http://bugs.debian.org/385965

Removed Packages. 1 package has been [66]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:

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

 * mediawiki -- math rendering plugin for MediaWiki
   [67]Bug#381004: Request of maintainer, abandoned upstream;
   superseded by mediawiki1.

 67. http://bugs.debian.org/381004

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 [68]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [69]dwn@debian.org.

 68. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 69. mailto:dwn@debian.org

This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Sebastian Feltel,
Martin Krafft and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.


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