Debian Weekly News - August 16th, 2005

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/33/
Debian Weekly News - August 16th, 2005
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Welcome to this year's 33rd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Today is Debian's twelfth birthday. On August
16th, 1993 Ian Murdock [1]announced a new type of distribution and
listed the goals he wanted to achieve. Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan
[2]announced the first Bangalore Debian Developer [3]Conference to
be held on August 20th in Bangalore, India.

 1. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development/msg/a32d4e2ef3bcdcc6?output=gplain
 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00132.html
 3. http://people.debian.org/~rkrishnan/debconf-india.pdf

Removing Packages from Testing. Frank Lichtenheld [4]explained that
packages are sometimes removed from testing when they are not in a
releasable state. To get such packages back into testing, it should be
sufficient to fix all reported release-critical bugs in them. For most
removals the information is available in the [5]package tracking
system.

 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00004.html
 5. http://packages.qa.debian.org/

Linux Kernel Source Package Rename. Andres Salomon [6]suggested
renaming the Linux kernel source packages and proposed to maintain
only one version 2.6 in a release. The [7]ability to fall-back to an
older version of the kernel, however, is valuable. To ease the
security team work, the Linux kernel source package is now [8]called
linux-2.6 and the latest end-user binary package containing the source
is named linux-source-2.6.12.

 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2005/07/msg00192.html
 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2005/07/msg00226.html
 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2005/07/msg00315.html

Bug Handling and Upstream. Wichert Akkerman [9]mentioned that Debian
maintainers have always assumed full responsibility for their work
within Debian. This includes dealing with bug reports that need to be
forwarded upstream. Eric Dorland [10]answered that dealing with bugs
in the upstream software takes too much time away from fixing bugs in
the Debian packaging.

 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00034.html
 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00043.html

Security Support for AMD64. The Debian project [11]announced to
support the stable [12]amd64 port security-wise from now on, even
though regular binary packages reside on an [13]external server. This
port is not yet part of the Debian archive, but it will be included in
unstable/testing soon, after the [14]ftp-master service has moved to
its final location and the mirror-split has been implemented.

 11. http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050811
 12. http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/
 13. http://amd64.debian.net/debian/
 14. http://ftp-master.debian.org/

Expulsion of Debian Developers. Jörg Jaspert [15]defined the procedure
for the expulsion of Debian developers which formalises the process
and makes it more transparent. Any registered Debian developer can
propose another developer to be excluded from the Project, but needs
to get support from a number of other developers. An expelled
developer may join again by going through [16]new-maintainer as long
as no lifetime ban is set.

 15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00005.html
 16. http://www.debian.org/devel/join/

Debian receives Funding. The Debian project [17]announced that it is
funded by [18]LinuxFund with $ 500 per month for an entire year. The
money will be used prudentially to continue building the universal
operating system, improve the distribution and foster Free Software.
Branden Robinson emphasised that it will help the project to be more
flexible and reactive when dealing with hardware failures and should
enable it to do a bit more forward planning.

 17. http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050813
 18. http://www.linuxfund.org/

Scope of Debian Women. Hanna Wallach [19]explained that the Debian
women sub-project is about integrating women into the Debian
development community. It is also not an affirmative action project.
She asserts that the infrastructure that comprises the development of
the distribution is technically complex, but using simpler tools would
mean to segregate from Debian.

 19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2005/08/msg00116.html

Sponsoring Developer Meetings. Andreas Schuldei [20]called for
sponsors to donate locations, work and money for Debian developer
gatherings that are usually very cost efficient and [21]productive.
Especially problems that require group discussion and focused
cooperation over an extended period of time could best be solved
during such gatherings.

 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00007.html
 21. http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/oldenburg-2004-09-26-05-19.html

Auto-accepting Soname Changes. Torsten Landschoff [22]proposed new
library packages that match a certain pattern (i.e. contain only new
versions of existing packages with a new soname) to be accepted
automatically, even though technically the filename is new. Jörg
Jaspert quickly [23]presented a counter-example since somebody has
recently uploaded an empty library package. Gustavo Noronha Silva,
however, [24]pointed out that this could happen to regular updates as
well.

 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00809.html
 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00813.html
 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01093.html

Gutenprint in Sid. Roger Leigh [25]reported that Gutenprint (the new
name for Gimp-Print) has entered unstable including a number of
changes. The upgrade should run smoothly for most installations, but
CUPS users may need to install new PPD files, LPRng users may
experience problems, a new foomatic database is required and the STP
patch in Ghostscript needs to be removed.

 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00842.html

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

 * DSA 773: [26]several -- Security support for amd64.
 * DSA 774: [27]fetchmail -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 775: [28]mozilla-firefox -- Frame injection spoofing
   vulnerability.
 * DSA 776: [29]clamav -- Several problems.

 26. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-773
 27. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-774
 28. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-775
 29. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-776

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [30]recently or contain important updates.

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

 * [31]bsh -- Java scripting environment (BeanShell) Version 2.
 * [32]colrdx -- DX-cluster client with curses colour support.
 * [33]dh-lisp -- Debhelper to support Common Lisp related packages.
 * [34]earth3d -- Map client displaying a 3D model of the world.
 * [35]fail2ban -- Bans IPs that cause multiple authentication errors
   for ssh/apache.
 * [36]ketchup -- Update utility for linux-kernel sources.
 * [37]minimuf -- Predict high frequency propagation data.
 * [38]mixxx -- Digital Disc Jockey Interface.
 * [39]mkcue -- Generates a CUE sheet from a CD.
 * [40]perlprimer -- Graphical design of primers for PCR.
 * [41]pingpong -- Free server for Amateur Radio convers.
 * [42]xpilot-ng -- Multi-player tactical game for X (NG version).
 * [43]yagiuda -- Performance analysis of Yagi-Uda antennas.

 31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/bsh
 32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/colrdx
 33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/dh-lisp
 34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/earth3d
 35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/fail2ban
 36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/ketchup
 37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/minimuf
 38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/mixxx
 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/mkcue
 40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/perlprimer
 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/pingpong
 42. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xpilot-ng
 43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/yagiuda

Orphaned Packages. 2 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 180 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [44]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.

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

 * [45]cryptofs -- Transparent filesystem encryption plugin.
   ([46]Bug#323128)
 * [47]fenris -- Program execution path analysis tool.
   ([48]Bug#322601)

 45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/lufs-cryptofs
 46. http://bugs.debian.org/323128
 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/fenris
 48. http://bugs.debian.org/322601

Removed Packages. 5 packages have been [49]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:

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

 * kurush -- Easy to use personal finance manager
   [50]Bug#322303: Request of maintainer, has never been part of a
   stable release; unfinished, unsupported upstream
 * poker3d -- 3D multiplayer online poker game, libraries
   [51]Bug#322443: Request of maintainer, has never been part of a
   stable release; FTBFS, unlikely to be fixed soon
 * devhelp-books -- Autotools book for the DevHelp system
   [52]Bug#322861: Request of maintainer, outdated, unused, no longer
   useful
 * debbuggtk -- GTK applications for managing Debian bug reports
   [53]Bug#322923: Request of maintainer, has never been part of a
   stable release, useless due to incompatibility with current BTS
   code
 * linwsjt -- digital modes used for DX work on VHF/UHF and Microwave
   [54]Bug#322450: Request of maintainer, obsolete, renamed to
   wstools

 50. http://bugs.debian.org/322303
 51. http://bugs.debian.org/322443
 52. http://bugs.debian.org/322861
 53. http://bugs.debian.org/322923
 54. http://bugs.debian.org/322450

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 [55]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [56]dwn@debian.org.

 55. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 56. mailto:dwn@debian.org


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