Debian Weekly News - August 30th, 2005

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/35/
Debian Weekly News - August 30th, 2005
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to this year's 35th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Carla Schroder [1]explained reasons to use
Debian and gave an overview about several derived distributions. Sean
Michael Kerner [2]reported about Debian's debut in China with Sun
Wah's enterprise Debian offering.

 1. http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3526396
 2. http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/3527151

Rejections from NEW. Jörg Jaspert [3]announced the requirements for
packages to pass the NEW queue. Basically, all rules should be
logical, but still broken packages get uploaded. The [4]FAQ includes
gross howlers and issues that contribute to a higher probability of a
rejection.

 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00011.html
 4. http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Development Machine. Guillem Jover [5]announced
the availability of a network connected machine running the Debian
GNU/[6]kFreeBSD port. All developers can be granted access to it. He
also reported that 81.69 % of packages in main are available for the
kfreebsd-i386 architecture.

 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00013.html
 6. http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/

Too many Transitions. Andreas Barth [7]reported about the currently
ongoing transition of packages: Glibc, C++ ABI, KDE, X.Org and GNOME.
He asked developers not to rename any libraries or bump the soname
before these transitions are finished, since that would have the
potential to stall the process even more. Many packages are blocked
from testing due to these transitions already.

 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00014.html

Ranking Bug Reports. Paul Brossier [8]proposed to add a feature to
the [9]bug tracking system to measure the number of users that are
annoyed by each bug in order to get an impression of the importance of
the particular bug. Stuart Yeates [10]added that a good way to start
could be a cross-reference to the [11]popularity contest. Jon Dowland
[12]noted that bugs are already rated by severity.

 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01034.html
 9. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01038.html
 11. http://popcon.debian.org/
 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01050.html

Posix-compliant Scripts. Brian Carlson [13]suggested that all
maintainers test their packages with [14]posh as standard shell. Steve
Langasek asserted that the practical impact would be zero since the
POSIX extensions mentioned are supported by the other shells,
including [15]busybox. Marco d'Itri [16]added that posh does not even
provide a size benefit.

 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01489.html
 14. http://packages.debian.org/posh
 15. http://packages.debian.org/busybox
 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01541.html

Debian CD/DVD Contents. Jerome Warnier [17]wondered if there was a way
to determine on which official CD a particular package is distributed.
Bartosz Fenski [18]answered that currently this is only possible by
looking at the [19]jigdo files. Guilherme de S. Pastore [20]pointed to
an automatically generated [21]list with the requested information.

 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01497.html
 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01522.html
 19. http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/
 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01523.html
 21. http://haydn.debian.org/~ftlerror-guest/list.txt

New Upstream Versions. Nikita Youshchenko [22]proposed to allow new
upstream versions of Mozilla and friends to enter stable since it
seems to be [23]impossible to properly support them security-wise.
Martin Pitt [24]reported that he tried to backport fixes, but ended up
with a broken browser, and hence had to give up.

 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01582.html
 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-security/2005/07/msg00315.html
 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01586.html

New-Maintainer Process. Yaroslav Halchenko [25]wondered if there is a
sufficient quantity of application managers to cover all new
applicants. Marc Brockschmidt [26]negated that and [27]explained that
application managers need to invest some time on a regular basis and
know a lot about Debian. Some of them also get bored by the
repetition.

 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00020.html
 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00024.html
 27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00064.html

European Union Public License. Ales Cepek [28]wondered about the
freeness of the [29]European Union Public License. Florian Weimer
[30]found several flaws that would make the license incompatible with
the GNU [31]General Public License Nathanael Nerode also
[32]discovered several problems in the draft.

 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00390.html
 29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00394.html
 30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00399.html
 31. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
 32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00477.html

Debconf Dependency. Joey Hess [33]announced that he will eventually
file bug reports on packages that only depend on [34]debconf and not
on debconf-2.0 as well. The latter is needed so debconf can finally be
replaced by [35]cdebconf. debconf-2.0 was added to the Debian
[36]policy as a virtual package in 2002 and has been provided by
debconf since 2003.

 33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00136.html
 34. http://packages.debian.org/debconf
 35. http://packages.debian.org/cdebconf
 36. http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

Reporting Lists Spam. Nico Golde [37]asked if it is possible to report
spam distributed via the [38]lists not only via web interface but also
via mail. Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña also [39]wondered what
happens after a mail is reported as spam. Frans Pop [40]explained that
currently data is only collected. The intention is to use the data
both to improve filtering and clean the archives. The set of tools for
that has yet to be developed though.

 37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00223.html
 38. http://lists.debian.org/
 39. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00246.html
 40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg00250.html

Converting Source Code. Svante Signell [41]wondered how the copyright
of a program is transferred when somebody manually converts or
implements it into a different language. Arnoud Engelfriet [42]stated
that the converter only owns a copyright of the final work if the
translation required creative work. Sean Kellogg, however,
[43]asserted that the converter would only hold a copyright on the
expression that is the translation.

 41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00410.html
 42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00427.html
 43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00457.html

Ethical Moments in Debian. Biella Coleman [44]announced the successful
defence of her dissertation about ethics and politics of the Free
Software movement and the availability of [45]chapter six which covers
the Debian project. In this chapter she explained the internal culture
in the Debian project that she has investigated during several
occasions. According to [46]Wouter Verhelst she certainly has a far
better view on the general picture than most developers can ever hope
to have.

 44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00206.html
 45. http://healthhacker.org/biella/coleman-chapter-six.pdf
 46. http://www.grep.be/blog/2005/08/24#coleman_chapter_six

Non-free Build Scripts. Michael Ablassmeier [47]reported about the
[48]di package whose upstream developers have decided to switch to
iffe as configure replacement. However, since it is distributed under
a allegedly non-free license. Bas Zoetekouw [49]asserted that if a
package requires non-free software to build, it cannot go into the
main archive, regardless of the fact that the resulting binary does
not depend on non-free packages.

 47. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00581.html
 48. http://packages.debian.org/di
 49. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00584.html

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

 * DSA 783: [50]mysql-dfsg-4.1 -- Insecure temporary file.
 * DSA 784: [51]courier -- Denial of service.
 * DSA 785: [52]libpam-ldap -- Authentication bypass.
 * DSA 786: [53]simpleproxy -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 787: [54]backup-manager -- Several vulnerabilities.
 * DSA 788: [55]kismet -- Arbitrary code execution.
 * DSA 789: [56]php4 -- Several vulnerabilities.
 * DSA 790: [57]phpldapadmin -- Unauthorised access.
 * DSA 791: [58]maildrop -- Arbitrary group mail command execution.

 50. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-783
 51. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-784
 52. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-785
 53. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-786
 54. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-787
 55. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-788
 56. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-789
 57. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-790
 58. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-791

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [59]recently or contain important updates.

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

 * [60]gollem -- File manager component for horde framework.
 * [61]insserv -- Generate boot sequence based on LSB init.d script
   dependencies.
 * [62]ldm -- LTSP display manager.
 * [63]lwatch -- Simple log colorizer.
 * [64]mkvtoolnix -- Set of command-line tools to work with Matroska
   files.
 * [65]podracer -- Podcast aggregator/downloader.
 * [66]tmsnc -- Textbased (console) MSN client.

 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/gollem
 61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/insserv
 62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ldm
 63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/lwatch
 64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/mkvtoolnix
 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/podracer
 66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/tmsnc

Orphaned Packages. 1 package was orphaned this week and requires a new
maintainer. This makes a total of 187 orphaned packages. Many thanks
to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software
community. Please see the [67]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.

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

 * [68]vbpp -- Verilog preprocessor. ([69]Bug#324765)

 68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/vbpp
 69. http://bugs.debian.org/324765

Removed Packages. 7 packages have been [70]removed from the Debian
archive during the past two weeks:

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

 * s3mod -- Player for MOD and S3M music files
   [71]Bug#323295: Request of maintainer, obsolete; superseded by
   mikmod
 * keylookup -- A tool to fetch keys from keyservers
   [72]Bug#323075: Request of maintainer, functionality superseded by
   gnupg
 * dhcp-dns -- Dynamic DNS updates for DHCP
   [73]Bug#158332: Request of QA, dead upstream, superseded by
   dhcp3-server
 * diablo -- News transport system without reader support
   [74]Bug#318303: Request of QA, RC bugs, orphaned, non-free
 * crafted -- Map editor for FreeCraft, the free WarCraft II clone.
   [75]Bug#323568: Request of maintainer, superseded by stratagus
 * phpgroupware-napster -- phpGroupWare Napster module
   [76]Bug#325195: Request of QA, orphaned, obsolete, abandoned
 * python-pcgi -- Persistent CGI for Python
   [77]Bug#324475: Request of maintainer, obsolete

 71. http://bugs.debian.org/323295
 72. http://bugs.debian.org/323075
 73. http://bugs.debian.org/158332
 74. http://bugs.debian.org/318303
 75. http://bugs.debian.org/323568
 76. http://bugs.debian.org/325195
 77. http://bugs.debian.org/324475

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 [78]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [79]dwn@debian.org.

 78. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 79. 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]