path: root/english/News/weekly/2003/30/index.wml

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2003-07-29" SUMMARY="Java, Music, Installer, Birthday, Knoppix, Debconf, Reiser, Mplayer, ACL, Unicode, QA, OOo"
# $Id$

<p>Welcome to this year's 30th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community.  The <a href="http://www.opengroup.org/">Open Group</a> has
contracted Bruce Perens to develop an <a
href="http://www.opengroup.org/tech/open-source/opengroup-os-strategy.htm">\
Open Source Strategy</a> for them to <a
href="http://slashdot.org/articles/03/07/25/1517236.shtml">prevent</a> a name
change.  Our former editor, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier, <a
href="http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=8472/ur0307f/">reviewed</a> the <a
href="http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/">CheckInstall</a> tool,
which automatically creates packages after compiling from source.  Besides
Debian packages it can create packages in RPM and Slackware formats.  The
OpenGroup has published a detailed <a
href="http://www.opengroup.org/~ajosey/tr28-07-2003.txt">list</a> of the
conflicts between the <a href="http://www.linuxbase.org/">Linux Standards
Base</a> and <a href="http://www.everything2.com/?node=Posix">Posix</a>.</p>

<p><strong>LGPL affecting Client Java Code?</strong> In our last issue we
reported that an <a
href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.poi.devel/5900">article</a>
said that Dave Turner of the FSF has allegedly decreed that the steps required
to use an LGPL'd Java library will actually infect client code with
substantial GNU-ness via Section 6 of the LGPL.  David Turner <a
href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71522&amp;cid=6466666">clarified</a> the
<a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71522&amp;cid=6466868">issue</a> and
repeats that your program, which links against the library, does not need to
be <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71522&amp;cid=6466958">\
licensed</a> under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html">GNU
LGPL</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Debian as musical Instrument.</strong> James Patten and Ben Recht
<a href="http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3340861719.html">developed</a> a
composition and performance <a
href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~jpatten/audiopad/">instrument</a> for
electronic music which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface
and converts their motion into music.  One can pull sounds from a giant set of
samples, cut between drum loops to create new beats, and apply digital
processing all at the same time on the same table.  Knoppix is <a
href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~jpatten/audiopad/apfaq.html">used</a> as
operating system.</p>

<p><strong>Debian Installer Bootcamp.</strong> Petter Reinholdtsen <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0307/msg00369.html">suggested</a> to
hold a debian-installer <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~pere/debian-installer/di-debcamp-2003-1.html">\
work camp</a> in two or three months time.  If there is sufficient interest a
low-cost meeting will be held, probably in Europe, to push installer
development forward.  Currently two locations are being discussed, in <a
href="http://www.einschlingen.de/">Einschlingen</a> and in <a
href="http://oldenburger.linuxtage.de/Oldenburg2003/">Oldenburg</a>, both
located in Germany.</p>

<p><strong>Debian Birthday Parties in the UK and Germany.</strong> The Debian
project will <a href="http://www.debconf.org/10years/">celebrate</a> its 10th
birthday on August 16th at several locations
worldwide.  Robert McQueen <a
href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-uk/2003-July/001650.html">\
announced</a> that the British <a
href="http://the.earth.li/~huggie/cgi-bin/moin/Debian10thBirthday">party</a>
will take place at Steve McIntyre's house in Cambridge.  Also <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu-0307/msg00223.html">announced</a>
is the German <a href="http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/party/">party</a> which
will take place in a <a
href="http://hamster.franken.de/users/debian/sportlerheim-album/">sports
club</a> in Wallenrod, Hessen.  Interested people should register for those
parties so enough barbecue sauce can be acquired.</p>

<p><strong>Joe Barr discovers the Fink Project.</strong> For connecting an <a
href="http://www.apple.com/emac/">eMac</a> with a GNU/Linux box, additional
software had to be installed.  He discovered that the members of the <a
href="http://fink.sourceforge.net/">Fink Project</a> are doing two things to
bring open source/Free Software to OS X. They port existing Unix software to
OS X and they use package management tools from Debian to make those ports
easy to get, optionally compile, and install.</p>

<p><strong>Knoppix for PowerPC Machines.</strong> Experimental support for
PowerPC machines was added to <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/">\
Knoppix</a> during <a
href="http://www.linuxtag.org/2003/de/conferences/talk.xsp?id=59">\
LinuxTag</a>.  Last week Heise <a
href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/odi-24.07.03-000/">reported</a>
about a 500&nbsp;MB large <a
href="http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/powerPC/knx-pcc-2003-07-13_4.iso">ISO
image</a> which is publicly available.  Hardware detection needs to be
improved and the image does not yet contain all of the software from the
original Knoppix.</p>

<p><strong>Report from DebConf in Oslo.</strong> Andreas Schuldei sent a <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0307/msg00013.html">\
report</a> stating that this year's Debian Conference was attended by 140
people, the preceding Debian Camp was attended by 90 people, mostly
developers.  The event was sponsored by HP, NUUG Foundation, Lindows,
Trolltech, O'Reilly, Linpro (with Dell) and the University of Oslo.  During
debcamp over 200 bugs in the future debian-installer got fixed.</p>

<p><strong>ReiserFS Support for the Debian-Installer.</strong>  Martin Michlmayr
<a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0307/msg00472.html">discussed</a>
integrating proper <code>reiserfs</code> support into
<code>debian-installer</code> with Hans Reiser.  Hans is very interested in
seeing this happen, and offered technical assistance if any is needed.
Alastair McKinstry <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0307/msg00476.html">explained</a>
that this requires a <code>reiserfs</code> kernel module in its own udeb and
a <code>reiserfsprogs</code> udeb that provides
<code>/sbin/mkfs.reiserfs</code>.  These steps should be the <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot-0307/msg00478.html">same</a>
for adding support for other file systems, such as XFS.</p>

<p><strong>Debian MPlayer Packages.</strong> Andrea Mennucc <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01633.html">explained</a>
why there are still no mplayer packages in Debian.  He missed some responses
from the FTP people.  Ola Lundqvist <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01635.html">added</a> that
he understood that if debian-legal considers the current packages fine with
the <a href="$(HOME)/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free Software
Guidelines</a> they should be accepted by the FTP people.  Hence, another <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0307/msg00241.html">discussion</a>
was started on that list.</p>

<p><strong>Per-user temporary Directories.</strong> Martin Pool is <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01708.html">worried</a>
about temporary file vulnerabilities that aren't fixed yet.  He notes that
there is already the PAM module <code>libpam-tmpdir</code> which automatically
sets this up on login by creating a per-user directory under /tmp and pointing
TMPDIR at it.  Despite the scary low version number of 0.04 it seems to work
reliably and presumably any bugs could be fixed.</p>

<p><strong>Backporting Security Patches.</strong> Luca De Vitis started a <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01721.html">discussion</a>
on why Debian rather back-ports security fixes instead of releasing a new
version.  This is already answered in the <a
href="$(HOME)/security/faq#oldversion">security FAQ</a> and in the <a
href="$(HOME)/doc/developers-reference/pkgs.html#bug-security">Developer's
Reference</a>.  Matt Zimmerman <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01750.html">explained</a>
that security advisories and the associated packages should fix security
vulnerabilities and nothing else.</p>

<p><strong>Removing orphaned Packages.</strong> Matthew Palmer <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa-0307/msg00086.html">compiled</a> a
list of packages that should probably be removed from the distribution.  He is
looking for some feedback from others with probably more experience.  He only
investigated the oldest packages on the list of improperly orphaned packages
and only considered packages with outstanding bugs and no history of interest
from anyone in adopting it.</p>

<p><strong>Coreutils with ACL Support.</strong> Michael Stone is <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01745.html">contemplating</a>
to upload a version of coreutils that will have support for file ACLs.
Doing this would promote <code>libacl1</code> and <code>libattr1</code> to
base.  Thus, he is soliciting input about whether this is something people
would like to see.  Another possibility would be an optional coreutils-acl
package.</p>

<p><strong>Debian and Unicode Support.</strong> Sergey Spiridonov <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01910.html">wondered</a>
whether Debian aims to produce a system that properly supports unicode
encoding.  This is not an official release goal but it is a worthwhile goal
nevertheless.  Adrian von Bidder <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01944.html">explained</a>
that submitting a patch will in most cases help more in getting support fixed
or added than a higher severity.</p>

<p><strong>Custom Debian Distributions.</strong> Petter Reinholdtsen <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg02005.html">reported</a>
about a discussion during debcamp in Oslo.  All the groups and projects that
are creating Debian-based distributions should join together to find common
solutions to the common problems.  He added the problems and solutions they
are using for <a href="http://developer.skolelinux.no/projectinfo.html.en">\
SkoleLinux</a> as a basis for further discussions.</p>

<p><strong>QA Group best Practice.</strong> Matthew Palmer <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa-0307/msg00104.html">started</a> with a
list of best practice rules for quality assurance (QA) uploads since he was
unable to locate them in the <a href="$(HOME)/doc/developers-reference/">\
Developer's Reference</a>.  These include version numbering, the maintainer
field and monitoring bugs from the package in question.</p>

<p><strong>OpenOffice.org at Debcamp and Debconf.</strong>  Chris Halls <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-openoffice-0307/msg00129.html">reported</a>
on the OpenOffice.org (OOo) team's experience at Debcamp and debconf.  A lot
of work was done on OOo, including new packages to replace 1.1 and 1.0.3, a
new myspell dictionary layout and a new crashreporter.  Once the last tasks
have been done, the <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~halls/openoffice/1.1rc">1.1rc packages</a>
will be uploaded to unstable as <code>openoffice.org</code> to replace the
existing <code>openoffice.org</code> and <code>openoffice.org1.1</code>
packages.  Help with testing upgrading and downgrading in all possible
combinations of the packages would be appreciated.</p>

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

<ul>
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2003/dsa-352">fdclone</a> --
    Insecure temporary directory usage.
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2003/dsa-353">sup</a> --
    Insecure temporary file creation.
</ul>

<p><strong>New or Noteworthy Packages.</strong> The following packages were
added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates.</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cl-grt">cl-grt</a>
    -- Common Lisp GRT Raytrace.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/cl-ptester">cl-ptester</a>
    -- Test suite for Common Lisp programs.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/e2fslibs">e2fslibs</a>
    -- The EXT2 filesystem libraries.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/elfutils">elfutils</a>
    -- Tools to read from and write to ELF files.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/gbiff2">gbiff2</a>
    -- Mail notification program supporting GTK+ and GNOME.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gossip">gossip</a>
    -- Friendly Jabber client for GNOME.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/gxine">gxine</a>
    -- Xine video player, GTK user interface.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/hydrogen">hydrogen</a>
    -- Simple drum machine/step sequencer.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/javacc">javacc</a>
    -- Parser generator for use with Java.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/kwavecontrol">kwavecontrol</a>
    -- Wireless device monitoring application for KDE.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/lvs-kiss">lvs-kiss</a>
    -- Load-balancing made easy.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/netpipes">netpipes</a>
    -- Manipulate BSD TCP/IP stream sockets.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/testdisk">testdisk</a>
    -- Partition scanner and disk recovery tool.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/unifdef">unifdef</a>
    -- Remove ifdef sections from files.
</ul>

<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 6 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer.  This makes a total of 185 orphaned packages.  Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software
community.  Please see the <a href="$(HOME)/devel/wnpp/">WNPP pages</a> 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.</p>

<ul>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libvorbis-perl">libvorbis-perl</a>
     -- Perl extension for Ogg Vorbis streams.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/202328">Bug#202328</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/qpage">qpage</a>
     -- SNPP-to-TAP/IXO gateway and SNPP client.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/202538">Bug#202538</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/ripperx">ripperx</a>
     -- GTK-based ripper/encoder.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/202541">Bug#202541</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xfonts-greek-ph-misc">xfonts-greek-ph</a>
     -- Rich collection of X11 Greek fonts.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/202615">Bug#202615</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xmountains">xmountains</a>
     -- Fractal landscape generator for X.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/202349">Bug#202349</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xzoom">xzoom</a>
     -- Magnify part of X display, with fast updates.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/202330">Bug#202330</a>)</li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Want to continue reading DWN?</strong> Please help us create this
newsletter.  We still need more volunteer writers who investigate the Debian
community and report about events in the community.  Please see the <a
href="$(HOME)/News/weekly/contributing">contributing page</a> to find out how
to help.  We're looking forward to receiving your mail at <a
href="mailto:dwn@debian.org">dwn@debian.org</a>.</p>

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::footer editor="Andre Lehovich, Dan Hunt, Matt Black, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"