path: root/english/News/weekly/2005/16/index.wml

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2005-04-19" SUMMARY="Deployment, DPL, Stable, non-free, Meetings, Licenses, Firmware, Ichtux"
# $Id$

<p>Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community.  Micah Anderson <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/02/msg00971.html">noted</a>
that the oldest open <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/725">bug</a> <a
href="http://bugs.debian.org/825">reports</a> in Debian turn ten this month.
Brian Proffitt <a href="http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2005041501526OPBZDV">\
commented</a> on a <a
href="http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&amp;newsId=20050413005236&amp;newsLang=en">\
report</a> about a survey that uncovered that in 2005 the majority of Free
Software developers preferred community-based distributions.</p>

<p><strong>Debian based Desktops in Munich.</strong> The city of Munich <a
href="http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/publikationen/news_archiv/127730/basis_client.html">\
chose</a> (German) the Debian distribution as a basis for their desktop.  Two
German companies will configure and maintain the 14,000 machines based on this
client.  The <a href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/37197">\
decision</a> (German) to move away from a proprietary system had attracted a lot of
interest by all kinds of media.</p>

<p><strong>Interview with Branden Robinson.</strong> Our former Editor Joe
'Zonker' Brockmeier conducted an <a
href="http://www.linux-mag.com/content/view/1870/2107/">interview</a> with
Branden Robinson, the new Debian Project Leader.  He would like to put some
care into infrastructure that is often complained about and wants to emphasise
on Debian's continuing position as the most significant GNU/Linux
distribution.  Regular reports will round this up.</p>

<p><strong>Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 updated.</strong> The Debian project <a
href="$(HOME)/News/2005/20050416">announced</a> the fifth update to their
stable Distribution alias woody.  It contains mostly those security updates
that have accumulated since January when the last update was made.  Some
packages were also removed from the stable distribution, mostly due to license
infringements.  A complete list of all accepted and removed packages together
with rationale is on the preparation <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~joey/3.0r5/">page</a>.</p>

<p><strong>GPL Programs belong in non-free?</strong> Adrian Bunk <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/04/msg00625.html">noted</a>
that all programs licensed under the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GPL</a> have to go into
non-free, since the GPL license itself must not be modified.  Glenn Maynard <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/04/msg00640.html">stated</a>
that the only reason the text of the GPL is allowed in main is because including
license texts is a fundamental, unavoidable requirement of distributing
software at all.</p>

<p><strong>IRC Meetings.</strong> The Debian Kernel Team
held an <a href="http://neualius.turmzimmer.net/~aba/kernel-irc-log">IRC
meeting</a> in which they <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2005/04/msg00488.html">decided</a>
that the kernel in testing is frozen.  A meeting of the AMD64 porters will <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-amd64/2005/04/msg00496.html">take</a>
place on 23rd of April to discuss how to do an unofficial sarge release of
the AMD64 port.  On the 26th of April there will also be a public IRC <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/04/msg00014.html">\
meeting</a> of <a href="http://www.spi-inc.org/">SPI</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Further Restricting the GPL.</strong> Warren Turkal <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00044.html">wondered</a>
if <a
href="http://www.sql-ledger.org/cgi-bin/nav.pl?page=misc/terms.html&amp;title=Terms%20%26%20Conditions">\
terms and conditions</a> in addition to the GNU GPL would render a package
non-free.  Glenn Maynard <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00045.html">explained</a>
that granting the user permission by using the GPL but at the same time
limiting the rights with additional limitation puts software in an uncertain
state.  Since Debian tends to honour the author's desires as closely as
possible this would imply that Debian shouldn't be distributing this
software.</p>

<p><strong>Kernel Firmware Blobs.</strong> Sven Luther <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00047.html">started</a>
a new discussion about binary blobs in kernel drivers without an explicit
copyright notice.  Allegedly, these blobs are considered a mere aggregation of
bits and bytes that aren't linked into the kernel and hence don't infringe the
kernel license.</p>

<p><strong>Christian Debian Distribution.</strong> Raphaël Pinson <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/04/msg00514.html">reported</a>
about the start of <a href="http://ichthux.free.fr/">Ichtux</a>, a custom
Debian distribution (CDD) focusing on Christianity and free Christian
projects.  They are currently considering becoming an official <a
href="http://people.debian.org/~tille/cdd/ch-starting.en.html">CDD</a> to be
included as such in the Debian project.</p>

<p><strong>Documentation Licensing FAQ.</strong> Jacobo Tarrio <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00332.html">released</a>
a draft <a href="http://jacobo.tarrio.org/Documentation_licensing_FAQ">FAQ</a>
on documentation licensing.  In this document he summarises several questions
and answers about this topic which should be useful especially for people who
have questions about the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html">GNU
FDL</a>.</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>DSA 706: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-706">axel</a> --
    Arbitrary code execution.
<li>DSA 707: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-707">mysql</a> --
    Several vulnerabilities.
<li>DSA 708: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-708">php3</a> --
    Denial of service.
<li>DSA 709: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-709">libexif</a> --
    Arbitrary code execution.
<li>DSA 710: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-710">gtkhtml</a> --
    Denial of service.
<li>DSA 711: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-711">info2www</a> --
    Cross site scripting.
<li>DSA 712: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-712">geneweb</a> --
    Insecure file operations.
</ul>

<p><strong>New or Noteworthy Packages.</strong> The following packages were
added to the unstable Debian archive <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main">recently</a> or contain
important updates.</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/achims-guestbook">achims-guestbook</a>
    -- PHP driven guestbook.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/albumshaper">albumshaper</a>
    -- Photo album creator and photo manipulator.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/arch2darcs">arch2darcs</a>
    -- Convert Arch/tla repositories to Darcs.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/archmbox">archmbox</a>
    -- Simple email archiver written in Perl.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/cduce">cduce</a>
    -- Programming language adapted to the manipulation of XML data.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/childsplay">childsplay</a>
    -- Suite of educational games for young children.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/cycle">cycle</a>
    -- Calendar program for women.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/drawtiming">drawtiming</a>
    -- Tool for documenting hardware designs through timing diagrams.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/ingo1">ingo1</a>
    -- Email filter component for Horde Framework.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/irb1.9">irb1.9</a>
    -- Interactive Ruby (for Ruby 1.9).
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/jsvc">jsvc</a>
    -- Native application to launch java applications as daemons.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/monotone">monotone</a>
    -- Distributed version control system.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/ncmpc">ncmpc</a>
    -- NCurses client for the Music Player Daemon.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/ocrad">ocrad</a>
    -- Optical Character Recognition program.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/picwiz">picwiz</a>
    -- Simple picture resizing wizard for KDE/Konqueror.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-farsiweb">ttf-farsiweb</a>
    -- FarsiWeb free TrueType Farsi fonts.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-paktype">ttf-paktype</a>
    -- PakType free OpenType Urdu fonts.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/turba2">turba2</a>
    -- Contact management component for horde framework.
</ul>

<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 2 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer.  This makes a total of 223 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/utils/crm114">crm114</a>
     -- The Controllable Regex Mutilator and Spam Filter.
     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/304762">Bug#304762</a>)
     </li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/toshutils">toshutils</a>
     -- Toshiba laptop utilities.
     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/304160">Bug#304160</a>)
     </li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Removed Packages.</strong> 6 packages have been <a
href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt">removed</a> from the Debian
archive during the past few weeks:</p>

<ul>
<li> enbd -- Enhanced Network Block Device support.
     <br><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/298388">Bug#298388</a>:
     Orphaned, RC bug, upstream unresponsive.
<li> libxcb -- Lightweight, low-latency replacement for Xlib.
     <br><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/301850">Bug#301850</a>:
     Request of maintainer, too unstable yet for Debian.
<li> pdp11-unix-v5 -- Caldera UNIX V5 images for a PDP-11 emulator.
     <br><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/297437">Bug#297437</a>:
     Orphaned, non-free, virtually unused.
<li> pdp11-unix-v6 -- Caldera UNIX V6 images for a PDP-11 emulator.
     <br><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/297438">Bug#297438</a>:
     Orphaned, non-free, virtually unused.
<li> pdp11-unix-v7 -- Caldera UNIX V7 images for a PDP-11 emulator.
     <br><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/297440">Bug#297440</a>:
     Orphaned, non-free, virtually unused.
<li> xitalk -- Talk intercept utility for X.
     <br><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/302330">Bug#302330</a>:
     Request of QA, doesn't work, hardly used.
</ul>

<p><strong>Want to continue reading DWN?</strong> 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 <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="Martin Zobel-Helas, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"