path: root/english/News/weekly/2005/38/index.wml

#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2005-09-20" SUMMARY="Volunteers, Documentation, Release, Women, Booting, Scripts, Bugs, Front Desk, License, Security"
# $Id$

<p>Welcome to this year's 38th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community.  David Moreno Garza <a
href="http://damog.net/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=177">\
reported</a> that he has closed 729 <a href="$(HOME)/devel/wnpp/">work-needing
and prospective packages bugs</a> which were more than 600 days old with no hope of
progress.  Branden Robinson <a
href="http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/~branden/blog/exuberance/Debian/trademark.html">\
posted</a> his ideas and thoughts about managing Debian's trademark with
special attention to the <a href="http://www.dccalliance.org/">DCC
Alliance</a>.  The <a href="$(HOME)/ports/m68k/">m68k</a> port is in <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/09/msg00139.html">danger</a>
of being ignored by the testing propagation due to internal compiler errors
and a huge backlog of packages.</p>

<p><strong>Volunteer Participation in Debian.</strong> A talk about the <a
href="http://oss2005.case.unibz.it/Papers/52.pdf">evolution of volunteer
participation</a> in Debian was held at the <a
href="http://oss2005.case.unibz.it/">International Conference on Open Source
Systems</a>.  It presents a quantitative research of data of major Debian
releases over the last 7 years, as a case study of volunteer participation in
Free Software projects.  The conclusion is that developers tend to maintain
more packages and stay active for a long period of time.</p>

<p><strong>Removing non-free Documentation.</strong> Frank Lichtenheld <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/09/msg00007.html">\
announced</a> how the release team will deal with non-free documentation for
the etch release.  The <a
href="http://release.debian.org/removing-non-free-documentation">status</a> of
packages with such files will be tracked with the new usertags feature of the
<a href="$(HOME)/Bugs/">bug tracking system</a>.  He advised the maintainers
to talk to their upstream authors and document the decisions in bug
reports.</p>

<p><strong>Honouring the Release Team Work.</strong> Barry Hawkins <a
href="http://www.yepthatsme.com/2005/09/13/the-longer-i-manage-a-technical-team-the-more-i-am-in-awe-of-the-debian-release-team/">\
looked</a> at how much effort it takes to fix bugs, resolve issues and
maintain the software at work with six developers and 18 dependencies to third
party libraries.  In comparison with the 10,000 source packages in Debian and
the coordination and effort required to get a release done the more he is in
awe of the Debian release team.</p>

<p><strong>Debian-Women Software Freedom Day Activities.</strong> On the
occasion of this year's <a href="http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/">Software
Freedom Day</a> the <a href="http://women.alioth.debian.org/">Debian-Women</a>
project was running several <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2005/08/msg00189.html">activities</a>
in order to appeal to all levels of experience: A new IRC channel,
\#debian-women-new, was opened
for until then inactive people who would like to get involved with the
Debian-Women project. For more experienced members there was a "help day"
on the usual #debian-women channel. Erinn Clark installed a local BTS, dak
and buildd for people to try out and practice with. Last but not least a
Bug Squashing Party was organised by Hanna Wallach at #debian-bugs. All
three events were well received and many women used the opportunity to
catch up on the Debian-Women project and general Debian development.</p>

<p><strong>Parallelised Boot Sequence.</strong> Petter Reinholdtsen <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01100.html">restarted</a>
the <a href="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/initscripts-ng/">discussion</a>
about executing init scripts in parallel and provided a simple patch against
<code>rc</code> that will simply execute all scripts with the same priority in
parallel.  Based on the <a
href="http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_2.1.0/LSB-generic/LSB-generic/initscrcomconv.html">\
LSB</a> he <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01172.html">\
provided</a> an example for a dependency block in init scripts that could be
parsed by future startup programs.</p>

<p><strong>Improving Init Scripts.</strong> Marc Chantreux <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01451.html">proposed</a>
to write init scripts more efficiently, i.e. by using features the shell and
the used utilities provide.  Miquel van Smoorenburg <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01455.html">pointed
out</a> that only POSIX features should be used.  David Weinehall <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01655.html">added</a>
that <a href="http://packages.debian.org/busybox">busybox</a> does not
implement all GNU extensions.</p>

<p><strong>Closing Bug Reports.</strong> Grzegorz Bizon <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01477.html">wondered</a>
what the preferred way to close bug reports is.  Blars Blarson <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01485.html">explained</a>
that the bug will be automatically closed by the upload when it is mentioned
in the changelog.  If it is fixed some other way, or the change has already
been uploaded, the nnn-done address with a version pseudo-header needs to be
used.</p>

<p><strong>New Maintainer Front Desk Report.</strong> Marc Brockschmidt <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/09/msg00010.html">\
reported</a> about significant changes in the <a
href="https://nm.debian.org/">new maintainer</a> process.  Contributing to
Debian is now a requirement and lack of it will cause the application to be
removed.  The web interface that supports UTF-8 now has also been moved to a
new host and to HTTPS so that secure connections are possible.</p>

<p><strong>Restricting the GNU GPL.</strong> Harri Järvi <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/msg00268.html">noticed</a>
that the license of <a href="http://packages.debian.org/linuxsampler">\
linuxsampler</a> restricts the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GPL</a> and explicitly <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/msg00329.html">prohibits</a>
commercial use.  Justin Pryzby <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/msg00344.html">wondered</a>
if it wouldn't have to be removed since it is linked against a free <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/libasound2">library</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Accidental Distributed Denial of Service Attack.</strong> On
Monday a distributed denial of service attack was <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-curiosa/2005/09/msg00018.html">\
initiated</a> by the security team.  They have installed 1.7&nbsp;GB of
packages with the latest <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-816">xfree86</a>
update.  Due to the large number of users and the size of XFree86 packages,
this caused a constant 97&nbsp;MBit/s output-rate on the security host.  There are
ongoing discussions on how to avoid this in the future.</p>

<p><strong>Publicly exposing the Developer Location?</strong> Robert Lemmen
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01529.html">\
proposed</a> to make public the location of all developers.  Ben Armstrong <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01540.html">noted</a>
that developers have already access to this information, and added that he
would not be happy if the location would be exposed together with his name.
Wolfgang Borgert <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/08/msg01584.html">suggested</a>
to use a new field instead.</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 811: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-811">common-lisp-controller</a> --
    Arbitrary code injection.
<li>DSA 812: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-812">turqstat</a> --
    Buffer overflow.
<li>DSA 813: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-813">centericq</a> --
    Several vulnerabilities.
<li>DSA 814: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-814">lm-sensors</a> --
    Insecure temporary file.
<li>DSA 815: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-815">kdebase</a> --
    Local root vulnerability.
<li>DSA 816: <a href="$(HOME)/security/2005/dsa-816">xfree86</a> --
    Arbitrary code execution.
</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/net/bandwidthd">bandwidthd</a>
    -- Tracks usage of TCP/IP and builds HTML files with graphs.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/cedilla">cedilla</a>
    -- Best-effort Unicode text printer.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/eiciel">eiciel</a>
    -- Graphical editor for POSIX ACLs.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/exiv2">exiv2</a>
    -- EXIF/IPTC metadata manipulation tool.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/hsetroot">hsetroot</a>
    -- Tool for compose root-pixmaps for X11.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/hula">hula</a>
    -- Integrated mail &amp; calendar system with simple interface.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kkbswitch">kkbswitch</a>
    -- Keyboard layout indicator for KDE.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/klibido">klibido</a>
    -- Usenet binary grabber for KDE.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/knowledgetree">knowledgetree</a>
    -- Web-based Knowledge Management.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/osgcal">osgcal</a>
    -- Cal3d to OpenSceneGraph adapter development environment.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/pugs">pugs</a>
    -- Perl 6 Implementation.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/rkhunter">rkhunter</a>
    -- Rootkit, backdoor, sniffer and exploit scanner.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/sigscheme">sigscheme</a>
    -- Scheme Interpreter.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/taskjuggler">taskjuggler</a>
    -- Project management application.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/wcalc">wcalc</a>
    -- Flexible command-line scientific calculator.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xoo">xoo</a>
    -- Graphical wrapper around Xnest.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/xorsa">xorsa</a>
    -- Tool for Celestial Mechanics investigations.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/python/zope3">zope3</a>
    -- Open Source Web Application Server.
</ul>

<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 4 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer.  This makes a total of 195 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/doc/doc-debian-ko">doc-debian-ko</a>
     -- Debian FAQ and other documents to Korean.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327764">Bug#327764</a>)
     </li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/irmp3">irmp3</a>
     -- A Multimedia Audio Jukebox application.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327776">Bug#327776</a>)
     </li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/rhdb-admin">rhdb-admin</a>
     -- Graphical tool to administer PostgreSQL/RHDB Databases.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327775">Bug#327775</a>)
     </li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/zorroutils">zorroutils</a>
     -- Zorro bus utilities for Amigas running 2.1 and later kernels.
     (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328650">Bug#328650</a>)
     </li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Removed Packages.</strong> 38 packages have been <a
href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt">removed</a> from the Debian
archive during the past week:</p>

<ul>
<li> diskless -- Generate NFS file structure for diskless boot.
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/107808">Bug#107808</a>:
     Request of QA, buggy, unmaintained, better alternative available (lessdisks)
<li> chos -- Easy Boot loader with a Boot-Menu
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/263868">Bug#263868</a>:
     Request of QA, rc-bugs, alternatives exist like grub
<li> fenris -- Program execution path analysis tool
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/322601">Bug#322601</a>:
     Request of QA, has never been part of a stable release, rc bug, dead upstream
<li> libyaml-ruby -- YAML for Ruby 1.6
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/323772">Bug#323772</a>:
     Request of maintainer, functionality now provided by ruby1.8 and ruby-defaults
<li> aeromail -- Web-based e-mail client
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/326164">Bug#326164</a>:
     Request of QA, orphaned, rc-buggy with no activity
<li> gswitchit -- Keyboard layout switcher
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/326215">Bug#326215</a>:
     Request of maintainer, superseded by gnome-applet's keyboardlayoutswitcher
<li> thoughttracker -- Nonhierarchical, hyperlinked knowledge base
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327149">Bug#327149</a>:
     Request of Maintainer, dead upstream, better alternatives exist
<li> konq-speaker -- Text-to-speech plugins for Konqueror and Kate
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327156">Bug#327156</a>:
     Request of maintainer, dead upstream, no longer needed, kdeaccessibility has alternative
<li> netjuke -- Web-Based Audio Streaming Jukebox
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327678">Bug#327678</a>:
     Request of QA, orphaned, dead upstream
<li> akregator -- RSS feed aggregator for KDE
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327879">Bug#327879</a>:
     Request of maintainer, superseded by kdepim and kdeaddons
<li> tutos -- Ultimate Team Organisation Software
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/321647">Bug#321647</a>:
     Request of maintainer, outdated, security issues, superseded by tutos2
<li> jftw -- Joel's File Tree Walk library
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/326702">Bug#326702</a>:
     Request of maintainer, obsolete, hardly used
<li> gxedit -- GTK-based pop-up command to get user input
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/286959">Bug#286959</a>:
     Request of maintainer, buggy, hardly used, plenty of alternatives
<li> zope-popyda -- Database Adapter connecting Zope and PostgreSQL
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327626">Bug#327626</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, rc-buggy and superseded by python-psycopg / sql-relay
<li> icukrell -- GKrellm plugin which shows the status of GnomeICU
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327650">Bug#327650</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, rc-buggy
<li> dedit -- Editor Tool with Japanese extension for beginners
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327662">Bug#327662</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, rc-buggy and unmaintained
<li> matchbox-nest -- Graphical wrapper around xnest
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328068">Bug#328068</a>:
     Request of maintainer, renamed to xoo
<li> grunch -- Merge partial scans into a larger image
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/327636">Bug#327636</a>:
     Request of maintainer, has never been part of a stable release, rc-buggy
<li> gnuradio -- Software Defined Radio
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328127">Bug#328127</a>:
     Request of maintainer, superseded by gnuradio-core
<li> howl -- Tools for use with Howl (mDNSPublish and mDNSBrowse)
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/302462">Bug#302462</a>:
     Request of maintainer, license issues (APSL 2.0)
<li> kcdlabel -- CD cover creator for KDE
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328144">Bug#328144</a>:
     Request of maintainer, dead upstream, superseded
<li> daapd -- Serves music files using the Apple DAA protocol
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/294934">Bug#294934</a>:
     Request of maintainer, Buggy, serious design issue
<li> slpim -- Personal Information Manager for the console
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328536">Bug#328536</a>:
     Request of maintainer, outdated, no users
<li> npadmin -- Query information from SNMP featured printer
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328593">Bug#328593</a>:
     Request of maintainer, very old, obsolete
<li> oaklisp -- Object-oriented dialect of Scheme.
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328597">Bug#328597</a>:
     Request of maintainer, very old, obsolete
<li> zope2.6-verbosesecurity -- Helps to explain the reason for denied access
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328617">Bug#328617</a>:
     Request of maintainer, obsolete; only works with to-be-removed zope2.6; superseded by zope-verbosesecurity
<li> tclexpat -- Tcl interface to expat XML parser.
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328653">Bug#328653</a>:
     Request of maintainer, very old, obsolete
<li> umsdos -- Utilities for controlling a umsdos filesystem
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328656">Bug#328656</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, unused, broken
<li> gopherweblink -- Generate web link files for gopher servers
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328693">Bug#328693</a>:
     Request of maintainer, only useful with no longer supported gopherd
<li> cfe -- Console Font Editor
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328801">Bug#328801</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, unused
<li> vmnet -- Simple virtual networking program
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328813">Bug#328813</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, superseded
<li> vgagamespack -- SVGAlib games ConnectN, Othello, and Mines
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328816">Bug#328816</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, unused, superseded
<li> bloksi -- Sliding-blocks puzzle (glotski written in perl)
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328817">Bug#328817</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, alternatives available
<li> pcrd -- PCR-1000 Control Daemon / Command Line Interface
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328818">Bug#328818</a>:
     Request of QA, old, superseded by icomlib
<li> math3d -- Spatial geometry math C++ runtime library
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328819">Bug#328819</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, unused
<li> regex -- GNU regular expression library, run time libraries. [libc5]
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328839">Bug#328839</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, broken, unused
<li> libhs -- HighScore Library (run-time library)
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328860">Bug#328860</a>:
     Request of maintainer, unused
<li> gidic -- Simple GTK Dictionary
     <br><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/328862">Bug#328862</a>:
     Request of maintainer, old, unused, gtk1.2
</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="Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona, Meike Reichle, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"