path: root/english/News/weekly/2010/11/index.wml

#use wml::debian::projectnews::header PUBDATE="2010-09-08" SUMMARY="Bits from the Debian Women project, DebConf10 DPL report, Backports service becoming official"
#use wml::debian::acronyms

<!--
$Id$
$Rev: 844 $
Status: content-freeze
  -->

<!--
 Copyright (c) 2010 Alexander Reichle-Schmehl
 Copyright (c) 2010 Jeremiah C. Foster
 Copyright (c) 2010 Margarita Manterola
 Add other people here
 All rights reserved.
 
 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
 met:
 
     * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
       notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
     * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
       notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
       documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 
 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
 IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
 TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
 PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
 OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
 SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
 LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
 DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
 THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
 (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
 OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
-->



<p>Welcome to this year's eleventh issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:</p>
<toc-display/>



<toc-add-entry name="fjp">Debian Project mourns the loss of Frans Pop</toc-add-entry>

<p>The Debian Project <a
href="http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100831">lost Frans Pop</a>, who was
involved in many ways in Debian: as a maintainer of several packages, a
supporter of the S/390 port, and one of the most involved members of the
Debian Installer team. He was a Debian Listmaster, editor and release
manager of the Installation Guide and the release notes, as well as a Dutch
translator.  <a href="http://blog.einval.com/2010/08/31#Frans_Pop">Many</a>
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/0100902073125.GA17997@an3as.eu">members</a>
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/20100831173440.GO3336@mykerinos.kheops.frmug.org">of</a>
<a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/life/fjp">the</a> <a href="http://amayita.livejournal.com/195915.html">Debian</a>
<a href="http://www.itp.tuwien.ac.at/~mattems/blog/2010/09/01#fjp">community</a>
already expressed their sadness.  The team behind the Debian Project
News would like to do so too: Frans, you will be missed!</p>



<toc-add-entry name="women">Bits from the Debian Women project</toc-add-entry>

<p>The <a href="$(HOME)/women/">Debian Women project</a> aims at
getting more women to participate in Debian, as packagers, bug reporters,
technical documentation writers, bug fixers, translators, artists and in
any other area that helps the development of Debian.  These goals are
achieved through IRC tutorials, a mentoring program, a mailing list and an
IRC channel.</p>

<p>The <a href="$(HOME)/women/mentoring/">Mentoring Program</a>
allows men and women who want to contribute to Debian, but aren't sure
where or how to start, to get some help with their first steps.</p>

<p>There have been at least 38 women that have contributed in packaging
software for Debian, and there are currently 11 female Debian Developers
and 1 Debian Maintainer.  The group would like to raise those numbers to 50
packagers by the end of 2011, and 20 Debian Developers by the end of
2012.  There are also some other <a
href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/Statistics">interesting
statistics</a> about the current female participation in Debian.</p> 

<p>The project is also interested in getting more women to translate
debconf templates or package descriptions and contribute to the release
notes, as well as participate in any other areas of the Debian project.
In order to do this, we will be holding some <a
href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/TrainingSessions">IRC training
sessions</a> in the near future, in order to help people get started. We are
currently making the list of subjects and trainers, we'll publish more
news about this once the first sessions are scheduled.</p>

<p>For more information you can join the IRC channel <tt>#debian-women</tt> on
<tt>irc.oftc.net</tt>, or subscribe to the <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-women">debian-women mailing list</a>.
If you are a Spanish speaker, you can also join the
<tt>#debian-mujeres</tt> IRC channel on <tt>irc.oftc.net</tt>.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="dc10">DebConf10 DPL report</toc-add-entry>

<p>The Debian Project Leader (DPL), Stefano Zacchiroli, provided a <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20100829095149.GA5109@upsilon.cc">report
after the recent DebConf in New York City</a>. In the
report he discusses his recent activity speaking with academics in the Social
Sciences, as well as some other Debian developments. He also mentions Joey Hess's CUT
proposal, a proposal that would help users understand that Debian testing is actually
quite usable and work to polish it even more so that this becomes apparent. Our beloved
DPL mentions the <a
href="http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/RCBC#RC_Bug_Squashing_Contest">Release
Critical Bug squashing Contest (RCBC)</a> which has prizes!
</p>
<p>
In addition to those subjects he also added some details on Debian Derivatives,
the relationship between DebConf and Debian, and on init systems. As always, a wealth
of important information from the DPL.
</p>



<toc-add-entry name="backports">Backports service becoming official</toc-add-entry>

<p>The <a href="http://www.backports.org/">backports.org</a>, offering
updated packages from Debian's testing branch for Debian's stable (and
oldstable) releases, has now been integrated <a
href="http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100905">as an official Debian
service</a> available from <a
href="http://backports.debian.org/">backports.debian.org</a> and various
mirrors.  Current users of the old backports.org service should change their
<tt>sources.list</tt> file, as the directory structure has also changed
(but compatibility symlinks are available for now).  More <a
href="http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/">details for users
are available on the web page</a>.  The
<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Backports">backports team</a>
also published some information for
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/20100905211658.GH7615@lisa.snow-crash.org">package
maintainers</a>.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="lenny">Updated Debian GNU/Linux: 5.0.6 released</toc-add-entry>

<p>A new <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100904">update release
for Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 <q>Lenny</q></a> has been released.  All recent security
updates have been added as well as some fixes for critical issues.  The
<a href="https://packages.debian.org/linux-2.6">linux-2.6</a> package was
also updated for increased hardware support.  New CD and DVD images as well
as update CDs and DVDs will be available soon.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="wheezy">Release update</toc-add-entry>

<p>A new <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20100903122801.GJ17464@halon.org.uk">release
update</a> has been sent out by Neil McGovern.  He gave an overview of the
status of different transitions, which are mostly done, and informed package
maintainers of a stronger policy for unblock requests for packages which
should migrate to Debian's <q>testing</q> branch.  He also noted that
packages with release critical bugs will be removed from the release,
should there be no progress made on their issues.  Work on the release
notes is on its way.  Anything that should be documented in the release
notes should be reported as a bug report against the <tt>release-notes</tt>
pseudo-package, while <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/NewInSqueeze">new and
noteworthy things</a> should be collected in the wiki.  Finally he announced
the codename of Debian 7.0: Wheezy, the rubber toy penguin with a red bow
tie.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="changelogs">Changelogs for testing available</toc-add-entry>

<p>Jörg Jaspert announced a new service for users of Debian's <q>testing</q>
branch: the <a
href="http://blog.ganneff.de/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/308">changelogs
of packages migrated to the testing branch</a> are now
aggregated and available in a single file.  This makes it easier for
<q>testing</q> users to review changes in specific packages before they
install them.  The files are available from all mirrors in the
<tt>dists/testing</tt> directory, and are rotated on a daily basis,
being kept about two days.  There's also always a <a
href="http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/ChangeLog">symlink to the
latest one</a>.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="growth">Debian growth over the releases</toc-add-entry>

<p>While analyzing md5sum usage for internal package integrity checks,
Romain Francoise also published some <a href="http://blog.orebokech.com/2010/08/update-on-md5sums-and-debian-growth.html">numbers
about the growth of Debian's archive</a>.  To his astonishment Debian's
<q>unstable</q> branch has grown from about 20,000 packages to over 30,000
within three years!</p>

<p>He also calculated the growth rate of the releases, and estimates that
with the upcoming Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q> about 29,000 packages will be
released, which is a growth compared to Debian 5.0 <q>Lenny</q> of
29.6%.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="dc">Organising the annual Debian Conference</toc-add-entry>

<p>Richard Darst continued his blog post on how to organise the annual
Debian Conference.  He covers the topics <q><a
href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/3">What is the
DebConf team?</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/4">The
DebConf selection process</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/5">How
DebConf manages money</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/6">DebConf
budgeting for a single conference</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/7">The
DebConf registration process</a></q>, and
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/8">DebConf
Fund-raising</a></q>.
</p>


<toc-add-entry name="key">New signing key for the Debian Archive created</toc-add-entry>

<p>FTP-Master Jörg Jaspert announced <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/87d3t3as2k.fsf@gkar.ganneff.de">details of
the new signing key for the Debian archive</a>. The new key has already
been added to the <a
href="https://packages.debian.org/debian-archive-keyring">debian-archive-keyring</a>
package, which was also updated in the recent Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6
<q>Lenny</q> release.  The new key will be used once Debian 6.0
<q>Squeeze</q> is released or the old key is expired (by the end of 2012).
Whichever comes first.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="other">Other news</toc-add-entry>

<p>Following the <q>unofficial</q> bits from the ARM porters mentioned in
last issue, Hector Oron posted <a
href="https://lists.debian.org/20100826105951.GB20172@enorme">official
bits</a>.  He gave more details about the work in the Hardfloat ARM port,
and also listed various supporters of the ARM port, including Linaro, which is a
not-for-profit organisation sponsored by engineers and manufacturers
with an interest in ARM.</p>

<p>Colin Watson <a
href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~cjwatson/blosxom/2010/08/28#2010-08-28-windows-applications-making-grub2-unbootable">called
for help debugging a GRUB2</a> problem with some Windows applications.
Apparently some proprietary software overwrites some parts of GRUB to store
some licensing information.  Colin asks affected users for some data and
gave instructions on how to obtain it.</p>

<p>Robert Millan announced the availability of experimental <a
href="http://robertmh.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/debian-installer-with-zfs/">Debian
Installer images with ZFS support</a>.</p>

<p>The Emdebian Team released <a
href="http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/serendipity/index.php?/archives/212-Emdebian-Grip-updated.html">Emdebian
Grip 1.0.1</a>, which is a binary compatible distribution with smaller
packages (e.g. with documentation stripped) based upon Debian 5.0.6,
targeting embedded devices.</p>

<p>Christian Perrier was pleased to find out that for Debian 6.0
<q>Squeeze</q> <a href="http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2010/09/02#100percent-squeeze">six
languages</a> might be able to achieve the goal of having 100% of debconf
messages translated: <a
href="http://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/po-debconf/rank">Swedish, Russian, French, German, Portuguese,
and Czech</a>.  For Debian 5.0 <q>Lenny</q> only French and German made the 100%.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="newcontributors">New Debian Contributors</toc-add-entry>

	<p>
7 applicants have been
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/E1OsAC5-00065x-HX@franck.debian.org">accepted</a>
	as Debian Maintainer and
6 people <a href="https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/new-maintainers.cgi">started
        to maintain packages</a> since the previous issue of the Debian
	Project News. Please welcome
Javier Merino Cacho, Kurashiki Satoru, Sebastien Noel, Maia Kozheva, Tanguy
Ortolo, Thierry Carrez, Ulrich Dangel, Douglas Kirkland, Alice Ferrazzi,
Nicolas Valc&aacute;rcel Scerpella, T&aacute;ssia Cam&otilde;es Ara&uacute;jo, Ryan Tandy and
Marco Rodrigues
	into our project!</p>



<toc-add-entry name="rcstats">Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release</toc-add-entry>

	<p>According to the <a href="http://bts.turmzimmer.net/details.php">unofficial
	release-critical bug counter</a>, the upcoming release,
	Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q>, is currently affected by
226 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily solved
	or on the way to being solved, roughly speaking, about
129 release critical bugs remain to be solved for the
	release to happen.</p>

	<p>There are also <a
href="http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2010-35">more detailed
	statistics</a> as well as some <a
	href="https://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats">hints on how to
	interpret</a> these numbers.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="dsa">Important Debian Security Advisories</toc-add-entry>

	<p>Debian's Security Team recently released
	advisories for these packages (among others):
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2097">phpmyadmin</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2098">typo3-src</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2099">OpenOffice.org</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2100">openssl</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2101">wireshark</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2102">barnowl</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2103">smbind</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2104">quagga</a>, and
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2105">freetype</a>.

	Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.</p>

<p>Please note that these are a selection of the more important security
advisories of the last weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about
security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please
subscribe to the <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/">security mailing
list</a> for announcements.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="nnwp">New and noteworthy packages</toc-add-entry>

<p>The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive
recently (<a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg">among
others</a>):</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ejabberd-mod-shared-roster-ldap">ejabberd-mod-shared-roster-ldap &mdash; shared roster via LDAP for ejabberd</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/fai-setup-storage">fai-setup-storage &mdash; automatically prepare storage devices</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/openttd-openmsx">openttd-openmsx &mdash; free music set for use with the OpenTTD game</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sugar-turtleart-activity">sugar-turtleart-activity &mdash; LOGO-like tool for teaching programming - Sugar activity</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/system-config-printer-udev">system-config-printer-udev &mdash; utilities to detect and configure printers automatically</a></li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/turtleart">turtleart &mdash; LOGO-like tool for teaching programming</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Please note that due to the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100806">freeze of the upcoming
Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q></a> acceptance of new packages has almost ceased.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="wnpp">Work-needing packages</toc-add-entry>

	<p>Currently
564 packages are orphaned and
133 packages are up for adoption. Please take a look at the
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/E1Oomo8-0003kY-F5@merkel.debian.org">recent</a>
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/E1OrK8o-0002UL-G1@merkel.debian.org">reports</a>
	to see if there are packages you are interested in or view the complete
	list of <a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested">packages
	which need your help</a>.</p>



<toc-add-entry name="continuedpn">Want to continue reading DPN?</toc-add-entry>

<p>Please help us create this newsletter.  We still need more volunteer writers
to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the
<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute">contributing
page</a> to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail
at <a href="mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org">debian-publicity@lists.debian.org</a>.</p>


#use wml::debian::projectnews::footer editor="Margarita Manterola, Jeremiah C. Foster, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl"
<!-- Translators may also add a translator="foo, bar, baz" to the previous line -->