Hi people! It's been an "interesting" time lately. Just when I thought (with a mix of disappointment and relief) that I'd missed out on the DPL job this year, AJ got in touch. After a fair bit of discussion, I was convinced to take on a delegate job helping him. I guess I'd just have too much free time otherwise! A point I made during the election was that the point of the DPL job isn't to gain fame and fortune, but rather to get the job done. Having said that in public, I couldn't really turn down his offer to help. So, what have we been up to in the last month? As AJ already mentioned, we're taking part in the Google Summer of Code project for the first time this year [0]. A quick update: there was a slow start in terms of student applications for all the projects involved, but coming up to the deadline on Monday the 8th things sped up considerably. Looking at our summary page, we have 62 separate summer project applications, covering lots of ideas: improving/speeding up the boot process, porting d-i to Hurd and debtags enhancements are just some of the applications that stand out. Close to my own heart, there's even somebody wanting to re-work debian-cd! :-) There is some time left for the mentors and students to thrash out final details of the proposals, then Google will announce the final decisions on the 23rd of May. At the end of April, I raised the question of whether we should move irc.debian.org away from Freenode to point instead at OFTC [1]. There was quite a debate in response, with some interesting points raised. Quite a number of people have been asking for the move recently, and at the moment we have a fair split in terms of the number of channels on each network. In some cases we even have channels of the same name on both. A quick tally of the opinions in the debian-project thread suggests that many people don't really care where the official Debian IRC home lives. Of the people that did express a preference, quite a large majority would like us to move. Expect to hear more on this soon. The debian-installer team picked up some well-earned praise for their efforts [2]. After many years of complaints about how "hard" Debian has been to install in the past, it looks like the hard work is paying off. With a shiny new graphical installer coming along rapidly, let's hope that people will be blown away by the etch release! Unfortunately, other mailing list discussions have been less happy. A somewhat acrimonious argument between Sven Luther and members of the d-i team spread out across various lists, starting at [3]. There has been quite lot of public discussion and more private attempts to repair the situation, but at this point things are not looking too hopeful. On a more happy note, things are hotting up in Mexico this week as this year's Debconf starts [4]. I'm not going to make it to Oaxtepec myself due to other commitments, which makes me ever-so-slightly jealous of the lucky people who will be going, or in some cases who are there already. Highlights from the mailing lists include the suggestion that those worried about drinking the local water should drink beer instead [5]! Riiiight... :-) Enjoy yourselves, people! Cheers, Steve [0] http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2006 [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/04/msg00333.html [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/04/msg00638.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2006/04/msg00407.html [4] http://debconf6.debconf.org/ [5] http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20060505.075304.b498ce73.en.html -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com "When C++ is your hammer, everything looks like a thumb." -- Steven M. Haflich
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