Debian Weekly News - October 9th, 2001
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2001/25/
Debian Weekly News - October 9th, 2001
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DDP Needs You! The [1]Debian Documentation Project was formed to
coordinate and unify all efforts to write more and better
documentation for the Debian system. It contains quite a lot
documents, ranging from a [2]FAQ, several [3]users manuals, some
[4]administration and [5]network manuals concluding with the
[6]Securing Debian Manual which we mentioned in our last issue. Only
a few of these documents are maintained properly, most of them are in
an unfinished state which doesn't render them quite useful. Writing
documentation has always been a pain for software developers, but it
is a very important task. Volunteers should select a manual they want
to work on and find out how to access its recent source using [7]cvs,
then contact our [8]debian-doc list.
No DDTS Mails Anymore. Some weeks ago the [9]Debian Description
Translation Server which controls the translation effort of packages
descriptions started sending out automatic notification mails to all
maintainers whose package description were initially translated or
when a translation was modified. This resulted in some confusion
because the mail didn't tell maintainers what to do with the
translation and all affected maintainers got these mails, regardless
of them wanting to receive such mails nor not. The situation has
[10]escalated. However, the problem seems to be resolved now, since no
automatic mails will be sent out by the DDTS anymore. In the future
maintainers will eventually be able to subscribe to such mails, but
the default will be: no automatic notification. Latest news:
[11]improved server with subscribe mechanism.
HTML from DocBook XML. Wolfgang Bogert writes with a [12]summary of
the help he's received for putting together HTML documents from a
DocBook XML document.
Packaging and Database Access. A [13]question came up on the
[14]debian-devel list with regards to php and databases, wondering how
things should be packaged if the package requires access to a
database. This raises two questions, first of all, how should the
system be packaged, should databases and access automatically created?
The second issue covers running systems on which such a database may
contain confidential information. Since PHP is running as www-data for
all users and virtual hosts, this effectively opens all databases to
any user who can include PHP in their web pages.
New List Debian-Books. Ben Collins [15]requested a new mailing list
called ``[16]debian-books'' in order to isolate discussions of
proposed book titles. The list is open for anybody interested and
could eventually be used for rough draft review and editing as well.
The Debian distribution is popular enough to have [17]books written
about it already. As a sidenote, [18]The Open C Book Project has just
been started, after a [19]request for volunteers was sent.
Cleaning up the Lists. Joey [20]investigated the use of our mailing
lists for the last three weeks, that are served by
[21]lists.debian.org. He came up with a list of mailing lists proposed
for removal. Some of them were previously moved to a different server
without our listmaster noticing. Among the other lists are several
-changes lists which didn't serve any content, or lists for expired
sub-projects like debian-freshmeat or [22]debian-pool.
On Using "Open Source". There have been controversies if using the
term "Open Source" rather than "Free Software" is a good thing or not.
The [23]Free Software Foundation (FSF) their [24]position clear in
1998 already. The Open Source term was [25]established as a marketing
term for free software (also in 1998) and was quickly adopted by many
companies. It makes a big difference which name we use: different
words convey different ideas. As an example Dale Scheetz [26]reported
a use of the term to refer to intelligence information that could be
made public. I (Joey) truly expect the FSF to start a new campaign for
companies to use the term "Free Software" instead.
Fixing the SDL Mess. Branden Robinson posted his [27]intent to fix the
problem that has arisen with shared SDL and static X libraries. Some
of the X extension libraries are available only as static libraries,
since their interfaces are subject to change and they are not
standardized yet. On about half the architectures in Debian (hppa,
ia64, m68k, mips, mipsel, and powerpc), it is not legal to link static
objects into shared ones. The linker will bomb at compile time if you
attempt to do so. However, this is what is packages that depend on the
SDL libraries do, making them unbuildable on certain architectures.
Read Branden's mail for details.
Undistributable by License. Again we have been hit by a [28]license
incompatibility. This time it has happened to our [29]Tomcat packages,
which uses the Apache License upstream, while the Debian maintainer
has formerly used the GPL for his own patches. According to the FSF
both licenses are [30]incompatible. This issue is resolved already,
but we'd like to mention it so people are aware of license problems.
Installing Debian on RiscPC. It [31]came up a long time ago, that our
installation manual didn't properly mention how to install Debian
GNU/Linux on an ARM RiscPC. The discussion [32]revealed that the
linloader [33]license prohibits its inclusion in Debian and the author
[34]has not shown an interest in changing this.
Debian Expo and Conference Week in Germany. The upcoming week and this
weekend will be important for German Debian enthusiasts. There are
three exhibitions and conferences taking place: [35]Wizard of OS
(Berlin, October 11-13), [36]Linux Weekend (Kassel, October 13-14) and
[37]Systems 2001 (Munich, October 15-19). The Debian project will be
present at all of them. Use this chance to get in touch with Debian
developers.
New and Updated Packages. There are some nifty new and updated
packages available in unstable and testing this week:
* [38]ipsc -- A wondeful tool, helps calculate subnet addresses at
the console, also [39]gipsc a subnet calculator for X.
* [40]ethtool -- View and change Ethernet settings.
* [41]libsquirrelmail-spamcop -- A SquirrelMail plugin for
identifying and reporting evil spammers. (Are there any other
kind?)
Security. No security announcements relating to Debian were made in
the last week.
Speak up! If you've got a tip, comment, announcement or other
important information, please send it to [42]dwn@debian.org
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References
1. http://www.debian.org/doc/ddp
2. http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/
3. http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals
4. http://www.debian.org/doc/admin-manuals
5. http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/network-administrator/
6. http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/
7. http://www.debian.org/doc/cvs
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/
9. http://auric.debian.org/~grisu/ddtp/
10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0110/msg00000.html
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0110/msg00003.html
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-sgml-0110/msg00000.html
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0110/msg00214.html
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
15. http://bugs.debian.org/114248
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-books/
17. http://www.debian.org/distrib/books
18. http://opencbp.sourceforge.net/
19. http://www.infodrom.org/Mail-Archive/misc/2001/0011.html
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0110/msg00002.html
21. http://lists.debian.org/
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-pool/
23. http://www.fsf.org/
24. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
25. http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/resolution-2001-04-26.nl.html
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-d109/msg01732.html
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0110/msg00353.html
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0110/msg00004.html
29. http://packages.debian.org/tomcat
30. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm-0108/msg00063.html
32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm-0108/msg00082.html
33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm-0110/msg00010.html
34. http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm-0110/msg00006.html
35. http://www.debian.org/events/2001/1011-wizardofos
36. http://www.debian.org/events/2001/1013-linuxweekend
37. http://www.debian.org/events/2001/1015-systems
38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ipsc.html
39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gipsc.html
40. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ethtool.html
41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/libsquirrelmail-spamcop.html
42. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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