Debian Weekly News - December 12th, 2001
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2001/33/
Debian Weekly News - December 12th, 2001
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Ports Anymore? Some people were [1]wondering why Debian's main Web
page doesn't contain a link to [2]Ports anymore. Josip Rodin
[3]explained that he removed the link, since he felt that it didn't
seem to fit in the section where it was, and he couldn't quite find
any other place to squeeze it in.
Debian at FOSDEM? The Debian Project has been offered a [4]conference
room for a Debian meeting during the next [5]Free & Open Source
software developer's European Meeting (FOSDEM). This event takes place
in Brussels on February 16th and 17th. People who are interested in
giving a talk or attending should contact Joey at events@debian.org.
Halfway non-free? Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller [6]proposed splitting some
packages off of non-free and creating a new partially-free collection,
which could contain manuals that only fail DFSG 2, 3 or 6 -- such as
the Emacs Manual. However, there's still an [7]ongoing discussion
about this issue. This has come up before, and for packages which are
not entirely free there is the non-free repository.
Contacting Bug Submitters. Since some people were confused about the
Bug Tracking System's (BTS) behaviour we'd like to quote [8]Colin
Watson: If you are attempting to get in touch with a bug submitter, do
NOT send mail only to nnnnn@bugs.debian.org. If you do that, the
message will only be sent to the maintainer, and the submitter will
never see it. Always Cc: either nnnnn-submitter@bugs.debian.org or the
submitter's e-mail address directly if she should know about the mail.
For those of you unfamiliar with the BTS, nnnnn is the number of the
bug.
Too Many Acronyms? The Debian mailing lists are rife with Linux gurus
and newbies alike. When a newbie wanders into a discussion the acronym
and jargon ratio is usually more than they can bear. Mark Bucciarelli
[9]brought this up on the Debian Java list, but it's a problem on
other lists as well. Even competent computer users get confused
because many acronyms are Debian-specific. (Like NMU, ITP, BTS,
etc...) Naturally a technical community like the Debian crowd isn't
going to stop using jargon and acronyms -- nor should they, they're
more efficient and that's why they're used in the first place. Perhaps
it's time for a Debian Glossary project, though? I (Zonker) am
throwing the idea out there to see if people are interested. If so,
I'll set up an alias for folks willing to work on such a project. I
(Joey) am already maintaining such a [10]list, contributions are
welcome, of course.
Apache Belonging In non-free? Rob Bos finally brought up an [11]issue
about the Apache Web server on [12]debian-devel. Its license says that
the names "Apache Server" and "Apache Group" must not be used to
endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior
written permission. Debian, however, is modifying several files so
that the Debian package could possibly be considered as derivative
work. A similar [13]discussion was covered on [14]debian-legal about 8
months ago. The discussion is rather pointless, but it happened...
Unofficial Debian Testing FAQ. Several people have questions with
regard to the testing distribution. In an attempt to compile and
present knowledge about the testing distribution, which is currently
spread among those developers who read Anthony Towns' postings most
carefully, Jules Bean has prepared an [15]Unofficial Debian Testing
FAQ.
Debian Menus Policy. This week, Rob Bradford brought up the [16]need
for menu files for all packages that provide X, Gtk, Gnome or KDE
applications. Erik Steffl [17]asked for a better menu structure so it
doesn't look as chaotic as it does now. Looks like somebody will need
to go through all current menu items and check for their relevance and
location, and go through all other packages and provide menu items for
them.
A Few Unofficial KDE Packages... Gregory J. Oschwald [18]announced
that he has made packages of KLatin, KLettres and KMessedWords from
the KDE Edutainment project available. Anyone who wants to run these
apps on Sid can find them at
[19]http://cda.mrs.umn.edu/~osch0001/edu/.
IrDA on Dell Inspiron. We ran across [20]this advice on getting IrDA
to work on a Dell Inspiron 8100. Anyone who wants to sync their Palm
Pilot directly to a laptop might want to check this out. Very nifty.
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following new or updated packages were
added to the Debian archive since our [21]last issue.
* [22]wavemon -- Wireless Device Monitoring Application.
* [23]euro-support -- Support for the Euro character in your Debian
system.
* [24]fblogo -- Converts images to framebuffer-logo header file.
* [25]ogle -- A DVD player with support for DVD menus.
* [26]pyne -- A Python-GTK powered GUI mail-/newsreader.
* [27]xslide -- An XSL editing mode for Emacs..
Security Updates. You know the drill, make sure you update your
systems if you have one of these packages installed.
* [28]fml -- Improper character escaping.
* [29]icecast-server -- Remote root exploit.
* [30]xtel -- Symlink attack.
* [31]ssh -- Influencing login.
* [32]wmtv -- Local root exploit.
Got news? So please tell us! We're looking forward to adding more
items by voluntary writers. Send your scribbles to [33]dwn@debian.org.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-www-0112/msg00010.html
2. http://www.debian.org/ports/
3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-www-0112/msg00011.html
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu-0111/msg00039.html
5. http://www.fosdem.org/
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0112/msg00074.html
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0112/msg00001.html
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0112/msg00305.html
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2001/debian-java-200112/msg00026.html
10. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/doc/acronyms.html
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0112/msg00431.html
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0104/msg00049.html
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/
15. http://people.debian.org/~jules/testingfaq.html
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0112/msg00635.html
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0112/msg00657.html
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2001/debian-kde-200112/msg00135.html
19. http://cda.mrs.umn.edu/~osch0001/edu/
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop-0112/msg00178.html
21. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2001/32/
22. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/wavemon.html
23. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/euro-support.html
24. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/fblogo.html
25. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/ogle.html
26. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/pyne.html
27. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/xslide.html
28. http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-088
29. http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-089
30. http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-090
31. http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-091
32. http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-092
33. mailto:dwn@debian.org
Reply to: