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Please contribute short news about your work/plans/subproject.
In this issue:
+ New Iceweasel add-on to help looking up developer sites
+ Realtime collaborative text editing services for Debian
+ DEP9: Availability of reconf-inetd (replacement of update-inetd)
+ Security tracker improvements
+ Derivatives census improvements
+ mentors.d.n software upgrade
+ Support for the copyright format 1.0 (developed as DEP 5)
New Iceweasel add-on to help looking up developer sites
-------------------------------------------------------
A new Firefox/Iceweasel add-on Debian buttons[1] was packaged by Tanguy
Ortolo[2]. The add-on makes available several toolbar buttons that can be
used to quickly lookup information in the BTS, PTS, packages.debian.org,
mailing list archive, DDPO, Build daemon logs and the security tracker.
The keyword for the lookup is taken from the clipboard, so no keyboard is
required.
-- Damyan Ivanov
[1] http://icedeb.ktnx.net/
[2] http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article40/debian-buttons
Realtime collaborative text editing services for Debian
-------------------------------------------------------
There are now a number of realtime collaborative text editing services
for Debian available. Stefano Zacchiroli reported[3] that there is now a
Titanpad instance for Debian[4] (web-based). In addition there is a
Mobwrite instance for Debian[5] (also web-based), which provides a
simpler, text-only interface. For those who prefer not to use
JavaScript-based applications, `gobby.debian.org` is now up and
running[6], you will need to install gobby-0.5[7] and run `gobby-0.5` to
access it. Both Titanpad and Gobby also have integrated chat systems.
Both Titanpad/Etherpad and Mobwrite are not yet packaged for Debian.
-- Paul Wise
[3] http://lists.debian.org/20120127185635.GA11078@upsilon.cc
[4] http://titanpad.debian.net/
[5] http://whiteboard.debian.net/
[6] http://debblog.philkern.de/2012/02/gobbydebianorg.html
[7] http://packages.debian.org/gobby-0.5
DEP9: Availability of reconf-inetd (replacement of update-inetd)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Maintainers of packages that provide services that
* require separate inetd.conf entries for ipv4/ipv6 versions
* have more than one implementation in the archive (eg. proftpd vs
ftpd-ssl)
Are encouraged to test their packages with reconf-inetd, currently in
unstable. For details see the announcement in debian-devel[8].
-- Serafeim Zanikolas
[8] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/02/msg00456.html
Security tracker improvements
-----------------------------
The Debian security issue tracker[9] now links to the corresponding
Ubuntu and Gentoo security issue pages for each CVE. It also links to a
list of security issue trackers for other distributions. Also in
development[10] is a per-maintainer page listing public security issues
in all of a maintainer's packages.
-- Paul Wise
[9] http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/
[10] http://bugs.debian.org/660190
Derivatives census improvements
-------------------------------
The data generated by the derivatives census is now[11] updated on a
daily basis, including patches[12] between Debian and derivatives with
deb-src entries in their sources.list. If you are a maintainer of source
packages in Debian and you have some spare time on your hands, you might
want to look at the patches for your source packages and determine if
they are useful for Debian. In many cases the patches will not be useful
(such as the empty or changelog-only ones). Future work may involve
creating an interface to the patches data to allow individual maintainers
to filter out uninteresting patches, mark useful ones as merged etc. Help
on any aspect of this project is extremely welcome. Thanks go to DSA,
Peter Palfrader and Steve McIntyre. Peter implemented
`snapshot.debian.org` two years ago, which the patch generation relies
on. Steve hosted the 2011 Debian UK BBQ weekend, where most of the
details of the patch generation were hammered out.
-- Paul Wise
[11] http://lists.debian.org/debian-derivatives/2012/01/msg00023.html
[12] http://lists.debian.org/debian-derivatives/2012/02/msg00024.html
mentors.d.n software upgrade
----------------------------
Arno Töll reported[13] that mentors.debian.net has been upgraded to
debexpo 2.0 (the "Welcome Nicolas Dandrimont release"). Due to database
changes, the existing comments and package subscriptions were temporarily
removed from the database. The QA plugin infrastructure had a major
overhaul, with better output and having machine-readable backend data.
Packages are now automatically removed when they reach Debian or when
they did not find a sponsor for 12 weeks. All uploads are verified using
OpenPGP keys instead of the previous method. The website also now
supports HTTPS to prevent leaking passwords and session cookies. Several
annoying bugs (including the orig.tar.gz overwrite bug) were fixed.
Thanks to the cleanup done with this upgrade, future updates will be
quicker and easier.
-- Paul Wise
[13] http://lists.debian.org/4F498C5E.9050700@toell.net
Support for the copyright format 1.0 (developed as DEP 5)
---------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.0[14] of the machine-readable format for Debian copyright files
(the culmination of the DEP 5[15] process) has been published[16]
following the release of the version 3.9.3[17] of the Debian policy. In
parallel, Lintian has been updated to version 2.5.5[18], which has an
extensive support for the machine-readable format and its version 1.0 URL
in its tags[19]. The machine-readable format can be generated by hand or
with helpers, such as licensecheck2dep5[20], or Config::Model[21], for
which a new command-line interface, cme[22], has been released recently.
-- Charles Plessy
[14] http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
[15] http://dep.debian.net
[16] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00014.html
[17] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00013.html
[18] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/l/lintian/lintian_2.5.5/changelog#version2.5.5
[19] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=lintian/lintian.git;a=blob;f=checks/source-copyright.desc
[20] http://packages.debian.org/cdbs
[21] http://packages.debian.org/libconfig-model-perl
[22] http://ddumont.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/configmodel-new-cme-command-is-avaialable/
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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