[dwn][joey@infodrom.org: Preview 2003/22]
----- Forwarded message from Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org> -----
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 22:59:52 +0200
From: Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
To: Debian Weekly News <dwn@debian.org>
Cc: Debian Weekly News Translators <dwn-trans@debian.org>,
Rob Bradford <rob@debianplanet.org>
Subject: Preview 2003/22
I'm sorry for being a bit late, the task hung half finished.
Below please find the preview of tomorrow's version of DWN. As
usual, please report errors as soon as you can.
Regards,
Joey
#use wml::debian::weeklynews::header PUBDATE="2003-06-03" SUMMARY="Knoppix, Lists, Flames, Menu, Indian, Sound, PowerPC, Events, Subversion, BTS, FDL, Embedded, Patents"
# $Id: index.wml,v 1.1 2003/05/28 05:06:55 bli Exp $
<p>Welcome to this year's 22nd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community. Petter Reinholdtsen <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-0305/msg00000.html";>announced</a> a
new Skolelinux CD <a href="ftp://developer.skolelinux.no/skolelinux-cd/";>\
image</a> a while ago that fixes many bugs and uses the debian-installer
already. Mario Lang urgently needs <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-accessibility-0305/msg00015.html";>help</a>
fixing bugs in the speakup kernel packages, otherwise the package has to be
abandoned.</p>
<p><strong>Discussion about Debian on the Mac.</strong> This Slashdot <a
href="http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/03/05/25/2217237.shtml?tid=106&tid=185";>\
posting</a> complains about the difficulty of installing Debian on an iBook
and says: "Knoppix has certainly made it easier to put Debian on x86
machines, but does such a thing exist for Macs?" In the discussion, some
readers argued that installing Debian is not that difficult (possibly even
easier on a Mac) and that package management is more important, given that
you only want to install once. Others mentioned <a
href="http://gentoo.org/";>Gentoo's</a> live <a
href="http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/1.4_rc4/ppc/livecd/allstages/";>\
CD</a> for PowerPC.</p>
<p><strong>New Mailing Lists for Debian.</strong> Anand Kumria <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0305/msg00015.html";>\
announced</a> five new mailing lists hosted at <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/";>lists.debian.org</a>. The <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-multimedia/";>debian-multimedia</a> list
was already coverd in our last issue. The <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-x86-64/";>debian-x86-64</a> list aims at
people porting Debian to AMD's new 64-bit architecture. The <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-ukrainian/";>debian-ukrainian</a> list
provides a forum for Ukrainian users. Finally, <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-polish/";>debian-l10n-polish</a> and
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-turkish/";>debian-l10n-turkish</a>
intend to help translate Debian into Polish and Turkish.</p>
<p><strong>Flaming with Jamie Zawinski.</strong> LiveJournal contains a <a
href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/204780.html";>report</a> by Jamie
Zawinski, the author of the <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/xscreensaver";>xscreensaver</a> program, in
which he complains about Branden Robinson <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0305/msg00252.html";>being</a> a
"gigantic flaming dick". However, it is not clear to us why Jamie <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-x-0305/msg00264.html";>considered</a> the
answer to be a flame. Branden was demonstratively objective in his reply.
Jamie was confused by a string in the changelog of an unofficial Debian
package of XFree86, that he found on the Internet, which contained the name of
his program.</p>
<p><strong>Debian Menu System Development.</strong> Bill Allombert <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0305/msg00016.html";>\
announced</a> that the menu system is actively maintained again. Bill and
Morten Brix Pedersen fixed more than 80 bugs in the package and created a <a
href="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/menu/";>project</a> in Alioth. The
package also <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n-0304/msg00008.html";>supports</a>
internationalisation. He also <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy-0305/msg00051.html";>mentions</a>
that icons are not required to only use 24 colors documented in the menu
package.</p>
<p><strong>Quantian Scientific Computing Environment.</strong> Dirk
Eddelbüttel <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02037.html";>announced</a>
<a href="http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html";>Quantian</a>, a
remastered version of <a href="//www.knopper.net/knoppix/">Knoppix</a>. <a
href="http://software.biostat.washington.edu/edd/quantian/";>Quantian</a> differs from
Knoppix by adding a set of programs of interest to applied or theoretical
workers in quantitative or data-driven fields. It still retains all of
Knoppix' impressive features in terms of autoconfiguration of virtually all
available hardware features. If there is sufficient interest, this project
may become a Debian subproject.</p>
<p><strong>Improved Indian Support for Debian.</strong> Jaldhar Vyas <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg01859.html";>wondered</a> if
there is any interest in a sub-project for increasing the support for Indian
languages within Debian. Both GNOME and KDE contain viable support already.
His goals would be to package Indian support software or write it as
necessary, help with i18n and l10n for existing software and advocate the use
of Debian in the Indian community.</p>
<p><strong>Distributing Sound Files.</strong> Roberto Gordo Saez <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0305/msg00544.html";>wondered</a> if
he is permitted to use the sounds of a package that is distributed
considerably free in a different project. After looking at the <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/chromium";>chromium</a> game he found out that
it contains third party sound files, which may originally be distributed under
a different <a href="http://www.findsounds.com/cpolicy.html";>license</a>.</p>
# From: Dan Hunt <dan.hunt@st.brieux.com>
<p><strong>Knoppix CD for Machine Clusters.</strong> Slashdot <a
href="http://slashdot.org/articles/03/05/29/1336229.shtml";>reported</a> about
an effort by Wim Vandersmissen who created <a
href="http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/";>ClusterKnoppix</a>. He added support
for <a href="http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/";>openMosix</a> to a regular <a
href="//www.knopper.net/knoppix/">Knoppix</a> image. The new CD features the
openMosix terminal server, openMosix autodiscovery, and clustermanagement
tools such as openMosix userland.</p>
# From: "Florian M. Weps" <fweps@greenmail.ch>
<p><strong>Debian on Power4 Highend Server.</strong> Florian Weps <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc-0305/msg00542.html";>reported</a>
about the opportunity he had to test an <a
href="http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/au/pseries/630/";>IBM p630</a> for a
few weeks. After the AIX tests were finished, he and his collegues decided to
<a href="http://people.debian.org/~fmw/p630-LPAR-Debian-en.txt";>install</a>
Debian GNU/Linux on one partition of this machine. They benefitted a lot from
the <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc-0207/msg00858.html";>\
howto</a> by Rolf Brudeseth covering the Debian network installation on IBM
RS/6000 machines.</p>
<p><strong>Conferences in Austria and Brazil.</strong> The Debian project <a
href="$(HOME)/News/2003/20030531">announced</a> that it has been invited to
participate in two conferences that are taking place from June 5th to 7th. At
the <a href="$(HOME)/events/2003/0605-linuxwochen">LinuxWochen</a> in Vienna,
Austria, Debian will be present with a booth staffed by Gerfried Fuchs who
will also give a talk about Debian and organize a keysigning party. At the <a
href="$(HOME)/events/2003/0605-softwarelivre">International Free Software
Convention</a> in Porto Alegre, Brazil, almost all Brazilian Debian Developers
will meet while Bdale Garbee and Wichert Akkerman will give talks.</p>
<p><strong>Debian featured in HP Whitepaper.</strong> In a <a
href="http://devresource.hp.com/drc/technical_white_papers/wsopensrc.pdf";>\
whitepaper</a> from HP that covers Open Source for web services development
Debian is prominently mentioned. The document emphasises its
vendor-neutralness, the strict open-source-only policy, its vigorous quality
program, that avoids the types of issues that have recently plagued certain
commercial distributions, and more. Finally, Debian has a very easy to use
interface for installing and updating software packages.</p>
<p><strong>Managing Package Source with Subversion?</strong> Marcelo Magellon
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02056.html";>wondered</a>
if and how to maintain the source of Debian packages with Subversion. Most
notably, he's interested in a way to convert an existing CVS repository to
Subversion. Joey Hess answered that he uses a set of handmade scripts for
maintenance and <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02121.html";>reported</a>
about his experiences with Subversion.</p>
<p><strong>Compiling 64bit Sparc Kernel.</strong> Martin Pitt would <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02059.html";>like</a> to
compile a late 2.5 kernel for sparc64 which runs a 64bit kernel but a 32bit
userland. Therefore he needs a cross-compiler and <code>egcs64</code> seems
to old for him. Ben Collins <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02072.html";>explained</a>
that it will build the kernel, and after a bug is fixed the kernel will even
run. He also mentioned that gcc-3.3 will compile 64bit kernels, but they do
not boot.</p>
<p><strong>New Tags for the Bug Tracking System.</strong> Colin Watson <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02174.html";>announced</a>
two new tags for the <a href="$(HOME)/Bugs/">Bug Tracking System</a>. The tag
<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/tag:lfs";>lfs</a> refers to bugs about large
file support and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/tag:ipv6";>ipv6</a> refer to
bugs with support for IPv6. Guido Günther <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg02192.html";>added</a> that
if these things get tags it would make a lot of sense to add architecture tags
as well in order to classify problems on certain architectures. James Troup
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00023.html";>\
objected</a>, though.</p>
<p><strong>Invariant Sections in Documentation.</strong> Richard Stallman
started a <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0305/msg00545.html";>\
discussion</a> that again covers problems inherited by the GNU <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html";>Free Documentation License</a>
(GFDL) if a document includes invariant sections which renders the document
non-free according to Debian's interpretation. It seems that the GFDL is a
dangerous license which does not always imply free documentation.</p>
<p><strong>Embedded Debian Package Management.</strong> Bruno Randolf <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-embedded-0305/msg00004.html";>would
like</a> to use the Debian package management system for an embedded
distribution on a MIPS platform. Therefore he has investigated several
projects and found out that there seem to be quite a lot approaches and ideas,
but only little coordination. Wookey also <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-embedded-0305/msg00006.html";>mentioned</a>
the <a href="http://sprite.fr.eu.org/cross-packages-mini-policy.txt";>mini
policy</a> for cross-compiling related packages.</p>
<p><strong>GNU Emacs Manual considered non-free.</strong> Jérôme Marant <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-emacsen-0305/msg00033.html";>announced</a>
that the GNU Emacs Manual will be moved to non-free, due to invariant sections
and the use of the GNU FDL. Invariant sections don't allow modifications
which are required by the <a href="$(HOME)/social_contract#guidelines">\
Debian Free Software Guidelines</a>. This is very unfortunate, especially
since it affects documentation from the <a href="http://www.fsf.org/";>Free
Software Foundation</a>.</p>
<p><strong>OpenOffice.org 1.1beta Debian Packages.</strong> The Debian
OpenOffice.org team proudly <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-openoffice-0305/msg00166.html";>\
announced</a> the availability of preliminary packages of <a
href="http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/1.1beta/";>OpenOffice.org 1.1
beta</a>. They are downloadable from the debian-openoffice <a
href="http://www.linux-debian.de/openoffice/mirrors.html";>mirrors</a>, in
section 'unstable'. These packages are not yet polished with all features
from the 1.0.x packages, but the majority of the functionality is in
place.</p>
<p><strong>Software Patents Meeting in Cambridge.</strong> Wookey <a
href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-uk/2003-June/001481.html";>\
forwarded</a> an announcement for a public <a
href="http://www.tangledtime.com/patents.htm";>meeting</a> that intends to
increase public awareness of EU software Patent legislation which is pending.
The meeting will take place at Free Press, a non-smoking pub, Prospect Row in
Cambridge, U.K., at 8pm on Thursday June 5th.</p>
<p><strong>Security Updates.</strong> You know the drill. Please make sure
that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="$(HOME)/security/2003/dsa-307">gps</a> --
Multiple vulnerabilities.
</ul>
<p><strong>New or Noteworthy Packages.</strong> The following packages were
added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/aft.html";>aft</a>
-- Document preparation system for "free form".
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/arson.html";>arson</a>
-- KDE frontend for burning CDs.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/debtags.html";>debtags</a>
-- Enables support for package tags.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/gpdf.html";>gpdf</a>
-- Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kgpg.html";>kgpg</a>
-- GnuPG frontend for KDE.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/kwiki.html";>kwiki</a>
-- Quickie Wiki that's not too Tricky.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/mysqlcc.html";>mysqlcc</a>
-- The official GUI interface for MySQL.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/oooqs-kde.html";>oooqs-kde</a>
-- OpenOffice.org QuickStarter applet for KDE.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/openexr.html";>openexr</a>
-- Viewer and docs for the OpenEXR image format.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/pen.html";>pen</a>
-- This is pen, a load balancer for "simple" tcp based protocols such.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/pyblosxom.html";>pyblosxom</a>
-- simple weblog ("blog") written in Python.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/sdcc-doc.html";>sdcc-doc</a>
-- Documentation for the SDCC compiler.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/tagcolledit.html";>tagcolledit</a>
-- GUI editor for tagged collections.
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/zopectl.html";>zopectl</a>
-- Zope instances controlling utility.
</ul>
<p><strong>Orphaned Packages.</strong> 6 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 189 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software
community. Please see the <a href="$(HOME)/devel/wnpp/">WNPP pages</a> for
the full list, and please add a note to the bug report and retitle it to ITA:
if you plan to take over a package.</p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/pente.html";>pente</a>
-- Five in a row game for X and the console.
(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/195686";>Bug#195686</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/fwctl.html";>fwctl</a>
-- Configure ipchains firewall using higher level abstraction.
(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/195177";>Bug#195177</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/gnophone.html";>gnophone</a>
-- An internet telephone application.
(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/195601";>Bug#195601</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libphonecore1.html";>phonecore</a>
-- IAX software telephone framework.
(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/195602";>Bug#195602</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/pose.html";>pose</a>
-- PalmOS Emulator.
(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/195373";>Bug#195373</a>)</li>
<li> <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/otherosfs/pose-skins.html";>pose-skins</a>
-- Skins for the PalmOS Emulator.
(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/195374";>Bug#195374</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Want to continue reading DWN?</strong> Please help us create this
newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who investigate the Debian
community and report about events in the community. Please see the <a
href="$(HOME)/News/weekly/contributing">contributing page</a> to find out how
to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at <a
href="mailto:dwn@debian.org";>dwn@debian.org</a>.</p>
#use wml::debian::weeklynews::footer editor="Matt Black, Martin 'Joey' Schulze"
--
If nothing changes, everything will remain the same. -- Barne's Law
----- End forwarded message -----
--
May the source be with you NO A LA GUERRA - NOT TO WAR
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ignacio García Fernández Instituto de Robótica
<ignacio.garcia_at_uv.es> Universidad de Valencia
http://robotica.uv.es/~ignacio/ Tlf. 96 354 3564
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