Debian Weekly News - May 23rd, 2002
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/21/
Debian Weekly News - May 23rd, 2002
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Welcome to this year's twentyfirst issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. We're sorry to be late, but Joey's
involvement at [1]LinuxTag organisation kept him from preparing DWN in
time. This is likely to continue until beginning of June. Of course,
this week included a [2]mail asking when Woody will be ready. Short
answer: There is still work to do before we can release.
1. http://www.linuxtag.org/
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0205/msg01059.html
Is MPlayer Ready For Debian Packaging? With the recently released
version 0.90pre2 of MPlayer, some important improvements to the source
were [3]announced. The package now entirely consists of 100 % GPL
code and also contains runtime CPU detection code. This means that any
x86 MPlayer binary can run on any other x86 CPU. Compile-time
detection of the target CPU is not required anymore. A third
interesting improvement refers to the support for more file formats,
including the new and very popular Ogg format.
3. http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/homepage/
License Problem with new Nessus Package. Josip Rodin [4]explains that
he cannot release new Nessus packages because the upstream decided to
switch to using OpenSSL, which is linked agains GPLed code. Later
Simon Law [5]tried to reach upstream.
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0205/msg00059.html
5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0205/msg00080.html
Missing Build-Depends. Junichi Uekawa released a [6]list of packages
that do not have a Build-Depends line but depend on other things than
build-essential. The list is intended as a helpful approximation.
Considering that there is only about 300 of them, which is making less
than 10% of the Debian distribution, we might be quite close to having
a useful Build-Depends setup. Thanks for all the people who's made
this possible!
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0205/msg00972.html
Packaging Fortunes. Aurelien Jarno [7]pondered about the legal status
for collections of fortune cookies. He was told that each fortune
itself is a quotation, and it this legal to include it, as long as it
is no longer than 4 lines, which is believed to constitute "fair use".
However, the source package itself, which includes all the fortune
cookies, needs a copyright from the person, who has compiled it.
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0205/msg00105.html
Flamewar of the Week. Nils Rennebarth [8]wondered if long delays with
regard to new packages are due to the upcoming woody release. Even
with this rather not-flaming question, Jeroen Dekkers [9]turned it
into a "Debian is so anti-Hurd" flamewar. With more than 300 mails in
this thread, it cannot be ignored. However, contributing to it,
doesn't make much sense, since it became a real huge flamfest.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0205/msg00996.html
9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0205/msg01168.html
GCC 3.1 for Debian? The GNU Compiler Collection 3.1 was [10]released
recently and [11]several [12]mails [13]indicate that the GCC
maintainers are already [14]working [15]towards packages for all
architectures. The package doesn't bootstrap properly on the m68k and
powerpc architecture, unfortunately. Preliminary packages, including
binary packages for the intel x86 architecture, are [16]here.
10. http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.1/
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc-0205/msg00015.html
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc-0205/msg00078.html
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc-0205/msg00092.html
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc-0205/msg00093.html
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc-0205/msg00095.html
16. http://ftp-master.debian.org/~doko/gcc/
Restructuring Webmin. Jaldhar Vyas [17]announced his plans to
restructure webmin packages. It is a framework for web-based system
administration tools written in Perl. It's released by the upstream
developer as one big tarball. The framework and most of these modules
are already packaged as part of the webmin source package but Jaldhar
wants to split it up into seperate source packages.
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0205/msg01098.html
CVS Directories in Binary Packages? Joey Hess [18]noticed that about
50 binary packages in unstable contain CVS files (like Entries, Root
and Repository). He wondered if anyone could think of a reason for a
Debian binary package to include it.
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0205/msg01152.html
Debian Used for Setting a Record. The [19]Internet2 consortium
recently [20]announced a new intercontinental Internet performance
record. It was set by transferring the equivalent of an entire compact
disc's contents across more than 7608 miles (12,272 km) of network in
13 seconds. Desktop computers running the Debian system were used on
both ends of the pipe. With an internet connection of this size
transferring all six CDs of Woody from Fairbanks to Amsterdam would
only [21]require 78 seconds.
19. http://www.internet2.edu/
20. http://archives.internet2.edu/guest/archives/I2-NEWS/log200205/msg00003.html
21. http://www.debian.org/News/..News/2002/20020522
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
Debian archive recently or contain important updates.
* [22]fuse-source -- Filesystem in USErspace.
* [23]gpgkeys -- GPG Keymanagement frontend.
* [24]h5utils -- A collection of tools to visualize HDF5 files.
* [25]lsdb -- The Lovely Sister Database (email rolodex) for Emacs.
* [26]med-imaging -- Debian Med imaging packages.
* [27]mp3report -- Perl script to create an HTML report of MP3 files
in a directory.
* [28]seahorse -- A Gnome front end for GnuPG.
* [29]usemod-wiki -- Perl-based Wiki clone.
* [30]vls -- A free MPEG and DVD server.
22. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/fuse-source.html
23. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/gpgkeys.html
24. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/science/h5utils.html
25. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/mail/lsdb.html
26. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/misc/med-imaging.html
27. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/mp3report.html
28. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/utils/seahorse.html
29. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/usemod-wiki.html
30. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/graphics/vls.html
Seen something interesting? Please drop us a note whenever you see
something noteworthy that you think is appropriate for inclusion in
DWN. We don't see everything, unfortunately, and this month will be a
busy one for us. Of course, we are also thankful for completely
written items from volunteer writers. We're looking forward to
receiving your mail at [31]dwn@debian.org.
31. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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