Debian Weekly News - January 18th, 2005
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2005/03/
Debian Weekly News - January 18th, 2005
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Welcome to this year's 3rd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community. Roger So sent a [1]reminder for the Call for Papers
for the Asia Debian Mini-Conf taking place at the end of February in
Beijing, China. Jeroen van Wolffelaar compiled a [2]list of packages
in contrib which should be forced into the testing stage of contrib.
Ankit Malik listed [3]ten ways to pay back to the Free Software
community.
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/01/msg00008.html
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/01/msg00040.html
3. http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/06/1557225
Final DebConf 4 Report. Pablo Lorenzzoni [4]announced the [5]final
report about the [6]Debian Conference held last year in Porto Alegre.
The report is more a spreadsheet and lists 163 people who have
attended this conference representing many teams inside the Debian
project. Several sponsors have made this event possible and the
organisers even document things that can be improved next time.
4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/01/msg00007.html
5. http://www.debconf.org/debconf4/final-report.html
6. http://www.debian.org/events/2004/0526-debconf
Development on dpkg. Scott James Remnant [7]announced the
experimental branch of [8]dpkg. This branch is intended to see fairly
rapid releases incorporating both bug fixes and new
development/features. It may be slightly more unstable than you may be
used to. Development plans are documented in the [9]dpkg wiki.
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/01/msg00006.html
8. http://packages.debian.org/dpkg
9. http://www.dpkg.org/
New Policy for Debian Consultants. Tobias Toedter [10]proposed a new
policy regarding the addition of entries to the Debian [11]consultants
list. The consultants team didn't reach consensus on which part of the
address is mandatory. Additionally, a discussion came up why Debian is
now requiring the consultant to link to the Debian website as well.
10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/01/msg00236.html
11. http://www.debian.org/consultants/
Call for Papers for Mini-DebConf. Jonathan Oxer [12]called for
speakers for the upcoming Debian Miniconf taking place before the
[13]Linux Conference Australia. Presentation topics have to be
directly related to Debian and be intended for a technical audience.
Presentation slots are 1 hour long with 45 minutes for presentation,
10 minutes for questions and 5 minutes for speaker changeover. The
format is pretty casual and relaxed though so anything can happen on
the day.
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/01/msg00003.html
13. http://www.linux.conf.au/
Keeping old Library Versions intact. Thomas Bushnell [14]wondered how
to keep an older library intact but also providing a newer version.
Santiago Vila [15]proposed to upload the old version with a higher
version number than the current and the new version with a new binary
name and an adjusted library soname. When both libraries are
compatible, the old -dev package is not required anymore and the
library should go into section oldlibs.
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00623.html
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00631.html
Different Architectures Binary Packages. Norbert Preining [16]wondered
if there is support for placing binaries of different architectures
and operating systems in the same Debian package. Steve Langasek
[17]explained that the proposed location of architecture specific
files would even be a violation of the [18]Filesystem Hierarchy
Standard (FHS).
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00697.html
17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00703.html
18. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
Disabling Daemon Services. Erik Schanze [19]wondered how to disable
the start of daemons so that this setting will be kept upon upgrades.
Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña [20]referred to the [21]Securing Debian
Manual where it is explained that you need to leave one link intact.
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00761.html
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00774.html
21. http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/ch3.en.html#s3.6
Editing History? Frank Küster [22]wondered if it would be acceptable
to add information about closed bugs to older changelog entries.
Jeroen van Wolffelaar [23]considered it fine to correct and improve
older items. He [24]added that Branden Robinson improves the changelog
file in order to be able to correctly lookup when a certain bug was
fixed.
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00790.html
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00791.html
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00800.html
Essential Packages for Building Packages. Scott James Remnant
[25]wondered if [26]debhelper is or rather should be declared
build-essential since 92 % of all source packages declare a
build-dependency on it. This could remove a large chunk of versioned
dependencies on one hand, but on the other hand new versioned
[27]dependencies against [28]build-essential would be introduced when
newer versions of debhelper are required for building.
25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00849.html
26. http://packages.debian.org/debhelper
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00927.html
28. http://packages.debian.org/build-essential
Turck-MMCache undistributable? Elizabeth Fong [29]sought advice since
Andres Solomon [30]reported Turck-MMCache as undistributable. The
software has been abandoned upstream with an unresponsive developer,
but forked. However, its license (GPL) is not compatible with the
license of PHP4 which it needs to be linked against. In combination
this means that Debian can not distribute binary packages of
Turck-MMCache.
29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00130.html
30. http://bugs.debian.org/280864
License of graphviz. Somebody [31]wondered why [32]graphviz was in
non-free when the [33]license on its homepage was considered free by
the [34]FSF and [35]debian-legal. Marco d'Itri [36]pointed out that
the software has recently been relicensed. Andrew Suffield [37]added
that the new upstream version may go into main.
31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00297.html
32. http://packages.debian.org/graphviz
33. http://www.graphviz.org/License.php
34. http://www.fsf.org/
35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/
36. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00299.html
37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00394.html
Debian From Scratch. Bruce Byfield wrote an [38]introduction to
[39]Debian from scratch (DFS). It comprises of a bootable CD and the
programs to generate it. By default only core packages are installed.
DFS supports most major file systems, RAID, and LVM2, and includes
several partition editors which make it a useful rescue CD.
38. http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/10/1727246
39. http://people.debian.org/~jgoerzen/dfs/html/dfs.html
Properly Crafting the debian/copyright File. Jochen Voss [40]wondered
how to properly write the debian/copyright file. Henning Makholm
[41]explained that all authors who claim copyright in a source file
should be credited in the Debian copyright file, together with the
exact statement of license they issued. He added some compression
practices to improve the readability of that file.
40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00488.html
41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00519.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 635: [42]exim -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 636: [43]glibc -- Insecure temporary files.
* DSA 637: [44]exim-tls -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 638: [45]gopher -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 639: [46]mc -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 640: [47]gatos -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 641: [48]playmidi -- Local root exploit.
* DSA 642: [49]gallery -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 643: [50]queue -- Buffer overflows.
* DSA 644: [51]chbg -- Arbitrary code execution.
42. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-635
43. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-636
44. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-637
45. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-638
46. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-639
47. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-640
48. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-641
49. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-642
50. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-643
51. http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-644
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive [52]recently or contain important updates.
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main
* [53]gazpacho -- GTK+ User Interface Designer.
* [54]gpx2shp -- Convert GPS or GPX file to ESRI Shape file.
* [55]jabber-irc -- IRC transport for jabber.
* [56]micro-httpd -- Really small HTTP server.
* [57]mozilla-enigmail -- GPG support for Mozilla MailNews.
* [58]openclipart -- Open Clip Art Library.
* [59]packagesearch -- GUI to allow easy searching of packages.
* [60]quodlibet -- Audio library manager and player for GTK+.
* [61]rbot -- IRC bot written in ruby.
* [62]ttf-junicode -- Unicode font for medievalists (Latin, IPA and
Runic).
* [63]wakeonlan -- Sends 'magic packets' to wake-on-LAN enabled
ethernet adapters.
* [64]xdesktopwaves -- Simulation of water waves on the X Window
System.
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gazpacho
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/science/gpx2shp
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/jabber-irc
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/micro-httpd
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/mozilla-enigmail
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/openclipart
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/packagesearch
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/quodlibet
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/rbot
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-junicode
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/wakeonlan
64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xdesktopwaves
Orphaned Packages. 10 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 255 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [65]WNPP pages 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.
65. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [66]encore -- Core database for lambdamoo. ([67]Bug#290410)
* [68]ghostcore -- Core database for lambdamoo. ([69]Bug#290411)
* [70]goats -- A sticky-note type program for Gnome 2.
([71]Bug#290920)
* [72]hanterm-classic -- Another X terminal emulator with Hangul
support. ([73]Bug#290921)
* [74]hanterm-xf -- X terminal emulator with Hangul support.
([75]Bug#290919)
* [76]jhcore -- Jay's House Core, an enhanced core database for
lambdamoo. ([77]Bug#290416)
* [78]lambdacore -- Core database for lambdamoo. ([79]Bug#290412)
* [80]lambdamoo -- Server for an online multiuser virtual world.
([81]Bug#290413)
* [82]lambdamoo-docs -- LambdaMOO user and programmer manuals.
([83]Bug#290414)
* [84]ratmenu -- Creates X menus from the shell. ([85]Bug#290415)
66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/encore
67. http://bugs.debian.org/290410
68. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ghostcore
69. http://bugs.debian.org/290411
70. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/goats
71. http://bugs.debian.org/290920
72. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/hanterm-classic
73. http://bugs.debian.org/290921
74. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/hanterm-xf
75. http://bugs.debian.org/290919
76. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/jhcore
77. http://bugs.debian.org/290416
78. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/lambdacore
79. http://bugs.debian.org/290412
80. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/lambdamoo
81. http://bugs.debian.org/290413
82. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/lambdamoo-docs
83. http://bugs.debian.org/290414
84. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ratmenu
85. http://bugs.debian.org/290415
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86. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
87. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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