Debian Weekly News - January 31st, 2006
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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/05/
Debian Weekly News - January 31st, 2006
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Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the
Debian community. Martin Michlmayr [1]reported about two development
MIPS boards donated to Debian that will be used as build daemon for
the MIPS architectures. Stephen Shankland [2]reported about Eben
Moglen who is explaining the updated [3]version of the [4]GNU GPL
which [5]resulted in [6]discussions on Debian lists.
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/01/msg00063.html
2. http://news.com.com/Defender+of+the+GPL/2008-1082_3-6028495.html
3. http://gplv3.fsf.org/
4. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00394.html
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00427.html
Call for Papers. Margarita Manterola [7]called for papers for the
upcoming [8]Debian Day which will take place on Saturday, May 13th,
before this years [9]DebConf in Oaxtepec, Mexico. The presentations
should be easy to understand, very clear and concise in their content,
and not require any previous knowledge about Debian from the audience.
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/01/msg00014.html
8. http://www.debconf.org/debianday/
9. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0514-debconf
Process to remove debmake. Santiago Vila [10]reported about the demise
of [11]debmake. One year ago, the use of debmake for new packages was
deprecated and the included program deb-make removed. The next steps
are switching away from this tool and eventually opening
release-critical bug reports against remaining [12]packages. Anthony
Towns [13]suggested to file wishlist bugs now with a proper usertag.
10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01428.html
11. http://packages.debian.org/debmake
12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01435.html
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01446.html
More volunteer Contributions. Joseph Michael Smidt [14]stated that all
people want to feel important when they're making a contribution to
Debian. He would like to see an official title for all contributers so
they become a visible part of the community, especially since the
[15]new-maintainer process could be seen as a barrier. The following
discussion demonstrated several means to get involved.
14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00004.html
15. http://www.debian.org/devel/join/
New Semantic of /var/run. Peter Eisentraut [16]forwarded a user
[17]request to create a directory within /var/run upon service
startup. Henrique Holschuh [18]suggested to go ahead since
[19]initscripts are leaning towards an ephemeral /var/run that will be
[20]removed upon reboot.
16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00223.html
17. http://bugs.debian.org/344758
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00234.html
19. http://packages.debian.org/initscripts
20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00241.html
Debian Archive Key Maintenance. Petter Reinholdtsen [21]noticed
problems upgrading [22]etch due to a missing new archive key. Joey
Hess [23]pondered whether this could result in a stable Debian release
being uninstallable. [24]Distributing updated keys in a security
update would [25]break past policies concerning stable releases and
users won't be able to install the current stable release without the
update.
21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00225.html
22. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00311.html
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00368.html
25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00369.html
Launchpad for Debian? Frans Jessop [26]asked if it would be helpful,
more organised and efficient if Debian developers would work with
[27]launchpad. Matthew Garrett [28]pointed out that the general use is
unlikely as long as it is not Free Software. Andrew Suffield [29]added
that removing the ability to manage things from the shell doesn't
improve efficiency.
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00349.html
27. http://launchpad.net/
28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00351.html
29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00391.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
* DSA 954: [30]wine -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 955: [31]mailman -- Denial of service.
* DSA 956: [32]lsh-utils -- Local vulnerabilities.
* DSA 957: [33]imagemagick -- Arbitrary command execution.
* DSA 958: [34]drupal -- Several vulnerabilities.
* DSA 959: [35]unalz -- Arbitrary code execution.
* DSA 960: [36]libmail-audit-perl -- Insecure temporary file.
30. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-954
31. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-955
32. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-956
33. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-957
34. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-958
35. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-959
36. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-960
New or Noteworthy Packages. Due to [37]packages.debian.org being down
because of performance issues we are unable to provide the regular
list of new packages.
37. http://packages.debian.org/
Orphaned Packages. 2 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 197 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [38]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.
38. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
* [39]ivi -- Graphical front-end for various HDL simulators.
([40]Bug#350149)
* [41]ud -- Uptime Daemon. ([42]Bug#349833)
39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/ivi
40. http://bugs.debian.org/350149
41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ud
42. http://bugs.debian.org/349833
Removed Packages. 4 packages have been [43]removed from the Debian
archive during the past week:
43. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt
* roxen3 -- Roxen Challenger Webserver
[44]Bug#348646: Request of maintainer, superseded by roxen4
* wmkbd -- WindowMaker dock application which can
define/modify/switch keyboard maps
[45]Bug#349255: Request of maintainer, RC buggy; unreponsive
upstream
* libmail-audit-perl -- Perl library for creating easy mail filters
[46]Bug#349551: Request of maintainer, obsolete; alternative
(libemail-filter-perl) exists
* libdigest-nilsimsa-perl -- Nilsimsa message digest algorithm
[47]Bug#350057: Request of maintainer, no rev-deps; not needed
anymore
44. http://bugs.debian.org/348646
45. http://bugs.debian.org/349255
46. http://bugs.debian.org/349551
47. http://bugs.debian.org/350057
Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter.
We still need more volunteer writers who watch the Debian community
and report about what is going on. Please see the [48]contributing
page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your
mail at [49]dwn@debian.org.
48. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
49. mailto:dwn@debian.org
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