------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/
Debian Project News debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
May 12, 2015 https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2015/04/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's fourth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* Debian 8 Jessie is released
* Publicity live coverage
* Results of the DPL elections
* A delegation for the Outreach team
* Debian welcomes its 2015 Google Summer of Code Students
* Long Term Support announcements for Wheezy and Jessie, Report for Squeeze LTS
* Reports
* Bucharest Debian Women mini-DebConf
* A new arm64 buildd machine
* Interviews
* Other news
* Upcoming events
* New Debian Contributors
* Important Debian Security Advisories
* New and noteworthy packages
* Work-needing packages
* Want to continue reading DPN?
Debian 8 Jessie is released
---------------------------
On April 25, the Debian project released [1] a new stable version [2],
Debian 8 "Jessie". Niels Thykier, member of the Release team, gave a
summary on his blog [3] of the release process for Jessie seen from the
inside.
1: https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426
2: https://bits.debian.org/2015/04/jessie-released.html
3: https://nthykier.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/the-release-of-debian-jessie-from-an-rms-pov/
The release of Debian Jessie was accompanied by the first beta
release [4] of the Jessie-based DebianEdu [5] and the publication of
Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 [6], a snapshot of Debian unstable at the time of
Jessie's release, for the unofficial Hurd port.
4: https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2015/04/msg00000.html
5: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu
6: https://lists.debian.org/20150429224658.GN4713@type.home
As with the Wheezy release [7], Michael Prokop started [8] the "New in
Jessie" game, and invited all Debian contributors to advertise their new
packages present in the brand new Debian stable release. He started with
a list of forensics packages [8] and tools related to RPM packages [9].
Dominique Dumont presented [10] some progress in automatic configuration
upgrades in the lcdproc [11] package and other new packages. Jonathan
McCrohan wrote about [12] his new packages dtv-scan-tables [13] and git-
remote-hg [14], and the packages he updated. Paul Wise highlighted [15]
some new developer and QA tools available in Jessie. The Debian
Multimedia team published a detailed report [16] some time ago listing
the new multimedia applications shipped with Jessie. Andreas Tille also
mentioned [17] that during Jessie's development cycle, some packages
were freed, moving from "non-free" to the "main" part of the archive.
The Debian Med team for example freed phylip [18] and seaview [19].
This initiative was mentioned by Michael during a lightning talk [20] he
was giving about Debian Jessie during the Linuxdays [21] in Graz on the
day of its release.
7: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/04/msg00870.html
8: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/04/msg00382.html
9: http://michael-prokop.at/blog/2015/05/04/the-newinjessie-game-tools-related-to-rpm-packages/
10: https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/25/the-newinjessie-game-automatic-configuration-upgrade-and-other-stuff-in-debianjessie/
11: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/lcdproc
12: http://dereenigne.org/debian/new-packages-in-debian-8-0-jessie
13: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/dtv-scan-tables
14: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/git-remote-hg
15: http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/05/05/newinjessie-dev-qa-tools/
16: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2014/10/msg00005.html
17: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/04/msg00408.html
18: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/phylip
19: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/seaview
20: http://michael-prokop.at/blog/2015/04/28/glt15-slides-of-my-debian-8-aka-jessie-whats-new-talk/
21: https://linuxtage.at/
Publicity live coverage
-----------------------
Much like the larger project that houses it, the publicity team is also
an international effort relying on contributors, developers, and
volunteers across the world in nearly every timezone to accomplish a
singular task.
For the release of Debian 8 "Jessie" we did our traditional live
coverage across several timezones and facets of social media as members
of the publicity team passed the social media torch to another waiting
member of the team from Europe to the Americas to Australia.
The coverage of the release started earlier in the week on social media
and as the excitement built an announcement was made that the release
team was waking up and getting their tea and coffee in preparation for
#releasingjessie. The coverage picked up from that point and continued
throughout release day and well into the evening until finally the
message heard around the world was: Debian 8.0 "Jessie" has been
released! There is a new sheriff in town. And her name is Jessie!
Although we celebrated with everyone else at the posting of the news, we
did not stop there: we further posted tips about the new release,
advice, facts about Debian, and the history of the project.
We learned a lot about how such a release can be handled in the future.
We were able to work dynamically with many of the other teams in Debian
and have those teams work inside of our team as well. We hope our
experiences will help us continue to deliver you interesting and useful
information, but in all we hope that you all enjoyed the coverage!
Results of the DPL elections
----------------------------
Neil McGovern has been elected by the Debian Developers as the Debian
Project Leader.
Lucas Nussbaum, in his last bits from the DPL [22], said: "It has been a
great honor to be the DPL for the last two years. I would like to thank
you all for having made it such as fantastic experience. Debian is
really a unique project to be part of. The recent times have not been
the easiest ever, but I am convinced that the approaching jessie release
will just show how we have overcame the recent difficulties."
He also congratulated Neil for his election, and thanked Mehdi Dogguy
and Gergely Nagy for running.
More information about the result is available in the Debian Project
Leader Elections 2015 page [23]. The new term for the project leader
started on April 17 2015 and expires on April 17 2016.
22: https://lists.debian.org/20150416144719.GA28835@xanadu.blop.info
23: https://www.debian.org/vote/2015/vote_001
A delegation for the Outreach team
----------------------------------
We welcome the announcement [24] of an official delegation for the
Outreach team. The Outreach team is responsible for coordinating
Debian's participation in outreach programs such as Google Summer of
Code and Outreachy (formerly GNOME's Outreach Program for Women) -- but
not limited to those two.
Initially, the team will be composed of Nicolas Dandrimont, Sylvestre
Ledru, Molly de Blanc, and Tom Marble. Details about their
infrastructure, roles, and how to reach them can be found at
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Outreach.
24: https://lists.debian.org/20150416113514.GB8087@xanadu.blop.info
Debian welcomes its 2015 Google Summer of Code Students
-------------------------------------------------------
Nicolas Dandrimont on behalf of the new Debian Outreach team welcomed
the 17 students selected to be part of the Google Summer of Code this
year, two of them being Outreachy applicants. They will work on quality
assurance and developer tools, porting and archive-wide enhancements,
and packaging-related projects. The complete list of students and
projects can be found in the announcement email [25].
25: https://lists.debian.org/20150501153407.GA20820@werner.olasd.eu
Long Term Support announcements for Wheezy and Jessie, Report for Squeeze LTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Almost a year after the birth of the Debian Long Term Support (LTS)
project, with Squeeze LTS being considered a success, it has been
announced that Debian 7 "Wheezy" and Debian 8 "Jessie" will benefit from
Long Term Support [26], along with a call for help from the Debian LTS
team for developer time and/or funding in order to improve and extend
the archive coverage for Wheezy LTS.
Freexian published [27] its report about Debian Long Term Support for
March 2015, and some members of the LTS team also reported about their
work on the project: Raphaël Hertzog wrote an overview about the LTS
project and its contributions [28], and Ben Hutchings published his LTS
activities report for April 2015 [29].
26: https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150424
27: http://raphaelhertzog.com/2015/04/14/freexians-report-about-debian-long-term-support-march-2015/
28: http://raphaelhertzog.com/2015/04/15/looking-back-at-the-debian-long-term-support-project/
29: http://womble.decadent.org.uk/blog/debian-lts-work-april-2015.html
Reports
-------
Thorsten Alteholz [30], Mike Gabriel [31] and Raphaël Hertzog [32]
blogged about their Debian and FLOSS activities in April 2015. Manuel A.
Fernandez Montecelo explained about the Debian GNU/Linux port for
OpenRISC or1k [33]: how it came to be, details about its development,
and finally the current status.
30: http://blog.alteholz.eu/2015/05/my-debian-activities-in-april-2015/
31: http://sunweavers.net/blog/node/12
32: http://raphaelhertzog.com/2015/05/05/my-free-software-activities-in-april-2015/
33: https://people.debian.org/~mafm/posts/2015/20150421_about-the-debian-gnulinux-port-for-openrisc-or1k/
A few days before the Jessie release, Steve McIntyre wrote some bits
from the Debian CD team [34] about the progress made for debian-
installer and related packages, such as: EFI enhancements, OpenStack
images, Debian-live images, and the new architectures.
34: http://blog.einval.com/2015/04/23#ready_for_Jessie
Now that Jessie has been released, a new development cycle has begun,
and with it, the work on reproducible builds for Stretch, as
reported [35] by Lunar.
35: https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_1/
Bucharest Debian Women mini-DebConf
-----------------------------------
A mini-DebConf with talks and social events will take place over the
weekend of May 16 and 17 which is open to everyone in Debian to hear
talks from speakers who identify themselves as female. The schedule of
talks [36] for this mini-DebConf organised by Debian Women [37] is
already available and the call for proposals for Lightning talks [38] is
still open. Registration [39] of participants is recommended, and the
organisers are raising funds to cover the costs of running the
conference and to offer travel sponsorship to people who can't pay for
it. There is a crowd-funding campaign [40] with gift matching by
anonymous donors: each euro, dollar, peso or leu donated will be
matched. For more information, visit the website of the event [41].
36: http://bucharest2015.mini.debconf.org/schedule.shtml
37: https://www.debian.org/women
38: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/Projects/MiniDebconf-Women/2015/Talks#Lightning_talks
39: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/Projects/MiniDebconf-Women/2015/Participants
40: http://bucharest2015.mini.debconf.org/fundraising.shtml
41: http://bucharest2015.mini.debconf.org
A new arm64 buildd machine
--------------------------
Steve McIntyre wrote on his blog [42] that he received from Applied
Micro an X-Gene development board to set up and use for the Debian arm64
port. The board is now managed by the DSA team and serves as a buildd
machine [43]. Thanks Applied Micro for this hardware donation!
42: http://blog.einval.com/2015/04/08#more_arm64_hardware
43: https://db.debian.org/machines.cgi?host=arm-arm-03
Interviews
----------
Former DPL Lucas Nussbaum has been interviewed by ITWire [44] about the
adoption of systemd, his two years in office, and plans after the end of
his term.
44: http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/67512-surviving-systemd-lucas-nussbaum-satisfied-with-init-system-outcome
Petter Reinholdtsen from DebianEdu interviewed Shirish Agarwal [45] who
described how DebianEdu is used in India, advantages and disadvantages
of DebianEdu, and his views about the strategies to get schools to use
free software.
45: http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html
Other news
----------
Since sparc [46] and hurd-i386 [47] were not official release
architectures for Debian Jessie, FTP masters are looking at their
future [48] for the unstable branch.
46: https://www.debian.org/ports/sparc/
47: https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/
48: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/04/msg00284.html
Thomas Goirand announced [49] that OpenStack Kilo has entered the Debian
unstable archive. The packages are currently being backported for Jessie
and will soon be available through the Jessie backports repository [50].
49: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/04/msg00284.html
50: http://backports.debian.org/changes/jessie-backports.html
Upcoming events
---------------
There are several upcoming Debian-related events:
* May 23-24, Milano, Italy — Debian Ubuntu Community [51] Conference [52]
* May 30-31, Oslo, Norway — Bug Squashing Party [53] for Debian and Ubuntu
* May 31, Brasília, Brazil — Micro DebConf [54]
51: http://www.ducc.it/
52: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/it/2015/DUCC-IT
53: https://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/2015/05/msg00000.html
54: https://wiki.debian.org/pt_BR/MicroDebConfBSB2015
You can find more information about Debian-related events and talks on
the events section [55] of the Debian wiki, or subscribe to one of our
events mailing lists for different regions: Europe [56],
Netherlands [57], Hispanic America [58], North America [59].
55: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/
56: https://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu
57: https://lists.debian.org/debian-events-nl
58: https://lists.debian.org/debian-events-ha
59: https://lists.debian.org/debian-events-na
Do you want to organise a Debian booth or a Debian install party? Are
you aware of other upcoming Debian-related events? Have you delivered a
Debian talk that you want to link on our talks page [60]? Send an email
to the Debian Events Team [61].
60: https://www.debian.org/events/talks
61: events@debian.org
New Debian Contributors
-----------------------
3 applicants have been accepted [62] as Debian Developers, and 7 people
have started to maintain packages [63] since the previous issue of the
Debian Project News. Please welcome Jonas Genannt, Tomasz Buchert,
Federico Ceratto, Peter Ralph, Paul Novotny, Adrian Vondendriesch, David
Douard, Ted Gould, Steven Hamilton, and Dave Hibberd into our project!
62: https://nm.debian.org/public/nmlist#done
63: https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/new-maintainers.cgi
Important Debian Security Advisories
------------------------------------
Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages
(among others): wesnoth-1.10 [64], libdbd-firebird-perl [65],
libtasn1-3 [66], das-watchdog [67], chrony [68], ntp [69], libx11 [70],
gst-plugins-bad0.10 [71], inspircd [72], movabletype-opensource [73],
ppp [74], mysql-5.5 [75], django-markupfield [76], subversion [77],
curl [78], wpa [79], openjdk-6 [80], openjdk-7 [81], libreoffice [82],
linux [83], chromium-browser [84], icecast2 [85], curl [86],
elasticsearch [87], chromium-browser [88], libxml-libxml-perl [89],
owncloud [90], ruby1.8 [91], ruby1.9.1 [92], ruby2.1 [93], libphp-
snoopy [94], jqueryui [95], wordpress [96], dnsmasq [97], sqlite3 [98],
pound [99], suricata [100], zeromq3 [101], libtasn1-6 [102], and
mercurial [103]. Please read them carefully and take the proper
measures.
64: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3218
65: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3219
66: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3220
67: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3221
68: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3222
69: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3223
70: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3224
71: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3225
72: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3226
73: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3227
74: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3228
75: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3229
76: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3230
77: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3231
78: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3232
79: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3233
80: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3234
81: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3235
82: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3236
83: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3237
84: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3238
85: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3239
86: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3240
87: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3241
88: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3242
89: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3243
90: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3244
91: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3245
92: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3246
93: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3247
94: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3248
95: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3249
96: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3250
97: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3251
98: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3252
99: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3253
100: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3254
101: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3255
102: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3256
103: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3257
The Debian team in charge of Squeeze Long Term Support released security
update announcements for these packages: das-watchdog [104],
chrony [105], libtasn1-3 [106], ia32-libs [107], libvncserver [108],
libx11 [109], ruby1.9.1 [110], tzdata [111], wesnoth-1.8 [112],
openldap [113], file [114], ppp [115], python-django-markupfield [116],
wireshark [117], subversion [118], tzdata [119], jruby [120], curl [121],
php5 [122], qt4-x11 [123], openjdk-6 [124], libxml-libxml-perl [125],
libjson-ruby [126], squid [127], xdg-utils [128], xorg- server [129],
and xorg-server [130]. Please read them carefully and take the proper
measures.
104: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00007.html
105: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00008.html
106: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00009.html
107: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00010.html
108: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00011.html
109: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00012.html
110: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00013.html
111: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00014.html
112: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/04/msg00015.html
113: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00016.html
114: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00017.html
115: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00018.html
116: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00019.html
117: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00020.html
118: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00021.html
119: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00022.html
120: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00023.html
121: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00024.html
122: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00025.html
123: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00026.html
124: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00027.html
125: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00028.html
126: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00029.html
127: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00030.html
128: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00000.html
129: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00001.html
130: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/05/msg00002.html
Debian's Backports Team released advisories for these packages:
shibboleth-sp [131] and libreoffice [132]. Please read them carefully
and take the proper measures.
131: https://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/2015/04/msg00002.html
132: https://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/2015/04/msg00001.html
Debian's Stable Release Team released an update announcement for these
packages: tzdat [133], clamav [134], and libdatetime-timezone-perl [135].
Please read it carefully and take the proper measures.
133: https://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/2015/04/msg00002.html
134: https://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/2015/04/msg00003.html
135: https://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/2015/04/msg00004.html
Please note that these are a selection of the more important security
advisories of the last weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about
security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please
subscribe to the security mailing list [136] (and the separate backports
list [137], stable updates list [138], and long term support security
updates list [139]) for announcements.
136: https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/
137: https://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/
138: https://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/
139: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/
New and noteworthy packages
---------------------------
371 packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently. Among
many others [140] are:
* cewl — custom word list generator [141]
* cme — tool to check or edit configuration data with Config::Model [142]
* cobbler — network boot, install and update server [143]
* cruft-ng — program that finds any cruft built up on your system [144]
* irssi-plugin-robustirc — RobustIRC plugin for irssi [145]
* mkdocs — static site generator geared towards building project documentation [146]
* mrrescue — arcade 2d action game where the hero is a fireman [147]
* needrestart-session — tool checking for processes needed to be restarted in user sessions [148]
* painintheapt — tool to pester people about available package updates by email or jabber [149]
* rr — application execution recorder, player and debugger [150]
* svgtune — tool to generate a set of.svg files out of a single.svg file [151]
* wmload — system load monitor designed for Window Maker [152]
* yubikey-piv-manager — graphical tool for managing your PIV-enabled YubiKey [153]
140: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg
141: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/cewl
142: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/cme
143: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/cobbler
144: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/cruft-ng
145: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/irssi-plugin-robustirc
146: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/mkdocs
147: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/mrrescue
148: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/needrestart-session
149: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/painintheapt
150: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/rr
151: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/svgtune
152: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/wmload
153: https://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/yubikey-piv-manager
Work-needing packages
---------------------
Currently [154] 666 packages are orphaned [155] and 174 packages are up
for adoption [156]: please visit the complete list of packages which
need your help [157].
154: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/05/msg00167.html
155: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/orphaned
156: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/rfa
157: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested
Want to continue reading DPN?
-----------------------------
Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer
writers to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on.
Please see the contributing page [158] to find out how to help. We're
looking forward to receiving your mail at
<debian-publicity@lists.debian.org>.
158: https://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute
This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Cédric Boutillier,
Jean-Pierre Giraud, Donald Norwood, Laura Arjona Reina, Justin B Rye
and Paul Wise.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature