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Debian Weekly News – July 22, 2003

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/29/

Debian Weekly News – July 22nd, 2003

Welcome to this year’s 29th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. Linus Torvalds is working on pre-releases
of Linux 2.6, Joseph Pranevich published the [1]Wonderful World of
Linux 2.6, so maybe it will be released in time for sarge.

1. http://www.kniggit.net/wwol26.html

Creating Debian Packages. Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier, a former DWN
editor, published an [2]article that describes the basics of
creating Debian packages for distributing programs and source code.
The article shows all the necessary components of a package and how
to put them together to end up with a final product.

2.
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-debpkg.html

LinuxTag Success. This year’s LinuxTag, which took place in
Karlsruhe, Germany, was a great [3]success. With more than 19,500
visitors, this year’s LinuxTag has become the largest Linux event
in the world. Amongst other things, the Debian developers in
attendance got [4]together for dinner with both the KDE people and
the GNOME people.

3. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/15/018235

4. http://dot.kde.org/1058415564/

ServerBeach ships Debian GNU/Linux Servers. [5]SeverBeach
[6]announced the availability of their [7]Starter Servers and Power
Servers with Debian GNU/Linux preinstalled. Many customers want and
appreciate the two driving forces behind Debian – technical
excellence and the commitment to Free Software, said Richard Yoo,
Big Kahuna, ServerBeach.

5. http://www.serverbeach.com/
6. http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/ser071603.cfm

7. http://www.serverbeach.com/catalog/debian_servers.php

Debian Free Software Guidelines FAQ. Barak Pearlmutter
[8]composed a draft Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) [9]FAQ.
It is meant as an introduction to issues discussed on the
[10]debian-legal mailing list, with some general background
material to help bring new readers up to date. Suggestions and
comments are welcome.

8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0307/msg00122.html

9. http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html

10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/

LGPL affecting Client Java Code? [11]According to this
[12]article, Dave Turner of the FSF has decreed that the steps
required to use an LGPL’d Java library will actually infect client
code with substantial GNU-ness via Section 6 of the LGPL. (The
“Lesser” GPL is supposed to protect only the Library, without
infecting code using the library) This, as you might imagine, puts
a few LGPL Java projects that previously thought they were
embeddable without being viral in a bit of a bind. [13]Various
[14]weblogs have [15]further [16]coverage.

11. http://slashdot.org/developers/03/07/17/2257224.shtml

12. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.poi.devel/5900

13.
http://linuxintegrators.com/hl30/blog/general/?permalink=LGPL+clarification.html

14.
http://www.rollerweblogger.org/page/roller/20030716#for_java_lgpl_is_viral

15. http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1519.html

16. http://radio.weblogs.com/0122027/2003/07/16.html#a56

Missing Timestamp Handling. Marcin Owsiany [17]reported that
when a source package is unpacked, all the files that have
modifications in the diff.gz file are given somewhat “random”
timestamps, because patch updates their timestamps as it processes
the diff file. This causes problems for packages that rebuild their
Makefiles on demand but don’t build-depend on autotools.

17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01258.html

Libpng Transition Status. Josselin Mouette [18]reported that 84
binary packages are left over which should be rebuilt before sarge
releases. However, none is essential, but he insists that the more
of those are rebuilt, the less issues we will have later when
libpng changes its soname again. The list of packages is attached
to Josselin’s mail.

18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01271.html

Debian Packages in a Chart. Bram Stolk [19]announced that he has
created a [20]software map of Debian packages. The chart depicts
all packages from testing/main with 5 or more dependencies. Instead
of visualizing the dependencies directly, a classification has been
made.

19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01302.html

20. http://home.sara.nl/~bram/debchart.png

Working without a Release Roadmap? Adrian Bunk [21]reported that
the software in Debian 3.0 is currently roughly one and a half
years old. He adds that one release a year is badly needed and that
a big system like Debian doesn’t become stable without a plan how
to get it stable. He is willing to help in QA and/or release
management if this results in a new stable release within clearly
less than a year.

21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg01402.html

Unicode Character Database. Florian Weimer [22]reported that
many packages that include a copy of parts of the Unicode Character
Database do not indicate the source and are thus violating its
license. Thomas Bushnell [23]added that the next release of GNU
miscfiles will include a version which is really free.

22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0307/msg00056.html

23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0307/msg00071.html

Creating Manpages from GNU FDL Documentation. Hans Fugal
[24]wondered if he is permitted to create a manpage from
documentation that is released under the [25]GNU Free Documentation
License (FDL) and which requirement he has to meet. Walter Landry
[26]answered with a detailed ten-item list.

24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0307/msg00106.html

25. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0307/msg00108.html

Improving CD Mirrors. Mattias Wadenstein [27]summarised
suggestions for the CD Image server and mirrors. The plan is to
provide both images and jigdo files of CDs as well as testing
images. There was also a request for a contrib-directory for
[28]Knoppix or a few more Knoppix mirrors in US.

27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-cd-0307/msg00030.html

28. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/

GNU/Linux as Commodity Software. Tim O’Reilly was interviewed
about the keynote at his company’s Open Source Convention he gave.
During the [29]interview he hints that Debian founder Ian Murdock
and his company Progeny Linux Systems, Inc., have the right stuff
for the future of computing. Instead of seeing GNU/Linux as a
product, he sees GNU/Linux as a set of commodity software
components he can put together for different purposes.

29.
http://www.idg.com.sg/idgwww.nsf/unidlookup/363EE97CE7BBBBD848256D59000986BF?OpenDocument

Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you
update your systems if you have any of these packages
installed.

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to
the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important
updates.

  • [31]chiark-backup — Backup system for small systems and
    networks.
  • [32]chiark-really — Tool for gaining privilege (simple,
    realistic sudo).
  • [33]chiark-rwbuffer — Readbuffer/writebuffer: prevents tape
    drive seesawing, etc.
  • [34]chiark-scripts — Chiark system administration
    scripts.
  • [35]chiark-utils-bin — Chiark system administration
    utilities.
  • [36]ettercap — Multipurpose sniffer/interceptor/logger for
    switched LAN.
  • [37]i810switch — Enables/disables video output to CRT/LCD on
    i810 video hardware.
  • [38]pydance — Dancing simulation game.
  • [39]sredird — RFC 2217
    compliant Telnet serial port redirector.

31. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/chiark-backup.html

32. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/chiark-really.html

33. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/chiark-rwbuffer.html

34. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/chiark-scripts.html

35. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/chiark-utils-bin.html

36. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ettercap.html

37. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/i810switch.html

38. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/pydance.html

39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/sredird.html

Orphaned Packages. 10 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 204 orphaned
packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed
to the Free Software community. Please see the [40]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.

40. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

  • [41]animals — Traditional AI animal guessing engine using a
    binary tree DB. ([42]Bug#202174)
  • [43]cgiwrap — Allows ordinary users to run their own CGI
    scripts. ([44]Bug#202172)
  • [45]gtkgraph — Interactive function-plotter/calculator.
    ([46]Bug#202228)
  • [47]int-fiction — Support files for interactive fiction
    interpreters. ([48]Bug#201408)
  • [49]members — Shows the members of a group; by default, all
    members. ([50]Bug#202171)
  • [51]mwavem — Mwave/ACP modem support. ([52]Bug#202227)
  • [53]nwrite — Enhanced replacement for the write command.
    ([54]Bug#202238)
  • [55]pup — Printer Utility Program. ([56]Bug#202232)
  • [57]xcal — Graphical calendar with memos and reminder alarms.
    ([58]Bug#202226)
  • [59]xflip — Programs to mirror-image or melt your display.
    ([60]Bug#202230)

41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/animals.html

42. http://bugs.debian.org/202174

43. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/cgiwrap.html

44. http://bugs.debian.org/202172

45. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/gtkgraph.html

46. http://bugs.debian.org/202228

47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/int-fiction.html

48. http://bugs.debian.org/201408

49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/members.html

50. http://bugs.debian.org/202171

51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/mwavem.html

52. http://bugs.debian.org/202227

53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/nwrite.html

54. http://bugs.debian.org/202238

55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/pup.html

56. http://bugs.debian.org/202232

57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/xcal.html

58. http://bugs.debian.org/202226

59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/xflip.html

60. http://bugs.debian.org/202230

Want to continue reading DWN? 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 [61]contributing page to find out how to help. We’re
looking forward to receiving your mail at [62][email protected].

61. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing

62. mailto:[email protected]

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