Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/27/
Debian Weekly News – July 8th, 2003
Welcome to this year’s 27th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. A Professor from the University of
Göttingen [1]questioned the enforcability of the GPL in
Germany while the German [2]Institute for Legal Issues on Free and
Open Source Software [3]analysed the study and discovered several
flaws. The City of Austin, in Texas, USA, became one of the latest
governments to [4]try out Linux. And some big companies are
[5]collaborating to use Linux in consumer electronics devices.
1. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/02/0245228
2. http://www.ifross.de/
3. http://www.ifross.de/ifross_html/home1_2003.html
4.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6974&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
5. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2229991
Comments on GNOME 2 Transition. Drew Scott Daniels posted a
[6]summary about the status of the GNOME 2 transition. Christian
Marillat [7]reported that GNOME 2 packages are finally in testing
and that some missing packages will follow soon.
6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release-0307/msg00003.html
7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-gtk-gnome-0306/msg00173.html
Removing RFC from Documentation. Javier
Fernández-Sanguino Peña [8]asked that RFCs be removed
from packages in the main (free) Debian distribution. Since the
doc-rfc packages have been moved to non-free, he had cloned the
respective [9]bug and assigned it to other packages which provide
RFCs. For a full list please see the the bug report. However, it
seems that some RFCs might be DFSG-free, probably the earliest.
Package maintainers should contact the [10]Internet Society on
their own.
8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0307/msg00000.html
9. http://bugs.debian.org/92810
Debian for non-profit Organisations. Mako Hill [11]announced a
new sub-project named [12]Debian for non-profit organisations. The
goal is to put together a sub-distribution that fulfills their
needs. If they are large and technically involved enough to need
their own server, they probably already use GNU/Linux. However in
day-to-day operations most use proprietary operating systems.
Unlike many groups of users where advocacy is an uphill battle,
many non-profits want to use GNU/Linux on their
workstations but are waiting for someone to “make it easy for
them.” This sub-project wants to do just this.
11. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0307/msg00002.html
12. http://nonprofit.debian.net/
Debian Menu Encoding Support. Bill Allombert [13]announced that
it is now possible to select the encoding used to write files
generated by menu in a menu-method, i.e. for a window manager. Bill
said that it is very important that all menu methods get fixed to
include an encoding setting. This will allow menu translations to
be activated by default.
13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0307/msg00004.html
Bug #200000: Using gettext for Debconf. Michel Grentzinger
opened [14]Bug #200000 and requested that the package in question
switches to using gettext for debconf templates. This bug repport
underlines the [15]efforts of the localization teams, mostly French
and Brazillian, which actively submit bug reports and patches to
help maintainers move to the po-debconf format.
14. http://bugs.debian.org/200000
15. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0303/msg00001.html
But which Distribution? Charles Arthur of the “The Independent”
a UK national broadsheet wrote an [16]article concerning GNU/Linux
for novices. He opted for Debian because the penguin on the box
looked friendly, but haven’t glanced through the documentation and
stumbled into the text-oriented installer. Oh, and even worse, a
commandline seemed to be a bad thing for him. Maybe Debian is not
useful for everybody.
16.
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=420948
Interview with Russell Coker. Sam Varghese from The Age has
[17]interviewed Russell Coker. Russell is among those who have made
a sterling contribution to the NSA’s SE Linux project. Russell
talks about how he became affiliated with computers, his work on
Debian and SE Linux and e.g. how people from the Free Software
community are hired.
17. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/02/1056825450368.html
Licenses for Documentation. Emma Jane Hogbin [18]received
[19]feedback that her choice of the [20]GNU Free Documentation
License (FDL) for a howto that she wrote may not be free according
to the [21]Debian Free Software Guidlines (DFSG). She does not
intend to use invariant sections, so could not see why there would
be a problem. Brian Nelson [22]pointed out that Anthony Towns’
[23]proposal views the FDL as DFSG-free if invariant sections are
not used.
18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0307/msg00003.html
19. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-0307/msg00011.html
20. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
21. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0307/msg00009.html
23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0304/msg00246.html
Benefits of the OASIS Membership. Mark Johnson [24]explained the
benefits of membership of the [25]Organization for the Advancement
of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). It gives Debian
representation at one of the major XML-related standards bodies,
and makes Debian the only GNU/Linux distribution with a voice
there. For example, Mark and Ardo van Rangelrooij are on the Entity
Resolution Technical Committee, which is presently working on the
XML Catalogs specification. However, very few Debian Developers
have chosen to take advantage of the OASIS membership and Mark is
raising funds to cover the membership fee.
24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0307/msg00006.html
25. http://www.oasis-open.org/
Support for NEWS.Debian now available. Joey Hess [26]announced
that thanks to Matt Zimmerman and Joe Drew, apt-listchanges will
now display NEWS.Debian entries for upgraded packages. These are
displayed before the regular changelog entries, and Matt plans to
later let it be configured to only display news, if the user wants
(more useful for users of stable). The NEWS.Debian file is
installed as /usr/share/doc/<package>/NEWS.Debian.gz. It is
always compressed and always with that name.
26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00286.html
Debian Mini-Distribution for Diskless Routers. Vadim Berkgaut
[27]announced a new [28]project with the goal of making Debian boot
from flash and work from a filesystem in memory. It produces a boot
wrapper for Debian that is intended for diskless routers. The
project features Debian woody (stable) with some packages from
sarge (testing) to add support for 2.5 kernels. It boots in two
stages: first a script from initrd copies the root filesystem from
flash to tmpfs and makes tmpfs the new root, then init runs as
usual. Vadim would welcome feedback and comments.
27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0307/msg00278.html
28. http://gate-bunker.p6.msu.ru/~berk/router.html
Finalising the DDP Policy. Javier Fernández-Sanguino
Peña [29]proposed that the draft [30]Debian Documentation
Project Policy be published on the Debian website. Noone has spoken
against the document that Javier presented as a proposal and
questions about licensing and documentation seem to come up often.
This would give the document a wider audience, and with help Javier
may be able to remove the draft status of the document.
29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc-0307/msg00017.html
30. http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ddp-policy/
Debian at Conferences in Europe. Debian [31]announced that
several developers will meet in Metz, France, on July 9th – 12th at
the [32]Libre Software Meeting. On July 10th – 13th many developers
and users will attend [33]LinuxTag in Karlsruhe, Germany, where
they will staff a booth and maintain a one-day [34]conference and
give additional talks. After this, on July 18th – 19th, a lot of
Debian developer will meet at this years’ [35]Debian Conference in
Oslo, Norway, which is preceded by a [36]hacking session.
31. http://www.debian.org/News/2003/20030706
32. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0709-lsm
33. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0710-linuxtag
34. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/events/LinuxTag2003/day.html
35. http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0718-debconf
36. http://www.debconf.org/debconf3/debcamp.php
Explanation for the FDL Issue. Michael Crawford [37]summarised
why the Debian community has decided that the [38]GNU Free
Documentation License is not actually a free license at all, and is
starting work to remove GFDL-licensed work from its main
distribution. Such will only be available in non-free, which some
people never install out of principle and CDROM vendors cannot
distribute in whole because the licenses on some packages forbid
it.
37. http://www.advogato.org/article/682.html
38. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
Guide to GNU/Linux Desktop Survival. Graham Williams book
[39]Guide to GNU/Linux Desktop Survival was [40]introduced on
OSNews.com as “Good Debian desktop survival guide that covers all
the major applications a user would need.” The aim of this book is
to rapidly get the reader going with GNU/Linux and to deliver a fun
and productive environment. It guides him through the many
different regions of a GNU/Linux system with a focus on getting the
desktop environment to do what he wants.
39. http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/index.html
40. http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3951
Status of KDE for Sarge. Drew Scott Daniels [41]wondered about
the status of KDE and its entry into sarge (testing). He noticed
that there are a few release critical [42]bugs in kdelibs, although
work on kdelibs seems to be [43]proceeding. Tomas Pospisek
[44]advised that some issues have been resolved, but that work on
kdelibs is becoming a problem because of the huge time it takes to
compile. He wondered if kdelibs would fall apart, since probably
not many people are able to afford compiling, running, and testing
the current CVS version.
41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde-0306/msg00278.html
42. http://bugs.debian.org/src:kdelibs
43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde-0306/msg00132.html
44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde-0306/msg00283.html
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you
update your systems if you have any of these packages
installed.
- [45]sami, wemi — Insecure temporary file creation.
- [46]x-face-el — Insecure temporary file creation.
- [47]liece — Insecure temporary file creation.
- [48]mozart — unsafe mailcap configuration.
45. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-339
46. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-340
47. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-341
48. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-342
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to
the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important
updates.
- [49]dbtcp — Miscellaneous command-line DBTCP utils.
- [50]debiandoc2dbxml — DebianDoc to DocBook XML converter.
- [51]farpd — Fake ARP user space daemon.
- [52]gcipher — Simple encryption tool.
- [53]grig — Graphical user interface to the Ham Radio Control
Libraries. - [54]iiimgcf — IIIM GTK+ 2.x Input Method Module Client.
- [55]kopete — Instant messenger program.
- [56]quark — Music player daemon controlled from the gnome
panel or cli. - [57]scowl — Spell-Checker Oriented Word Lists.
- [58]socklog — small and secure replacement for syslogd.
- [59]spread — Spread messaging daemon.
- [60]streamtuner — GUI audio stream directory browser.
- [61]tla — Revision control system.
- [62]wackamole — Daemon to make a cluster highly
available. - [63]xmlsec1 — XML security command line processor.
49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/dbtcp.html
50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/debiandoc2dbxml.html
51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/farpd.html
52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/gcipher.html
53. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/hamradio/grig.html
54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/iiimgcf.html
55. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kopete.html
56. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/quark.html
57. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/scowl.html
58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/socklog.html
59. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/spread.html
60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/streamtuner.html
61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/tla.html
62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/wackamole.html
63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/xmlsec1.html
Orphaned Packages. 6 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 191 orphaned
packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed
to the Free Software community. Please see the [64]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.
64. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
- [65]abuse — Crack dot Com’s Abuse action game.
([66]Bug#199543) - [67]abuse-frabs — Levels and graphics for Abuse.
([68]Bug#199547) - [69]abuse-lib — Levels for Abuse. ([70]Bug#199546)
- [71]abuse-sdl — SDL-port of Crack dot Com’s Abuse action game.
([72]Bug#199545) - [73]abuse-sfx — Sound effects for Abuse. ([74]Bug#199544)
- tao — The ACE ORB. ([75]Bug#199772)
65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/abuse.html
66. http://bugs.debian.org/199543
67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/abuse-frabs.html
68. http://bugs.debian.org/199547
69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/abuse-lib.html
70. http://bugs.debian.org/199546
71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/abuse-sdl.html
72. http://bugs.debian.org/199545
73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/abuse-sfx.html
74. http://bugs.debian.org/199544
75. http://bugs.debian.org/199772
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76. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
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