Debian Weekly News – June 24, 2003

Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/25/

Debian Weekly News – June 24th, 2003

Welcome to this year’s 25th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter
for the Debian community. Debian 3.0 has been on the [1]cover of
the Australian [2]Australian Personal Computer magazine for the
first time ever. Rob Savoye [3]reported an interesting experience
of bringing up a rack of 20 dual processor Itanium II machines (HP
zx6000s), over a 48 hour period. All of them are now running
Debian.

Security Update Procedure. Matt Zimmerman [4]noticed that many
package maintainers are not aware of the recommended methods for
handling security issues in their packages. Therefore he urges
anyone who participates in package maintenance to read the relevant
[5]section in the [6]Developer’s Reference which documents the
current recommended procedures. It has recently been updated with
additional details and clarifications.

4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0306/msg00010.html

5.
http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-pkgs.en.html#s-bug-security

6. http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/

Freeze Date Estimate. Drew Scott Daniels [7]talked about freeze
date estimates which he believes are useful for developers to help
to prepare for a release. He expects the debian-installer to be
finished in two months which makes him expect a freeze this year.
He also estimates that the freeze cycle will last 6 months.

7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-release-0306/msg00004.html

Debian presence at LinuxTag. The Debian project will be
exhibiting at [8]LinuxTag in Karlsruhe, Germany from July 10th to
13th with a booth in the exhibition and a [9]day of talks and
workshops dedicated to developers and interested users on July 11
2003. Newsforge has a [10]story that details several of the
non-profit [11]exhibitors.

8. http://www.linuxtag.org/
9. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/events/LinuxTag2003/day.html

10. http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/06/14/130256.shtml?tid=23

11. http://www.infodrom.org/Debian/events/LinuxTag2003/projects.php3

Popularity Contest Revised. Bill Allombert [12]announced that he
has written a replacement [13]page for Avery Pennarun’s now broken
popularity contest web page. He’s also made the page’s script
[14]available. It sorts the results by number of installs, number
of votes and more.

12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg00770.html

13. http://people.debian.org/~ballombe/popcon

14. http://people.debian.org/~ballombe/popcon/popcon.pl

Knoppix and MAME. [15]KnoppiXMAME 1.0 was released, as
[16]announced on Slashdot. [17]KnoppiXMAME is a bootable arcade
machine emulator powered by Knoppix Debian GNU/Linux, [18]X-MAME
0.69, and [19]gxmame 0.33. The ISO image is only 200 MB large. You
can put the ROMs on the CD ISO without remastering/recompressing
[20]Knoppix.

15. http://freshmeat.net/releases/126525/

16. http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/06/19/1427228.shtml

17. http://freshmeat.net/projects/knoppixmame/
18. http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Software/54910/X-Mame.html

19. http://gxmame.sourceforge.net/

20. http://www.knoppix.org/

80,000 GNU/Linux Computers in Schools. According to
[21]DesktopLinux.org a sweeping initiative Spain has put 80,000
GNU/Linux computers in schools. The systems feature a
[22]customized version of Debian, called [23]GNU/LinEx, and
features the GNOME desktop and other Free Software productivity
programs.

21. http://www.desktoplinux.org/news/NS5160643271.html

22. http://www.linex.org/linex2/linex/ingles/index_ing.html

23. http://www.linex.org/

Voting Method General Resolution Results. Manoj Srivastava
[24]announced the results of the condorcet/Clone proof SSD Voting
Method General Resolution. There were a total of 160 unique votes
cast, with 144 votes in favour of the resolution. Therefore, the
resolution passed with a 9:1 super majority, which is in excess of
the required 3:1 majority.

24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote-0306/msg00072.html

LaTeX Project Public License. The LaTeX Project Public License
(LPPL) has previously been [25]considered non-free under the terms
of the [26]Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Jeff Licquia has
now posted a new [27]revision of the LPPL, which he believes
satisfies the DFSG. There was [28]general [29]agreement that the
new license is DFSG-free and after a [30]year of work and perhaps
1,500 emails in total, the issue should hopefully be resolved.

25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0202/msg00123.html

26. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

27. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00210.html

28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00219.html

29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00221.html

30. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0306/msg00229.html

Hardware Donations. Benjamin Mako Hill, the Debian Hardware
Donations Manager, announced the availability of various hardware
donations. Several [31]SGI Indys have been donated to Debian
recently in California, USA and Germany, and an [32]Alphastation
200 may be available in Amsterdam. Mako also noted that there is no
developer accessible Hurd machine available, but would be happy to
[33]coordinate the donation of hardware for this if it is something
that developers feel would be useful.

31. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01311.html

32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01310.html

33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01308.html

Open Source and Mayor Election. This Wired news [34]story tells
us about a candidate for Mayor of [35]Zaragoza, Spain, who is using
the benefits of open source development as his platform for the
election. Handing out copies of [36]Augustux a Debian based
distribution, and talking about free wireless Internet access for
all, Belloch can clearly explain how free and open technologies can
be translated into opportunities, political participation, economic
growth and social welfare, with hard numbers and real details.

34. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,58764,00.html

35. http://www.ayto-zaragoza.es/
36. http://www.zaralinux.org/proy/augustux/

Software Patents in Europe. Wookey [37]reported about the
current status of Software Patents in Europe. Recently there has
been a vote by the JURI committee which essentially allows complete
patentability of software. There have been no significant
provisions to help Free Software or reduce the effect on small
businesses. The issue is very urgent! Wookey continues with a
report about the conference about software patents in Brussels from
May 5th to 7th.

37. http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu-0306/msg00259.html

Using apt-get with Rsync. Dan Jacobson wanted to [38]know if
using the [39]rsync method for apt-get only affects fetching of the
Packages files or if it will also fetch the packages via rsync.
Colin Watson [40]added that gzip already contains a patch to create
rsync-friendly archives.

38. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01091.html

39. http://home.tiscali.cz:8080/~cz210552/aptrsync.html

40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01100.html

Missing Package Dates. Dan Jacobson [41]noted that the Packages
files don’t contain information about when a package was uploaded.
Hence, without downloading and looking at the changelog file one
can’t say whether it is a package that was updated recently or
another which hasn’t been updated for a long time.

41. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01120.html

Ceasing Support for Libc 5. Francesco Lovergine [42]suggested to
drop all i386-specific packages which are libc5 related. Some of
these may be required to run proprietary non-free software,
though.

42. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01153.html

Perl License Clarification. Marc Haber [43]noticed that ftp
people reject packages that are distributed “under the same terms
as Perl itself”. However, Perl is dual-licensed, using the GNU
[44]GPL and the [45]Artistic license. Many people [46]acknowledged
this as a possible problem and recommended that upstream be made
aware of the flexibility of interpretation of the Perl style
copyright and licensing.

43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01174.html

44. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

45. http://www.perl.com/pub/a/language/misc/Artistic.html

46. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0302/msg00039.html

Annoying teTeX Upgrade Questions. Bernd Eckenfels [47]noticed
that upgrading teTeX packages results in updating configuration
files. This won’t be a problem at all, but upon upgrade the user is
asked for many files whether it should be updated since allegedly
local changes were made. Matt Zimmerman [48]explained that this
happens when a configuration file moves from one package to
another, is renamed, or when a configuration file switches to being
a configuration file when it was previously not.

47. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01178.html

48. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01232.html

Improper Package Description. Javier Fernández-Sanguino
Peña [49]complained about wrongly used package descriptions.
The description should be written so that it gives the system
administrator enough information to decide whether to install the
package. Several packages fail to meet this requirement, hence,
Javier is going to open bug reports accordingly.

49. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01273.html

Read-only Root Filesystem. Thomas Hood [50]reported that some
progress has been made towards the [51]goal of making Debian easier
to use with a read-only root filesystem. Action has been taken to
remove variable files from the directory /etc/, or at least to make
it possible to do so locally.

50. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01307.html

51. http://panopticon.csustan.edu/thood/readonly-root.html

Packaging Haskell Libraries. Isaac Jones [52]reported about
problems with packaging Haskell libraries. There has been a lot of
discussion recently on the Haskell mailing lists about the best
ways to package Haskell libraries and tools for Debian. One problem
is that almost all Haskell compilers, interpreters and releases are
binary-incompatible.

52. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0306/msg01373.html

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

• [53]ethereal — Multiple vulnerabilities.
• [54]eldev — Insecure temporary file creation.
• [55]orville-write — Buffer overflows.
• [56]xbl — Buffer overflows.
• [57]webfs — Buffer overflow.
• [58]osh — Buffer overflows.
• [59]tcptraceroute — Failure to drop root privileges.

53. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-324

54. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-325

55. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-326

56. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-327

57. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-328

58. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-329

59. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-330

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

• [60]ddns3-client — Issues dynamic DNS v3 requests.
• [61]dns-browse — Front-ends to DNS search.
• [62]hexer — Interactive binary editor with a Vi-like
  interface.
• [63]obexserver — Receive files with OBEX protocol.
• [64]rafkill — Vertical shoot’em-up similar to Raptor: Call of
  the Shadows.
• [65]steghide — Steganography hiding tool.
• [66]wiggle — Program for applying patches with conflicting
  changes.
• [67]yaz — Utility programs for Z39.50 toolkit.

60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ddns3-client.html

61. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/dns-browse.html

62. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/hexer.html

63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/obexserver.html

64. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/rafkill.html

65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/steghide.html

66. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/wiggle.html

67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/yaz.html

Orphaned Packages. 8 packages were orphaned this week and
require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 189 orphaned
packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed
to the Free Software community. Please see the [68]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.

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

• [69]gpe-todo — GNU Palmtop Environment todo list.
  ([70]Bug#198373)
• [71]gtk-doc-tools — GTK documentation tools.
  ([72]Bug#197849)
• [73]kbackup — A console single host backup solution for
  various media. ([74]Bug#198554)
• [75]kforth — Small Forth Interpreter Written in C++.
  ([76]Bug#198151)
• [77]libcapplet1 — Library for GNOME Control Center applets.
  ([78]Bug#197841)
• [79]libgnomeprint15 — GNOME Print architecture.
  ([80]Bug#197842)
• [81]memprof — Memory profiler and leak detector.
  ([82]Bug#197845)
• [83]visual-tcl — Tcl GUI builder. ([84]Bug#197844)

69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/gpe-todo.html

70. http://bugs.debian.org/198373

71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gtk-doc-tools.html

72. http://bugs.debian.org/197849

73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/kbackup.html

74. http://bugs.debian.org/198554

75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/kforth.html

76. http://bugs.debian.org/198151

77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libcapplet1.html

78. http://bugs.debian.org/197841

79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libgnomeprint15.html

80. http://bugs.debian.org/197842

81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/memprof.html

82. http://bugs.debian.org/197845

83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/visual-tcl.html

84. http://bugs.debian.org/197844

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 [85]contributing page to find out how to help. We’re
looking forward to receiving your mail at [86][email protected].

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

86. mailto:[email protected]