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Debian Weekly News – July 26th, 2000

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July 27, 2000

Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:36:06 -0700
From: Joey Hess
To: debian-news@lists.debian.org
Subject: Debian Weekly News – July 26th, 2000

Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/current/issue/

Debian Weekly News – July 26th, 2000

Welcome to Debian Weekly News, a newsletter for the Debian
community.

Test Cycle 3 has begun. Anthony Towns [1]writes that “it is
hoped and expected that we will not need to make any further
changes to packages between this test cycle and declaring potato
stable.” “This test cycle will end in two weeks, roughly the 9th of
August. At that point, any additional problems will be added to the
release notes, and potato will be declared stable. The official
announcement of this, and the first non-virtual release party, is
expected to take place at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.”
Everyone seems confident we’ll pull it off this time.

Ben Collins [2]announced that Debian 2.2 will be dedicated to
developer Joel ‘Espy’ Klecker, who died unexpectedly at age 21.
Almost 200 Debian developers have [3]signed the [4]dedication.
We’ll miss you Joel.

Progeny, the Debian-based company founded by Ian Murdock, is in
the process of hiring several Debian developers. A quick look at
their [5]staff page turns up some familiar names, including John
Goerzen and Branden Robinson. Debian Weekly News has learned that
other developers may be joining them soon. Progeny’s [6]jobs page
states that they are “seeking Debian developers to work on Debian
GNU/Linux and help develop a solid foundation for Linux NOW and our
other products and services.”. The opportunity to work on Debian
full-time is a marvelous thing that benefits Debian as a whole, and
it looks like more and more developers will be in that
position.

Constitutional, Parliamentary Issues. A proposal is in the works
to alter the Debian constitution so that the Social Contract and
DFSG are designated “Foundation Documents” that may only be changed
by a 3:1 majority vote. Manoj Srivastava’s [7]original draft has
received several seconds, and a [8]modified version has received 5
more. There should be a vote eventually … on the other hand, we
have still not voted on the non-free issue.

Debian security. [9]An article analyzing the performance of
various distributions with respect to security fixes unfortunately
left Debian out of their distribution lineup, stating we released
too infrequently to be included. Joey Hess (the editor of DWN)
[10]posted a rebuttal, in which he pointed out that with tools like
apt, the security of a distribution is not closely tied to release
frequency, and also showed that Debian releases new minor versions
(such as 2.1r5) more frequently than Red Hat. Read them both, and
draw your own conclusions. By the way, no security fixes have been
announced for Debian in the past week.

Packages newly added to unstable this week include the following
and

[11]11 more:
  * [12]ant: Java based build tool like make
  * [13]antiword: Converts MS Word files to text and ps
  * [14]auto-apt: on demand package installation tool
  * [15]fancylogin: Themeable console login program
  * [16]gtetrinet: multiplayer tetris-like game
  * [17]libxerces-java: Validating XML parser for Java
  * [18]tetradraw: ANSI drawing and viewing utility.

References
1. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/current/issue/mail#1

2. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/current/issue/mail#2

3. ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/dedication-2.2.sigs.tar.gz

4. ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/dedication-2.2.txt

5. http://www.progenylinux.com/people/

6. http://www.progenylinux.com/jobs/

7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0007/msg00061.html

8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project-0007/msg00052.html

9. http://www.securityportal.com/cover/coverstory20000724.html

10. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/current/issue/mail#3

11. http://auric.debian.org/~tausq/newpkgs-20000725.html

12. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/devel/ant.html