--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/05/ Debian Weekly News - January 31st, 2006 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Martin Michlmayr [1]reported about two development MIPS boards donated to Debian that will be used as build daemon for the MIPS architectures. Stephen Shankland [2]reported about Eben Moglen who is explaining the updated [3]version of the [4]GNU GPL which [5]resulted in [6]discussions on Debian lists. 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/01/msg00063.html 2. http://news.com.com/Defender+of+the+GPL/2008-1082_3-6028495.html 3. http://gplv3.fsf.org/ 4. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00394.html 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00427.html Call for Papers. Margarita Manterola [7]called for papers for the upcoming [8]Debian Day which will take place on Saturday, May 13th, before this years [9]DebConf in Oaxtepec, Mexico. The presentations should be easy to understand, very clear and concise in their content, and not require any previous knowledge about Debian from the audience. 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/01/msg00014.html 8. http://www.debconf.org/debianday/ 9. http://www.debian.org/events/2006/0514-debconf Process to remove debmake. Santiago Vila [10]reported about the demise of [11]debmake. One year ago, the use of debmake for new packages was deprecated and the included program deb-make removed. The next steps are switching away from this tool and eventually opening release-critical bug reports against remaining [12]packages. Anthony Towns [13]suggested to file wishlist bugs now with a proper usertag. 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01428.html 11. http://packages.debian.org/debmake 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01435.html 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg01446.html More volunteer Contributions. Joseph Michael Smidt [14]stated that all people want to feel important when they're making a contribution to Debian. He would like to see an official title for all contributers so they become a visible part of the community, especially since the [15]new-maintainer process could be seen as a barrier. The following discussion demonstrated several means to get involved. 14. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00004.html 15. http://www.debian.org/devel/join/ New Semantic of /var/run. Peter Eisentraut [16]forwarded a user [17]request to create a directory within /var/run upon service startup. Henrique Holschuh [18]suggested to go ahead since [19]initscripts are leaning towards an ephemeral /var/run that will be [20]removed upon reboot. 16. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00223.html 17. http://bugs.debian.org/344758 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00234.html 19. http://packages.debian.org/initscripts 20. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00241.html Debian Archive Key Maintenance. Petter Reinholdtsen [21]noticed problems upgrading [22]etch due to a missing new archive key. Joey Hess [23]pondered whether this could result in a stable Debian release being uninstallable. [24]Distributing updated keys in a security update would [25]break past policies concerning stable releases and users won't be able to install the current stable release without the update. 21. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00225.html 22. http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/ 23. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00311.html 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00368.html 25. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00369.html Launchpad for Debian? Frans Jessop [26]asked if it would be helpful, more organised and efficient if Debian developers would work with [27]launchpad. Matthew Garrett [28]pointed out that the general use is unlikely as long as it is not Free Software. Andrew Suffield [29]added that removing the ability to manage things from the shell doesn't improve efficiency. 26. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00349.html 27. http://launchpad.net/ 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00351.html 29. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00391.html Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed. * DSA 954: [30]wine -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 955: [31]mailman -- Denial of service. * DSA 956: [32]lsh-utils -- Local vulnerabilities. * DSA 957: [33]imagemagick -- Arbitrary command execution. * DSA 958: [34]drupal -- Several vulnerabilities. * DSA 959: [35]unalz -- Arbitrary code execution. * DSA 960: [36]libmail-audit-perl -- Insecure temporary file. 30. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-954 31. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-955 32. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-956 33. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-957 34. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-958 35. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-959 36. http://www.debian.org/security/2006/dsa-960 New or Noteworthy Packages. Due to [37]packages.debian.org being down because of performance issues we are unable to provide the regular list of new packages. 37. http://packages.debian.org/ Orphaned Packages. 2 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 197 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the [38]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. 38. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ * [39]ivi -- Graphical front-end for various HDL simulators. ([40]Bug#350149) * [41]ud -- Uptime Daemon. ([42]Bug#349833) 39. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/electronics/ivi 40. http://bugs.debian.org/350149 41. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ud 42. http://bugs.debian.org/349833 Removed Packages. 4 packages have been [43]removed from the Debian archive during the past week: 43. http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt * roxen3 -- Roxen Challenger Webserver [44]Bug#348646: Request of maintainer, superseded by roxen4 * wmkbd -- WindowMaker dock application which can define/modify/switch keyboard maps [45]Bug#349255: Request of maintainer, RC buggy; unreponsive upstream * libmail-audit-perl -- Perl library for creating easy mail filters [46]Bug#349551: Request of maintainer, obsolete; alternative (libemail-filter-perl) exists * libdigest-nilsimsa-perl -- Nilsimsa message digest algorithm [47]Bug#350057: Request of maintainer, no rev-deps; not needed anymore 44. http://bugs.debian.org/348646 45. http://bugs.debian.org/349255 46. http://bugs.debian.org/349551 47. http://bugs.debian.org/350057 Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers who watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the [48]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 48. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing 49. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
