------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/ Debian Project News debian-public...@lists.debian.org January 1st, 2016 https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2015/09/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to this year's ninth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian
community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* Mourning Ian Murdock
* The "New" Debian Project News
* Internal News/Happenings
* Help needed
* More than just code
* Reports
* Outside News
* Want to continue reading DPN?
Mourning Ian Murdock
--------------------
Debian is saddened to share the news [1] of the passing of Ian Murdock.
Ian was not only the founder of Debian, but friend and mentor to many.
We will miss him dearly.
1: https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-murdock.html
The publication of this issue of the Debian Project News has been
delayed with this sad news, along with the preparation of a dedicated
announcement that will be published soon on the debian-announce mailing
list and the website. Thus what should have been the last DPN issue of
2015 has become the first of 2016. In any case, we hope you find it
useful.
The "New" Debian Project News
-----------------------------
This is our second newly revised issue of the DPN. We have shifted some
of the content around, introduced new sections, and moved some content
onto the Bits from Debian [2] blog.
2: https://bits.debian.org/
Bits from Debian will showcase new packages and interviews, plus some
announcements, and is where we will welcome new DDs.
We are planning to send more short news items via our social network
account. Please be sure to follow us on identi.ca/debian [3] (or fall
back to the non-official mirrors in other social networks).
3: https://identi.ca/debian
One of the major changes is the removal of the DSA security advisories
from the newsletter. Debian's Security Team releases current advisories
on a daily basis (Security Advisories 2015 [4]), so please read them
carefully and take the proper measures.
4: https://www.debian.org/security/2015/
If you need to be kept up to date about security advisories released by
the Debian Security Team, please subscribe to the security mailing
list [5] (and the separate backports list [6], stable updates list [7],
and long term support security updates list [8]) for announcements.
5: https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/
6: https://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/
7: https://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/
8: https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/
We are simplifying and (we hope) improving the "help needed" section.
From now on, you will find:
* links to packages needing help,
* links to bug reports tagged "newcomer",
* calls for help from teams in coordination with the Welcome Team, tailored
for first-time contributors.
Internal News/Happenings
------------------------
FAI 5.0 released
After several months of hard work, the FAI team is very happy to
announce [9] their new major release 5.0.
9: https://lists.uni-koeln.de/pipermail/linux-fai/2015-November/011147.html
FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) is a non-interactive system to
install, customise, and manage Linux systems and software configurations
on computers as well as virtual machines and chroot environments. FAI is
a long-standing project in Debian and was started in 1999.
The new FAI ISO image now supports the installation of Debian 8 with
XFCE or GNOME desktop, Ubuntu 14.04, and CentOS 7.
Read the full feature list, download installation images (for CD/DVD or
USB sticks), or watch screenshots and videos on the FAI project
website [10].
10: http://fai-project.org/
Official Debian Images for Microsoft Azure
The Microsoft Azure platform officially endorses and supports Debian, by
providing in their marketplace official Debian images, which are created
in collaboration between several Debian teams (the Debian Cloud Team,
Debian Trademark Team, and Debian CD Team), credativ GmbH (Debian
development partner), and Microsoft.
More info can be found in the blogpost by credativ [11] and the Debian
Cloud Team communication channels [12].
11:
http://www.credativ.co.uk/credativ-blog/official-debian-images-microsoft-azure-are-now-available
12: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Cloud
Kernel oops collector is back in Debian!
Debian's Kernel oops collector has returned to Debian thanks to the
efforts of Bálint Réczey [13]. The kerneloops collector available in
unstable [14] sends reports to the Linux Kernel Oops Service [15], which
collects kernel errors from all over the world helping kernel developers
find and fix kernel issues that otherwise are not reported.
13: http://balintreczey.hu/blog/kernel-oops-collector-is-back-in-debian/
14: https://packages.debian.org/stretch/kerneloops
15: http://oops.kernel.org/
Mini DebConf at 2015 Latinoware Report
Giovani Ferreira reported on a Mini DebConf [16] that occurred on
October 15 2015 during Latinoware [17] in Brazil. Debian Developers
Antonio Terceiro, Felipe Augusto van de Wiel, João Eriberto Mota Filho,
and Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo were present and presented a number of
talks on the Debian Project and ways to contribute.
16: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/br/2015/MiniDebconfLatinoware
17: http://latinoware.org/
At the end of the programme new contributors and speakers spoke about
how to collaborate with Debian specifically in Brazil, and gave an
"everything you wanted to know about Debian" session. In addition to the
presentation, the project had a stand available at the exposition to
receive stakeholders and distribute merchandise.
Annual Deb Med Advent Calendar The Debian Med Advent Calendar [18] ran
from December 1 through to 24. This annual event [19] aims at squashing
bugs each day and marking them on their Advent Calendar. This year they
were able to close more than 50% of open bugs, 150 in total! Many thanks
to all who contributed. General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution
Procedure
18: http://debian-med.alteholz.de/advent/
19: https://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2015/12/msg00006.html
The Debian Constitution [20] had an amendment dealing with our
resolution procedures [21] proposed and voted on. The proposal of the
amendment, seconds, and voting results were recently published [22].
20: https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
21: https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-A
22: https://www.debian.org/vote/2015/vote_003
Once upon a time in Debian:
* 1996-12-12 The Debian GNU/Linux 1.2 "Rex" release [23] announced by Bruce
Perens.
* 2004-11-28 Package signing [24] added to apt
23: https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1996/msg00026.html
24: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=203741
Contributors
Help needed
-----------
DebConf16 needs your help to raise funds
We are well into the organisation of DebConf16 [25], which will take
place in Cape Town, South Africa, in July of 2016. The Debconf
Fundraising Team asks [26] every Debian contributor to consider acting
as an advocate for Debian, by asking your organisations to sponsor
DebConf, particularly if your organisation is either entirely new to
sponsoring Debian, or has not sponsored Debian recently. You can
download a brochure [27] and a flyer [28] to help with the effort. They
summarise what Debian and DebConf are and list the available sponsorship
benefits.
25: http://debconf16.debconf.org/
26: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/10/msg00001.html
27:
http://media.debconf.org/dc16/fundraising/debconf16_sponsorship_brochure.pdf
28: http://media.debconf.org/dc16/fundraising/debconf16_sponsorship_flyer.pdf
Although it would be great if the request came from someone known, if
you would prefer not to ask directly, please contact the Fundraising
Team [29] with any leads.
29: spons...@debconf.org
Debian will be at 2016 FOSDEM!
Debian put forth a booth proposal which was accepted by FOSDEM [30] and
we will have one table at the 2016 FOSDEM event. A Call for Help [31] is
needed for volunteers, organising, mailing, booth presence, and other
items. Help us put our best forward at this amazing event!
30: https://fosdem.org/
31: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/be/2016/FOSDEM
Packages needing help:
Currently [32] 661 packages are orphaned [33] and 171 packages are up
for adoption [34]: please visit the complete list of packages which need
your help [35].
32: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/12/msg00375.html
33: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/orphaned
34: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/rfa
35: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested
Newcomer bugs
Debian has a newcomer bug tag used to indicate bugs which are suitable
for new contributors to use as an entry point to working on specific
packages.
There are 153 [36] newcomer bugs available.
36: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=newcomer
More than just code
-------------------
Tips and Tricks
David Bremner shares a quick How-To for a Bootable Debian USB [37].
Jonathan McDowell shows how to Update Brother HL-3040CN firmware from
Linux [38]. Simon Josefsson explains an Automatic Replicant Backup over
USB using rsync [39].
37: http://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner//blog/posts/bootable-usb/
38: http://www.earth.li/~noodles/blog/2015/11/updating-hl3040cn-firmware.html
39:
http://blog.josefsson.org/2015/11/28/automatic-android-replicant-backup-over-usb-using-rsync/
Reports
-------
LTS status/updates
Long Term Support for Squeeze reported 71.50 hours of paid support in
September [40], 85.50 hours in October [41], and 114.50 hours in
November [42] following an ascending curve. "Now the project jumped from
50% to 65% of the objective of the equivalent of a full-time position
with a single new sponsor" said Raphaël Hertzog [43] in the monthly
Freexian report about Debian Long Term Support, greeting the first
Platinum sponsor: TOSHIBA (through Toshiba Software Development
Vietnam). These work hours are regularly distributed between eight paid
contributors: Ben Hutchings, Chris Lamb, Guido Günther, Mike Gabriel,
Raphaël Hertzog, Santiago Ruano Rincon, Scott Kitterman, and Thorsten
Altenholz. In terms of security, at the end of November, the dla-
needed.txt file listed 19 packages awaiting an update; the list of open
vulnerabilities in Squeeze shows about 22 affected packages in total,
which is around the average of the last months.
40:
https://raphaelhertzog.com/2015/10/16/freexians-report-about-debian-long-term-support-september-2015/
41:
https://raphaelhertzog.com/2015/11/13/freexians-report-about-debian-long-term-support-october-2015/
42:
https://raphaelhertzog.com/2015/12/14/freexians-report-about-debian-long-term-support-november-2015/
43: https://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/Freexian+LTS/
Guido Günther reported on his contributed LTS work for August [44]; he
worked on pykerberors, wordpress and the Common Vulnerabilities and
Exposures (CVE) triage for nine CVE items. In September [45] he worked
on glibc and nss, with nine CVEs. For the month of October [46] he
worked on krb5 and the triaging of 16 CVEs. He also added indentation
support to LTS CVE/list Emacs on his own time, leading into
December [47] with work on krb5 and nss. After observing that nss
requires frequent updates, he added autopkg tests to the process and
discussed using the same version in all suites.
44: http://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/archive/2015/09/
45: http://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/archive/2015/10/
46: http://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/archive/2015/11/
47: http://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/Debian_Fun_in_November_2015.html
Thorsten Alteholz reported on his September [48] LTS contributions, work
on a new version of php5, a php5 update, openldap, and rpcbind. In
October [49] he worked on updates for freeimage, polarssl, and libxml
along with nine CVEs fixed. For November [50] he worked on php5, libpng,
and libsndfile along with additional security bugs.
48: http://blog.alteholz.eu/2015/10/my-debian-activities-in-september-2015/
49: http://blog.alteholz.eu/2015/11/my-debian-activities-in-october-2015/
50: http://blog.alteholz.eu/2015/12/my-debian-activities-in-november-2015/
The Debian 6 "Squeeze" long term support will continue until February
2016. The LTS cycle of Debian 7 "Wheezy" is planned to run from February
2016 to May 2018.
Reproducible Build status/update
The Reproducible Builds project produces weekly reports [51] on package
and toolchain fixes in the Stretch cycle.
* Week 24 [52] reports 31 packages moved to reproducible state, 103 packages
reviewed and a total of 29 packages updated. 72 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 25 [53] reports 130 packages moved to reproducible state, 70 packages
reviewed and a total of 17 packages updated. 22 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 26 [54] reports 28 packages moved to reproducible state, 44 packages
reviewed and a total of 48 packages updated. 70 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 27 [55] reports 22 packages moved to reproducible state, 206 packages
reviewed and a total of 196 packages updated. 28 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 28 [56] reports 37 packages moved to reproducible state, 70 packages
reviewed and a total of 17 packages updated. 22 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 29 [57] reports 41 packages moved to reproducible state, 133 packages
reviewed and a total of 103 packages updated. 57 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 30 [58] reports 24 packages moved to reproducible state, 180 packages
reviewed and a total of 59 packages updated. 70 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 31 [59] reports 17 packages moved to reproducible state, 78 packages
reviewed and a total of 49 packages updated. 25 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 32 [60] reports 21 packages moved to reproducible state, 27 packages
reviewed and a total of 14 packages updated. 4 packages have been identified as
failing to build from source.
* Week 33 [61] reports 43 packages moved to reproducible state, 113 packages
reviewed and a total of 56 packages updated. 42 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
* Week 34 [62] reports 61 packages moved to reproducible state, 143 packages
reviewed and a total of 22 packages updated. 12 packages have been identified
as failing to build from source.
51: https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/
52:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_24/
53:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_25/
54:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_26/
55:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_27/
56:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_28/
57:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_29/
58:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_30/
59:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/reproducible_builds_stretch_week_31/
60:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/%0Areproducible_builds_stretch_week_32/
61:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/%0Areproducible_builds_stretch_week_33/
62:
https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/posts/%0Areproducible_builds_stretch_week_34/
Outside News
------------
Software Freedom Conservancy Needs Donors!
The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) helps promote, improve, develop,
and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects and
provides a non-profit home and infrastructure for FLOSS projects.
Last August, Debian and Conservancy announced a partnership and formed
the Copyright Aggregation Project where, among other things, Conservancy
will be able to hold copyrights for some Debian works and ensure
compliance with copyleft so that those works remain in free software.
Recently, Conservancy launched a major fundraising campaign [63] and
needs more individual supporters to gain more sustainable and
independent funding. This will allow the Conservancy to continue its
efforts towards convincing more companies to comply with free software
licenses such as the GPL and take legal actions when dialogue turns out
to be unsuccessful. Conservancy needs your support now, more than ever!
63: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/
Want to continue reading DPN?
-----------------------------
Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer
writers to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on.
Please see the contributing page [64] to find out how to help. We're
looking forward to receiving your mail at
<debian-public...@lists.debian.org>.
64: https://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute
This issue of Debian Project News was edited by Cédric Boutillier, Jean-
Pierre Giraud, Donald Norwood, Laura Arjona Reina, Justin B Rye and Paul
Wise.
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