Hi, As promised, here's an update from the Release Team. After we spoke with several teams recently, we have tried to come up with a plan for the upcoming transitions, freeze and release of Debian Squeeze. The situation of the release is not as good as we had hoped, but it looks like we can do the release in a few months if we all work together. Below is a list of bigger transitions and issues we are currently aware of. If you think we've missed something, send a mail to debian-release@lists.debian.org as soon as possible. Current Transitions =================== The good news is that the imagemagick and liblo transitions have recently been completed. We are also working hard on transitioning to a new parted version, bringing many new features to Squeeze. Together with the recent efforts for an X.org-based graphical installer, this will allow a release of a debian-installer version quite near to what we will use for Squeeze in the near future. We are also working towards the last really enormous transition for the Squeeze cycle: making Python 2.6 the default python version. In the past few months, packages supporting multiple python versions have been rebuilt to also support python2.6. The remaining work is to transition all packages that can only support one python version at a time. There are still some bugs needing to be resolved for that to happen [1], but we consider it doable in the near future. [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=python2.6;users=debian-python@lists.debian.org There are some other transitions that we are aware of that are currently prepared and/or already going on: * directfb An SONAME bump for directfb; this transition has started. * eglibc 2.11 This is currently pending because of a problem on hppa. There also have been some unexpected test failures on mips*, but work on this is progressing. * ruby1.9.1 ruby1.9 will be replaced by ruby1.9.1. This is half-done at this point. * BLAS/LAPACK A new system will be put in place to allow switching between different, optimized versions of these linear algebra libraries. * Tcl/Tk 8.4/8.5 Tcl 8.3 will be replaced by newer versions. This transition is currently staged in experimental. * mpi-defaults Transitioning away from MPICH and LAM/MPI is currently prepared. They will be replaced by MPICH2 and OpenMPI. * linux-2.6/linux-base libata transition New drivers using 'libata' are about to replace the old IDE drivers. linux-base will prompt you on x86 to upgrade your configuration files (fstab, bootloader) to refer to stable UUIDs instead of unpredictable device names. Some other big transitions have been planned, but not yet started: * Qt4.6 and KDE 4.4 The new upstream versions of these packages have been prepared by their maintainers, but due to the complex situation in unstable weren't uploaded yet. Nonetheless, they are planned to be included in Squeeze. * GNOME 2.30 and Evolution Likewise, we are expecting to ship with Gnome 2.30. This will involve some smaller transitions. We are also aware of planned updates to icu, boost1.42 and icedove3. Timeline ======== After the directfb transition is finished, we plan on moving on to the Qt4.6 and KDE 4.4 transitions. We expect to need two to four weeks for the Python transition, blocking most of the testing transition. Afterwards, we will need to get everything done that couldn't move due to python2.6. A freeze in late May/June seems to be possible, if people work hard on getting these transitions done. Release Goals ============= * Full IPv6 support Sadly it looks like this goal won't be achieved in time; there are currently over 100 bugs open, and many applications still lack proper IPv6 support. But it looks far better than with previous releases. See http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/FullIPv6Support and http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=tag&data=ipv6&archive=no for details. * Large File Support Is almost done. We currently know of only nine bugs (some of them minor) affecting this release goal. See http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/LFS and http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=tag&data=lfs&archive=no for details. * New source package format support As our infrastructure is now capable of handling the new dpkg-source formats, having all packages be compatible with the new "3.0 (quilt)" source format is about 80 bugs away. Some of these bugs are very easy to fix by adding a proper debian/source/format. See http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/NewDebFormats and http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=hertzog@debian.org;tag=3.0-quilt-by-default for details. * Removal of OSS Only three bugs remain to be resolved to get this release goal achieved. See http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-release@lists.debian.org;tag=oss-removal for details. * Removal of unneeded .la files Please continue to drop la-files which are not referenced. We don't expect to fully meet this goal prior to the release of Squeeze but would like to continue making progress towards it. See http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/LAFileRemoval for details. * MultiArch dpkg lacks support for it, so it sadly looks like this release goal won't be achieved either. See http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/MultiArch for details. * GNU/kFreeBSD-* The release of these two new architectures looks promising, but they are still far away from full archive coverage. It seems that much could be gained by fixing some key packages. Please contact the BSD porter list if you would like to join their effort: http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd/. * Removing obsolete GNOME libraries While there has been quite an improvement compared to previous releases, we are still ~40 bugs away from achieving this release goal. Please see http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/RemoveOldLibs and http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org;tag=oldlibs for details. How to Help =========== Since there are an enormous amount of RC bugs, you can help facilitate the release by fixing RC bugs in your own packages. Other maintainers might not be able to do this for their packages, so you might check if things you use are not in a release stable and help out, if needed. We would be happy if you would only upload software that you believe to be stable at this point. Packaging a new, unstable version might lead to unexpected problems and could delay the release, so consider using experimental for any new hot features you want to bring into Debian. Further help is needed in triaging RC bugs and bugs concerning our release goals. To that end, it might be enough to give the relevant people a nudge to include existing fixes. You might also be interested in working on the release notes: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=release-notes;dist=unstable Administrivia ============= We currently have no explicit Release Manager. All tasks are being handled by the team together and all members have full authority. We are also looking for new members of the Release Team. If you don't know what needs to be done, here's a short overview: * Transitions waiting to happen could profit from someone checking if everything is all right. This means finding out which packages are affected, which of these need sourceful uploads and coordination with the maintainers of these packages. If the transition is meant to go smoothly into testing, care needs to be taken to not entangle it with any of the other ongoing transitions. When all of that is checked and prepared, the transitioning package should be uploaded and binNMUs scheduled. * We also need to get the number of RC bugs down if we want to release Squeeze this year. To this end, it would be great if one or more BSPs could be organized, possibly focussed at a specific type of bug. Besides the number of RC bugs, we also have some widely used packages where maintainers are overwhelmed by the number of bugs filed against their packages (KDE, Gnome, Iceweasel, ...) While not strictly a release issue, triaging (and possibly fixing) bugs can be integrated into a BSP to give people something easier (but nonetheless tedious :-/) to do. If you're interested in joining the team, please contact us at debian-release@lists.debian.org. We will respond to expressions of interest after April 15th. Regards, Adam for the Release Team
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