Debian Weekly News - January 17th, 2006
Welcome to this year's 3rd issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Simon Josefsson proposed a license sufficient for Debian and FreeBSD for the Internet Engineering Task Force that releases RFC documents. Michael Banck announced the availability of X.org packages for the Hurd.
Status of the m68k Port. Wouter Verhelst announced future plans of the m68k port team after it lacks too many requirements for etch. Freescale's m68k successor, the ColdFire variant with MMU (memory management unit) would boost the buildds' speed by factor 4 and more compared to the current buildds. For the purpose of evaluating the possibilities of such an hybrid port, Freescale offered Debian five ColdFire boards which are currently on the way to the Debian m68k port team.
Debian Mirror Split. Anthony Towns announced that the primary Debian mirror will soon only contain the i386 architecture instead of all, the amd64 architecture may be added later. For other architectures special host names will be created. He asked for help communicating with mirror admins and maintaining the master mirror list.
Releasing Software under the GPL. Svante Signell wondered how to mark files in a software package that is to be released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Justin Pryzby stated that all files with creative content should be marked accordingly. Brian Nelson added that most of these questions are answered by the Free Software Foundation already.
Discovering neglected Packages. Thomas Huriaux wrote a number of scripts to discover packages that have been neglected by their maintainers. The output should help developers to decide which package to help working on. The list is sorted by the number of bugs, date of the last maintainer upload, number of non-maintainer uploads and the number of release-critical bugs.
Distributing GPL Software. Daniel Carrera wondered how he is supposed to fulfil the source code requirement of the GNU GPL when he is handing out OpenOffice.org CDs during an exhibition. Andrew Suffield explained that the easiest way is to prepare copies of the source and give them to anybody who asks for them.
Collaborative Maintenance of Packages. Following the last discussion at the Debian-QA meeting in Darmstadt, Raphaƫl Hertzog described the basics for maintaining packages by a team using a version control system. The goal is to find a decent way for Debian to let external contributors integrate their work within Debian.
Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update your systems if you have any of these packages installed.
- DSA 935: libapache2-mod-auth-pgsql -- Format string vulnerability.
- DSA 936: libextractor -- Arbitrary code execution.
- DSA 937: tetex-bin -- Arbitrary code execution.
- DSA 938: koffice -- Arbitrary code execution.
- DSA 939: fetchmail -- Denial of service.
- DSA 940: gpdf -- Arbitrary code execution.
- DSA 941: tuxpaint -- Insecure temporary file creation.
- DSA 942: albatross -- Arbitrary code execution.
- DSA 943: perl -- Arbitrary code execution.
- DSA 944: mantis -- Several vulnerabilities.
- DSA 945: antiword -- Insecure temporary file creation.
New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates.
- alacarte -- Easy GNOME menu editing tool.
- bcrelay -- Broadcast relay daemon.
- blinken -- KDE version of the Simon Says electronic memory game.
- bluemon -- Activate or deactivate programs based on bluetooth link quality.
- cue2toc -- Converts CUE files to cdrdao's TOC format.
- debian-archive-keyring -- GnuPG archive keys of the Debian archive.
- fatsort -- Utility for sorting FAT directory structures.
- freetalk -- Console based Jabber client.
- havp -- HTTP Anti Virus Proxy.
- k3dsurf -- Tool for mathematical surfaces.
- kanagram -- Letter order game for KDE.
- kitty -- Qt/KDE based RSS podcast and video aggregator.
- kmobiletools -- KDE control application for the mobile phone.
- knetwalk -- Game for system administrators.
- kthesaurus -- Thesaurus for the KDE Office Suite.
- kunittest -- Unit testing library for KDE.
- linuxprinting.org-ppds -- Linuxprinting.org printer support - PostScript PPD files.
- pcsx -- Sony PlayStation emulator.
- update-manager -- GNOME application that manages apt updates.
- zsnes -- Emulator of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (TM).
Orphaned Packages. 7 packages were orphaned this week and require a new maintainer. This makes a total of 171 orphaned packages. Many thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free Software community. Please see the 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.
- boson-base -- Core package for the Boson OpenGL war game. (Bug#348062)
- installwatch -- Track installation of local software. (Bug#347469)
- oneko -- Cat chases the cursor (now a mouse) around the screen. (Bug#348199, Bug#348205)
- wmtop -- Dockapp that displays 3 top memory or CPU using processes. (Bug#347529)
- x-symbol -- WYSIWYG TeX mode for XEmacs. (Bug#348060)
- xmix -- Xt based mixer for X11. (Bug#348196)
- xtalk -- BSD talk compatible X Window System client. (Bug#347571)
Removed Packages. 22 packages have been removed from the Debian archive during the past week:
- zope-backtalk -- Document annotation, editing, and production system - Zope
Bug#310673: Request of maintainer, orphaned package - eli -- Compiler construction kit
Bug#319463: Request of maintainer, very few users and up for adoption for several months - openmosix -- Open Source Linux Cluster Project
Bug#319817: Request of QA, outdated and buggy - polypaudio -- Development files for the polypaudio sound server library
Bug#339589: Request of maintainer, has never been part of a stable release; dead upstream - gwydion-dylan, libpng-dylan -- Gwydion Dylan
Bug#342860: Request of QA, FTBFS; RC-buggy; maintainer MIA? - torsmo -- System monitor that sits in the corner of your desktop
Bug#342919: Request of maintainer, superseded by conky; dead upstream - php-clamav -- PHP bindings for libclamav
Bug#343908: Request of maintainer, superseded by php-clamavlib; dead upstream - libtoolbutton-java -- extension of Java swing component JButton
Bug#344129: Request of maintainer, superseded by libtoolbar-java; no rev-deps - gtk-engines-icegradient -- Ice-Gradient theme for GTK+
Bug#344249: Request of maintainer, dead upstream - libbusiness-onlinepayment-bankofamerica-perl -- Bank of America backend for Business::OnlinePayment
Bug#344326: Request of maintainer, obsolete, doesn't work anymore - ubit -- Development files for libubit
Bug#344597: Request of QA, orphaned, out-of-date, unnoticed grave breakage - xerces25 -- Validating XML parser library for C++ (development files)
Bug#344860: Request of maintainer, superseded by xerces27 - figfonts -- User contributed fonts for figlet
Bug#345743: included fonts are undistributable due to lack of license information - pmp-common -- hotplug/udev scripts for portable music players
Bug#346131: Request of maintainer, obsolete - rbscrobbler -- Send rhythmbox track information to audioscrobbler
Bug#347471: Request of maintainer, orphaned; obsolete - winesetuptk -- Windows Emulator (Configuration and Setup Tool)
Bug#347640: Request of maintainer, superseded by wine-fg, unmaintained - pcmcia-modules-2.4.26-i386 -- PCMCIA modules for Linux (kernel 2.4.26-1-386)
Bug#344839: Request of QA, obsoleted, unusable in Debian - webmin-* -- Web interface for system maintenance, and modules
Bug#343897: Request of maintainer, outdated; unmaintained - zope-loginmanager, zope-zpatters -- Zope modules
Bug#312864: Request of maintainer, orphaned, superseded - 855resolution -- Resolution modify tool for Intel graphic chipset
Bug#347310: Request of maintainer, superseded by 915resolution - mooix -- MOO built on top of the Unix system
Bug#347811: Request of maintainer, not suitable for release - oftc-hybrid -- Hybrid 7 IRC daemon - OFTC branch
Bug#347874: Request of maintainer, unmaintained
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This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Axel Beckert and Martin 'Joey' Schulze.