[gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 20 June 2005

[Ulrich Plate]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 20 June 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
  
Gentoo Foundation store opens
-----------------------------
  
Taking over from Daniel Robbins -- whose sole remaining activity at the 
Gentoo project had been the Gentoo merchandising shop operations -- the 
new Gentoo store under new management by the Gentoo Foundation is now up 
and running. Set up at Cafepress, the store's catalog of 2005.1 CDs, 
branded clothing and "schwag" including coffee mugs and other 
merchandising items is now ready for online ordering, with prices in USD 
and delivery worldwide. 5 USD of each item sold goes as a direct 
contribution to the Gentoo project, to be made available to development by 
the Foundation. The store's address hasn't changed, it's at 
http://store.gentoo.org[1]. 

 1. http://store.gentoo.org
    
Gentoo at the German LinuxTag 2005 in Karlsruhe
-----------------------------------------------
  
"Linux everywhere" is the motto of this year's LinuxTag, the largest 
European Linux fair, which again takes place in Karlsruhe this week, 22 to 
25 June. "Gentoo on everything slightly faster than a washing machine" 
could very well be the slogan of the Gentoo booth at the event. 
Representing Gentoo Linux for the third year in a row, this year seesa 
nice collection of Gentoo-supported platforms on display, including MIPS 
machines (an SGI O2), a Sun Blade 100 (SPARC) and several PowerPC hosts 
(two PegasosPPC ODWs and several iBook's), complemented by the usual 
assorted x86 hardware. 
 
You will have plenty of opportunity to meet many of the German Gentoo 
developers and discuss recent activites and upcoming changes with them. A 
handful of developers from other countries also announced their 
attendance, of which Robin H. Johnson[2] flying in from Canada will 
undoubtedly be the one earning the most bonus-miles. 

 2. robbat2@g.o
 
Gentoo booths organized by the German NFP "Friends of Gentoo e.V."[3] 
traditionally include a remastered XLiveCD distributed under the nickname 
"Fizzlewizzle". Thanks to Joseph Jezak's[4] brand-new version of 
Xorgautoconfig[5] this event's Fizzlewizzle Edition is also available for 
PowerPCs. The XLiveCD is fully localized into German, ships with the 
current KDE release 3.4.1 and features top-notch translated installation 
documents. Gentoo merchandise and lots of free give-a-ways are available 
at the booth, too, and visitors can also become a member of "Friends of 
Gentoo" (official German title of the NFP: Förderverein Gentoo e.V.) on 
the spot, for an annual membership fee of 20 EUR (10 for students). 

 3. http://www.gentoo-ev.org
 4. josejx@g.o
 5. http://dev.gentoo.org/~josejx/Xorgautoconfig.html
    
Gentoo Forum admin and moderators to become official staff members
------------------------------------------------------------------
  
After years in the twilight zone, the Gentoo Forums are becoming an 
official Gentoo project. Christian Hartmann[6] and Wernfried Haas[7] 
submitted a GLEP[8] that has already been discussed with Gentoo's 
developer relations department, as it directly impacts in their area, and 
has now been taken to the gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list for open 
discussion. 

 6. ian@g.o
 7. amne@××××××××××××.org
 8. http://download.iansview.com/gentoo/docs/glep-38/glep-0038.txt
 
This means that all administrators and the so-called global moderators 
will now be official Gentoo staff members. This will give the Forum team 
better access to developers and resources helping them ensure the quality 
of the award winning[9] Gentoo Forums. 

 9. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050314-newsletter.xml#doc_chap4
 
In preparation for this change the Forum team has written a new 
document[10] entitled "Gentoo Forums Moderator Policies and Guidelines". 

 10. http://curtis119.no-ip.org/forum-guide.xml
    
Gentoo Forums receive hardware donation
---------------------------------------
  
Forum administrator Tom Knight's[11] employers, Dialogue 
Communications[12], have generously donated two 160GB Maxtor DiamondMax 
Plus 9 hard drives and an AMCC 3ware 9500S-4LP SATA RAID controller. This 
hardware will mainly be used for development and testing of new forums 
features, including the long awaited UTF8 conversion which needs lots of 
I/O for testing. Thanks a lot! 

 11. tomk@g.o
 12. http://www.dialogue.net
    
=========================
2. Heard in the community
=========================
  
Web forums
----------
  
64 vs 32 bit: is less really more?
 
Triggered by Jem Matzan's article on Linux.com[13], this thread discusses 
the virtues of going 64-bit instead of staying with a 32-bit-architecture. 
As the article seems to find too little in terms of performance 
enhancement by the move at this time, the Forum regulars are a little 
disappointed about tomorrow's platform not being properly hailed as 
today's alternative, as they think it should be.

 13. news/gwn/20050620-newsletter.xml#doc_chap4_sect4
 
 * Article: 64-bit performance in Gentoo Linux[14] 
 14. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-349691.html

    
=======================
3. Gentoo International
=======================
  
UK: London Gentoo user and developer meeting
--------------------------------------------
  
Last Friday, a few Gentoo developers and users met up, albeit at very 
short notice, for a few drinks in central London. Gentoo developers Daniel 
Drake[15], Michal Januszewski[16] (visiting from Poland) and Benjamin 
Smee[17] (strerror) got together with event organizer George Prowse[18] 
(more widely known as cokehabit) and Gentoo users Andy and Edwin for the 
afternoon. They are planning to organize a similar meeting later this 
summer, and this time there'll be some advance notice, promised! 

 15. dsd@g.o
 16. spock@g.o
 17. strerror@g.o
 18. http://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=53428
 
Figure 3.1: Gentooists of London
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050620_london.jpg
 
Note: Left to right: Daniel Drake, Andy, George Prowse, Benjamin Smee, 
Michal Januszewski
    
======================
4. Gentoo in the press
======================
  
Slashdot (14 June 2005)
-----------------------
  
A merry flamefest was kindled upon news that Gentoo founder Daniel Robbins 
had found employment with Microsoft. Among the readers commenting the 
short article[19], Hans Reiser could be seen putting drobbins' credit card 
debt in perspective with his own financial distress stemming from a messy 
divorce, other people volunteered to mount rescue missions, with about 
half the comments venturing into various sinister sci-fi analogies from 
Star Wars to Star Trek, apparently unable to decide whether it's been 
Darth Gates or Gates of Borg who lured Gentoo's ex-chief-architect into 
joining the forces of evil. 

 19. http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/05/06/13/2137239.shtml
    
The Age, Sydney Morning Herald (14 June 2005)
---------------------------------------------
  
Australian broad-sheet daily newspaper The Age picked up the story of 
Daniel Robbins' new employment at Microsoft[20] from the Gentoo website. 
Author Sam Varghese puts the Gentoo founder next to Gnome's Nat Friedman 
as "about the only other prominent open-source figure" who has ever worked 
for Microsoft, with Ximian founder Miguel de Icaza having been interviewed 
once, but turned down. The same article appeared in the Sydney Morning 
Herald[21], a sister publication of The Age.

 20. http://theage.com.au/articles/2005/06/14/1118645786407.html
 21. 
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Breaking/Gentoo-Linux-founder-joins-Microsoft/20
05/06/14/1118645786407.html
    
The Inquirer (14 June 2005)
---------------------------
  
A significantly more salacious way of wording the very same news item 
could be found at the Inquirer[22], a rather eccentric UK online 
publication who depicts Daniel Robbins turning into someone who "squeaks 
wildly in the burrow of the Vole" where he's "joined the forces of 
darkness" in order "to help Microsoft try to understand how Open Sauce 
works, a fairly major task." 

 22. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23923
    
Linux.com (15 June 2005)
------------------------
  
Yet another Gentoo-related article by Linux.com author Jem Matzen, this 
time about "64-bit performance in Gentoo Linux"[23] -- or rather the lack 
of any really outstanding performance measured in his benchmark tests. An 
earlier test with FreeBSD in a 64-bit environment had already yielded 
similar results: "64-bit does make a difference, but that performance 
advantage may not be evident in all situations." 

 23. http://enterprise.linux.com/enterprise/05/06/09/1413209.shtml?tid=121
    
ZDNet UK (16 June 2005)
-----------------------
  
Allowing for a few days of checking the background, ZDNet's Ingrid Marson 
wrote a more complete assessment[24] of Daniel's new employment and the 
alleged ripples in the project's surface, which as she finds weren't as 
agitated as some expected. 

 24. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39203933,00.htm
    
===========================
5. Moves, adds, and changes
===========================
  
Moves
-----
  
The following developers recently left the Gentoo team: 
 
 * None this week 
    
Adds
----
  
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo Linux team: 
 
 * Jean-François Brunette (formula7) - Security 
 * Matthias Schwarzott (zzam) - Video Disc Recorder (VDR) ebuilds 
 * Julien Allanos (dju`) - web apps 
 * Paul Varner (FuzzyRay) - tools-portage 
 * Senno During (st3vie) - Dutch GWN translation lead 
 * Stefan Briesenick (sbriesen) - net-dialup
    
Changes
-------
  
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux 
project:
 
 * None this week 
    
==================
6. Gentoo security
==================
  
MediaWiki: Cross-site scripting vulnerability
---------------------------------------------
  
MediaWiki is vulnerable to a cross-site scripting attack that could allow 
arbitrary scripting code execution. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[25] 

 25. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200506-12.xml
    
webapp-config: Insecure temporary file handling
-----------------------------------------------
  
The webapp-config utility insecurely creates temporary files in a world 
writable directory, potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary 
commands. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[26] 

 26. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200506-13.xml
    
Sun and Blackdown Java: Applet privilege escalation
---------------------------------------------------
  
Sun's and Blackdown's JDK or JRE may allow untrusted applets to elevate 
their privileges. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[27] 

 27. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200506-14.xml
    
PeerCast: Format string vulnerability
-------------------------------------
  
PeerCast suffers from a format string vulnerability that could allow 
arbitrary code execution. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[28] 

 28. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200506-15.xml
    
===========
7. Bugzilla
===========
  
Summary
-------
  
 * Statistics 
 * Closed bug ranking 
 * New bug rankings 
    
Statistics
----------
  
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[29]) to record and 
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the 
development team. Between 12 June 2005 and 19 June 2005, activity on the 
site has resulted in: 

 29. http://bugs.gentoo.org
 
 * 664 new bugs during this period 
 * 348 bugs closed or resolved during this period 
 * 21 previously closed bugs were reopened this period 
 
Of the 8461 currently open bugs: 97 are labeled 'blocker', 214 are labeled 
'critical', and 605 are labeled 'major'. 
    
Closed bug rankings
-------------------
  
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period 
are: 
 
 * Jonathan Smith[30], with 40 closed bugs[31]  
 * Gentoo's Team for Core System packages[32], with 21 closed bugs[33]  
 * Gentoo Security[34], with 16 closed bugs[35]  
 * Gentoo KDE team[36], with 13 closed bugs[37]  
 * Net-Mail Packages[38], with 10 closed bugs[39]  
 * Gentoo Games[40], with 10 closed bugs[41]  
 * Netmon Herd[42], with 8 closed bugs[43]  
 * Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[44], with 8 closed bugs[45]  
 30. smithj@g.o
 31. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=smithj@g.o
 32. base-system@g.o
 33. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=base-system@g.o
 34. security@g.o
 35. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=security@g.o
 36. kde@g.o
 37. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=kde@g.o
 38. net-mail@g.o
 39. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=net-mail@g.o
 40. games@g.o
 41. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=games@g.o
 42. netmon@g.o
 43. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=netmon@g.o
 44. gnome@g.o
 45. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=gnome@g.o

    
New bug rankings
----------------
  
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during 
this period are: 
 
 * Default Assignee for New Packages[46], with 218 new bugs[47]  
 * Gentoo Sound Team[48], with 18 new bugs[49]  
 * PHP Bugs[50], with 12 new bugs[51]  
 * media-video herd[52], with 11 new bugs[53]  
 * Python Gentoo Team[54], with 10 new bugs[55]  
 * AMD64 Porting Team[56], with 8 new bugs[57]  
 * Roy Marples[58], with 7 new bugs[59]  
 * Mozilla Gentoo Team[60], with 7 new bugs[61]  
 46. maintainer-needed@g.o
 47. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=maintainer-needed@g.o
 48. sound@g.o
 49. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=sound@g.o
 50. php-bugs@g.o
 51. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=php-bugs@g.o
 52. media-video@g.o
 53. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=media-video@g.o
 54. python@g.o
 55. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=python@g.o
 56. amd64@g.o
 57. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=amd64@g.o
 58. uberlord@g.o
 59. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=uberlord@g.o
 60. mozilla@g.o
 61. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-06-12&chfieldto=2005-06-19&assigned_to=mozilla@g.o

    
===============
8. GWN feedback
===============
   
Please send us your feedback[62] and help make the GWN better. 

 62. gwn-feedback@g.o
    
===============================
9. GWN subscription information
===============================
   
To subscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to 
gentoo-gwn+subscribe@g.o. 
 
To unsubscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to 
gentoo-gwn+unsubscribe@g.o from the email address you are 
subscribed under. 
    
===================
10. Other languages
===================
   
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
 
 * Danish[63]  
 * Dutch[64]  
 * English[65]  
 * German[66]  
 * French[67]  
 * Japanese[68]  
 * Italian[69]  
 * Polish[70]  
 * Portuguese (Brazil)[71]  
 * Portuguese (Portugal)[72]  
 * Russian[73]  
 * Spanish[74]  
 * Turkish[75]  
 63. http://www.gentoo.org/news/da/gwn/gwn.xml
 64. http://www.gentoo.org/news/nl/gwn/gwn.xml
 65. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
 66. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
 67. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
 68. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
 69. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
 70. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
 71. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt_br/gwn/gwn.xml
 72. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
 73. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
 74. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
 75. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml

   
Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Editor
Daniel Drake <dsd@g.o> - Author
M Curtis Napier <curtis119@×××××.com> - Author
Tobias Scherbaum <dertobi123@g.o> - Author

-- 
gentoo-gwn@g.o mailing list