[gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 19 September 2005

[Ulrich Plate]

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 19 September 2005.
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==============
1. Gentoo news
==============
  
First Gentoo council meeting
----------------------------
  
On Thursday, September 15th 1900UTC, the Gentoo Council had their first 
meeting. The council was created with initiating major cross project 
decisions in mind, and the first meeting was a real success towards this. 
The meeting agenda[1] contained some important issues such as the 
confirming the stance of the council, and voting on some major GLEPs 
(Gentoo Linux Enhancement Project). The meeting started off somewhat 
adjusted, as the vote for GLEP 33 (Eclass Restructure/Redesign) was added 
at the bottom. The results came from an email by Aron Griffis[2]: 
 1. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/31498
 2. agriffis@g.o
 
 * "The council confirmed with the caveat that it is not taking on 
disciplinary responsibilities. The QA team should take complaints 
regarding unresolved technical violations to devrel to pursue displinary 
action." 
 * GLEP 31 (Character sets for portage tree items)[3] was in the favor of 
the council. However, they did want to wait until nano is confirmed to be 
utf8 ready. The GLEP is currently under withdrawn status until it is 
unwithdrawn.  
 * GLEP 40 (Standardizing "arch" keywording across all archs)[4] was 
approved by the council. 
 * GLEP 33 (Eclass Restructure/Redesign)[5] was approved by the council. 
 * Future council meetings were decided to be held on the 2nd Thursday of 
each month, 1900UTC. If this was not possible a rain date of the 3rd 
Thursday of each month was settled upon. 
 3. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0031.html
 4. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0040.html
 5. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0033.html
 
The meeting was followed by an unmoderated Question and Answer session. 
The first statement noted was the so-called "slacker" ammendment. As the 
new council guidelines stated, council members that did not show up were 
to be noted. The first meeting overcame that, however, and all council 
members were present. A judgment was also made on where to put the logs. 
Future logs will now exist in the council project space. The first 
meeting's logs are located at the Gentoo website[6]. 
 6. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/meeting-logs/20050915.txt
 
Congratulations to a very successful council meeting, and good luck to 
them during future meetings! 
    
European Gentoo developer conference planned for 18 November in Germany
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  
25 Developers, 14 presentations and several new ideas - the first Gentoo 
developer meeting at this year's FOSDEM in Brussels was a big success. To 
tie up to this success we would like to invite all Gentoo developers to 
participate in the European Gentoo Developer Conference[7] to be held at 
Kransberg Castle on 18 November, the day after Linux World Expo in 
Frankfurt (Main) has closed its doors. Planned are presentations about 
libconf (a configuration layer for Linux), the Gentoo Forums, and a status 
report of the German not-for-profit association "Friends of Gentoo e.V." 
who will also cover 10 EUR of each participant's 30 EUR conference fee. 
Please register at the conference website as soon as possible, and send 
proposals for presentations before 30 September. 
 7. conference.gentoo-ev.org
 
The Gentoo developer conference is embedded between two other open-source 
events, the German edition of LWE, and an open-source evangelism day for 
the general public of the region around the venue. If you would like to 
help out at the Gentoo LWE booth or the "Kransberg open software day", 
please use the same registration procedure[8] as for the developer 
conference itself. 
 8. conference.gentoo-ev.org/cgi-bin/registration.pl
    
=======================
2. Gentoo international
=======================
  
Japan: Open-source conference 2005 report from Tokyo
----------------------------------------------------
  
Several members of GentooJP[9], among them Matsuu Takuto[10], Mamoru 
Komachi[11], Jason Stubbs[12] and others, joined the Open Source 
Conference Tokyo[13] on 17 September 2005. Space in the exhibition area 
was limited, but there was room enough for two tiny Gentoo PowerPCs, an 
OpenBlockS[14] and a Kurobox[15] on display at the Gentoo booth. Both 
amazed people by their size and speed, although a simple emerge wget from 
an xterm took minutes to src_unpack (extracting and patch source code) and 
didn't exactly break the sound barrier when compiling literally line by 
line. Visitors did wonder how long it might take to emerge the world. 
 9. http://www.gentoo.gr.jp
 10. matsuu@g.o
 11. usata@g.o
 12. jstubbs@g.o
 13. http://www.ospn.jp/osc2005/
 14. http://www.plathome.co.jp/products/openblocks/
 15. http://www.kuroutoshikou.com/products/kuro-box/kuro-boxfset.html
 
Figure 2.1: Matsuu Takuto and his barely visible merchandise at the OSC 
Gentoo booth
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050919_osc.jpg
 
In the hands-on classroom[16] scheduled to do a step-by-step stage3 
installation of Gentoo Linux, (a Japanese PDF of the handout[17] is 
available) all of the participants successfully finished their 
installations. After the workshop, ten GentooJP members went to yet 
another meeting, this one in a Japanese bar and lasting five hours. The 
next Gentoo party will be held in December, but details are not available 
yet, so /join #gentoo-ja on irc.freenode.net if you're interested in being 
kept informed, and tell us if your schedule permits you to be in the Tokyo 
area around that time. 
 16. http://www.ospn.jp/osc2005/modules/eguide/event.php?eid=35
 17. http://dev.gentoo.gr.jp/~trombik/pub/OSC2005/OSC2005.pdf
    
==================
3. Tips and tricks
==================
  
Watch it! 
----------
  
Sometimes one wishes to watch for changes, e.g to the free space on their 
disks, to users logged in and the likes. As with most things there exists 
a Unix tool to do that with the least amount of work: watch. 
 
The man page says: "execute a program periodically, showing output 
fullscreen". So let's try this: 
 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 3.1:                                                       |
| Run watch                                                               |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                         |
|watch df                                                                 |
|                                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
If you start copying files now you should see the free space of at least 
one drive, changing to new values every two seconds. 
 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 3.2:                                                       |
| Another example                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                         |
|watch w                                                                  |
|                                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
This will show you who is logged in at the moment. 
 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Code Listing 3.3:                                                       |
| And yet another one                                                     |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                         |
|watch cat /proc/mdstat                                                   |
|                                                                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
And this shows the status of all your software RAID devices. Small hint: 
watch can't be used to see changes in files directly, you'll have to use 
cat/head/tail for them. Of course, watch can be applied to almost anything 
as a monitoring helper, I'm sure you can think of some uses for it. 
    
===========================
4. 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: 
 
 * Mark Mahle (markm) - infrastructure 
    
Changes
-------
  
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux 
project:
 
 * None this week 
    
==================
5. Gentoo Security
==================
   
X.Org: Heap overflow in pixmap allocation
-----------------------------------------
  
An integer overflow in pixmap memory allocation potentially allows any 
X.Org user to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[18] 
 18. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-07.xml
    
Python: Heap overflow in the included PCRE library
--------------------------------------------------
  
The "re" Python module is vulnerable to a heap overflow, possibly leading 
to the execution of arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[19] 
 19. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-08.xml
    
Py2Play: Remote execution of arbitrary Python code
--------------------------------------------------
  
A design error in Py2Play allows attackers to execute arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[20] 
 20. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-09.xml
    
Mailutils: Format string vulnerability in imap4d
------------------------------------------------
  
The imap4d server contains a vulnerability allowing an authenticated user 
to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the imap4d process. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[21] 
 21. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-10.xml
    
Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox: Buffer overflow
-----------------------------------------------
  
Mozilla Suite and Firefox are vulnerable to a buffer overflow that might 
be exploited to execute arbitrary code. 
 
For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[22] 
 22. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200509-11.xml
    
===========
6. Bugzilla
===========
  
Summary
-------
  
 * Statistics 
 * Closed bug ranking 
 * New bug rankings 
    
Statistics
----------
  
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[23]) to record and 
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the 
development team. Between 11 September 2005 and 18 September 2005, 
activity on the site has resulted in: 
 23. http://bugs.gentoo.org
 
 * 769 new bugs during this period 
 * 380 bugs closed or resolved during this period 
 * 65 previously closed bugs were reopened this period 
 
Of the 8286 currently open bugs: 101 are labeled 'blocker', 186 are 
labeled 'critical', and 547 are labeled 'major'. 
    
Closed bug rankings
-------------------
  
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period 
are: 
 
 * AMD64 Porting Team[24], with 37 closed bugs[25]  
 * Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[26], with 24 closed bugs[27]  
 * Gentoo for Mac OS X[28], with 15 closed bugs[29]  
 * Java team[30], with 14 closed bugs[31]  
 * Gentoo's Team for Core System packages[32], with 14 closed bugs[33]  
 * Gentoo net-p2p team[34], with 9 closed bugs[35]  
 * Apache Herd - Bugzilla Reports[36], with 9 closed bugs[37]  
 * Gentoo Security[38], with 7 closed bugs[39]  
 24. amd64@g.o
 25. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=amd64@g.o
 26. gnome@g.o
 27. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=gnome@g.o
 28. ppc-macos@g.o
 29. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=ppc-macos@g.o
 30. java@g.o
 31. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=java@g.o
 32. base-system@g.o
 33. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=base-system@g.o
 34. net-p2p@g.o
 35. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=net-p2p@g.o
 36. apache-bugs@g.o
 37. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=apache-bugs@g.o
 38. security@g.o
 39. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=security@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[40], with 61 new bugs[41]  
 * Java team[42], with 11 new bugs[43]  
 * Gentoo Games[44], with 9 new bugs[45]  
 * Sergey Kuleshov[46], with 8 new bugs[47]  
 * Gentoo Sound Team[48], with 7 new bugs[49]  
 * media-video herd[50], with 7 new bugs[51]  
 * PHP Bugs[52], with 6 new bugs[53]  
 * Gentoo net-p2p team[54], with 5 new bugs[55]  
 40. maintainer-wanted@g.o
 41. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=maintainer-wanted@g.o
 42. java@g.o
 43. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=java@g.o
 44. games@g.o
 45. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=games@g.o
 46. svyatogor@g.o
 47. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=svyatogor@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=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=sound@g.o
 50. media-video@g.o
 51. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=media-video@g.o
 52. php-bugs@g.o
 53. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=php-bugs@g.o
 54. net-p2p@g.o
 55. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-09-11&chfieldto=2005-09-18&assigned_to=net-p2p@g.o
    
===============
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===============
   
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 56. gwn-feedback@g.o
    
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==================
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==================
   
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Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Editor
Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o> - Author
Tobias Scherbaum <dertobi123@g.o> - Author
Chris White <chriswhite@g.o> - Author

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