Gentoo Archives: gentoo-gwn

From: Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o>
To: gentoo-gwn@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 21 November 2005
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:38:56
Message-Id: 20051121011610.137e1323.plate@gentoo.org
1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
3 http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
4 This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 21 November 2005.
5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
6
7 ==============
8 1. Gentoo news
9 ==============
10
11 European Gentoo Developer Conference
12 ------------------------------------
13
14 Around 20 participants spent an icy November day at Schloss Kransberg[1],
15 the venue for the second European Gentoo developer conference. Hosted in
16 splendid isolation outside Frankfurt by GWN editor Ulrich Plate[2], the
17 all-day event was attended by developers from Denmark, France, Switzerland
18 Germany and the Netherlands.
19 1. http://www.schloss-kransberg.de
20 2. plate@g.o
21
22 Figure 1.1: Devs pYrania and tantive with Forum regular Inte in front of
23 the castle
24 http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20051121_castle.jpg
25
26 The program included presentations by Damien Krotkine[3] who explained his
27 libconf approach to make configuration file management a more rational
28 affair, and Fabian Groffen who gave a rundown of past and future
29 endeavours of the reanimated Gentoo on Mac OS X project. Markus Nigbur[4]
30 introduced his efforts at rewriting the old Gentoo statistics client,
31 gentoo-stats, which is humming away nicely in a test environment, but has
32 to wait for the latest PHP and MySQL in the stable tree before it becomes
33 eligible for official hosting.
34 3. dams@g.o
35 4. pyrania@g.o
36
37 Figure 1.2: Short break between presentations
38 http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20051121_devcon.jpg
39
40 A big part of the discussion before lunch was centered around efforts to
41 set up a master mirror in Europe to help alleviate the load on Gentoo's
42 infrastructure at OSU. Patrick Lauer[5] gave a status report on
43 negotiations with potential sponsors, the scope and timeline for setting
44 up a master distfiles and/or rsync mirror was discussed, and the
45 participants agreed on aiming to get everything up and running before the
46 2006.0 release.
47 5. patrick@g.o
48
49 Tobias Scherbaum[6] presented an overview of the redesign efforts at the
50 German Gentoo website which include development of a content management
51 system to benefit other national web presences, too, Ulrich Plate reported
52 about a number of Gentoo book projects currently in planning or making,
53 and the afternoon session closed with a lightning talk by the castle's
54 owner and guest speaker Klaus Landefeld[7] who introduced the local CraNet
55 infrastructure project that connects households in the Kransberg village
56 via Linux-based WLAN routers to the castle's WLL internet uplink. The
57 open-floor discussion just before dinner touched on other topics, with
58 demands for wider tinderbox availability ranking highest.
59 6. dertobi123@g.o
60 7. klaus@×××××××××.net
61
62 The Kransberg meeting is due to be repeated, on an alternating schedule
63 with developer meetings at Brussels' FOSDEM in February. Next year it will
64 be detached from the German edition of the Linux World Expo, and moved
65 ahead on the calendar towards the end of summer, to avoid the sound of
66 clattering teeth interrupting presentations. And since several developers
67 had expressed interest in attending and presenting papers at the
68 conference, but couldn't find the financial means in their budgets,
69 finding sponsors to cover travel expenses will be an important part of the
70 preparations for the next time.
71
72 2005.1 media refresh: 2005.1-r1 released
73 ----------------------------------------
74
75 A media refresh over the 2005.1 release has been announced on Sunday.
76 Since it mainly contains bug fixes, not all architectures warranted this
77 intermediate release, but namely AMD64, PPC64, SPARC, and x86 took the
78 opportunity to refresh their stages and installation CD images before next
79 year's 2006.0 release. Install media for other architectures than the ones
80 mentioned, and all 2005.1 package CDs remain unchanged and are available
81 as-is.
82
83 Gentoo Weekly News via RSS feed
84 -------------------------------
85
86 Thanks to Xavier Neys[8], the GWN is now available as an RSS feed. Xavier
87 added the rss.xml files and edited the English[9] and French[10] overview
88 pages to mention the feed at the beginning. The list of languages at the
89 end of the overview file also lists the available feeds.
90 8. neysx@g.o
91 9. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
92 10. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
93
94 phpgroupware no longer in the tree
95 ----------------------------------
96
97 Due to outstanding security bugs, the upstream homepage no longer being
98 available, and no releases in over a year, phpgroupware will be removed
99 from the Portage tree. Anyone still using it is asked to switch to
100 egroupware or any other suitable replacement.
101
102 =========================
103 2. Heard in the community
104 =========================
105
106 gentoo-dev
107 ----------
108
109 use.defaults and pointless commits
110
111 Some users may have wondered why some USE flags seemingly automatically
112 changed (and reverted a bit later). This was caused by a commit to
113 use.defaults, a file that is used by portage to set USE flags on package
114 installation (emerge gnutls and the gnutls USE flag will be set globally).
115 During the following discussion it became apparent that this is a mostly
116 unneeded feature that may be removed in the future.
117
118 * [11]
119 11. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/32923
120
121 Gentoo Council Meeting, GLEP 41
122
123 The Gentoo Council had its third monthly meeting on November 15. The
124 summary was posted to the mailing list shortly after. GLEP 41 (Making arch
125 testers official Gentoo staff), which was not accepted during the last
126 meeting as it needed some minor changes, was accepted by the council. Due
127 to a communication error it seemed as if there were last minute changes
128 (which were only communicated a bit late). This lead to a long discussion
129 about procedures, the content of the GLEP and became one of the largest
130 threads of the last months.
131
132 * Gentoo Council Meeting Summary [12]
133 * Email subdomain [13]
134 * Request for changes to GLEP 41 [14]
135 * implementation details for GLEP 41 [15]
136 12. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/32886
137 13. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/32931
138 14. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/33025
139 15. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/33030
140
141 =======================
142 3. Gentoo international
143 =======================
144
145 Italy: Only five days to go until Gentoo Day!
146 ---------------------------------------------
147
148 The schedule[16] for the 3rd Italian Gentoo Day has been published,
149 including highlights like the first public presentation on Gentoo FreeBSD
150 by a Gentoo developer, Diego Pettenò[17]. His introductory speech will be
151 followed by an assisted installation session, while other activists of the
152 GeCHI[18] center their talks around applications like Openoffice and GIMP.
153 Three parallel tracks will make the Gentoo Day a luxurious event for
154 everyone who'd like to learn more about Gentoo. Details about the event
155 can be found at the official Gentoo Forum thread[19] and the GeCHI's own
156 forum[20] (all links in Italian)."
157 16.
158 http://213.92.116.64/ical/day.php?cal=all_calendars_combined971&getdate=200
159 51126
160 17. flameeyes@g.o
161 18. http://ww.gechi.it
162 19. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2853724.html
163 20. http://www.gechi.it/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1632
164
165 ======================
166 4. Gentoo in the press
167 ======================
168
169 Distrowatch (14 November 2005)
170 ------------------------------
171
172 Kororaa[21] is an installer project spun off Gentoo Linux, or as Ladislav
173 Bodnar puts it[22], "an independently developed, user-friendly
174 installation method for Gentoo Linux and a full-featured Gentoo-based
175 distribution." The announcement on Distrowatch comes as the the second
176 beta version of Kororaa was released, to be followed by a Gnome version
177 called Gororaa soon.
178 21. http://kororaa.org
179 22. http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03042
180
181 Linux.com (31 October 2005)
182 ---------------------------
183
184 Irfan Habib[23] makes mention of Portage as one specimen of "a new breed
185 of distributed package management systems" that aim to overcome the
186 defects of traditional package managers. His article at Linux.com[24]
187 compares Portage to Conary[25], a binary distribution tree used by
188 rPath[26], evaluating inherent differences and similarities in both
189 methods' network-based repository approach.
190 23. irfan.habib@×××××.com
191 24. http://enterprise.linux.com/enterprise/05/10/31/1949218.shtml
192 25. http://wiki.conary.com/
193 26. http://www.rpath.com/
194
195 =========================
196 5. Gentoo developer moves
197 =========================
198
199 Moves
200 -----
201
202 The following developers recently left the Gentoo project:
203
204 * None this week
205
206 Adds
207 ----
208
209 The following developers recently joined the Gentoo project:
210
211 * Joshua Nichols (nichoj) - Java
212 * Damian Florczyk (thunder) - Gentoo/NetBSD lead
213 * Alexey Chumakov (achumakov) - Russian lead translator
214
215 Changes
216 -------
217
218 The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project:
219
220 * Lisa M. Seelye (lisa) - added ccache and memcached to prior
221 responsibilities
222
223 ==================
224 6. Gentoo Security
225 ==================
226
227 Scorched 3D: Multiple vulnerabilities
228 -------------------------------------
229
230 Multiple vulnerabilities in Scorched 3D allow a remote attacker to deny
231 service or execute arbitrary code on game servers.
232
233 For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[27]
234 27. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200511-12.xml
235
236 Sylpheed, Sylpheed-Claws: Buffer overflow in LDIF importer
237 ----------------------------------------------------------
238
239 Sylpheed and Sylpheed-Claws contain a buffer overflow vulnerability which
240 may lead to the execution of arbitrary code.
241
242 For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[28]
243 28. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200511-13.xml
244
245 GTK+ 2, GdkPixbuf: Multiple XPM decoding vulnerabilities
246 --------------------------------------------------------
247
248 The GdkPixbuf library, that is also included in GTK+ 2, contains
249 vulnerabilities that could lead to a Denial of Service or the execution of
250 arbitrary code.
251
252 For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[29]
253 29. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200511-14.xml
254
255 Smb4k: Local unauthorized file access
256 -------------------------------------
257
258 A vulnerability has been identified that allows unauthorized access to the
259 contents of /etc/sudoers and /etc/super.tab files.
260
261 For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[30]
262 30. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200511-15.xml
263
264 ===========
265 7. Bugzilla
266 ===========
267
268 Statistics
269 ----------
270
271 The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[31]) to record and
272 track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
273 development team. Between 13 November 2005 and 20 November 2005, activity
274 on the site has resulted in:
275 31. http://bugs.gentoo.org
276
277 * 680 new bugs during this period
278 * 364 bugs closed or resolved during this period
279 * 28 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
280
281 Of the 9040 currently open bugs: 106 are labeled 'blocker', 199 are
282 labeled 'critical', and 556 are labeled 'major'.
283
284 Closed bug rankings
285 -------------------
286
287 The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
288 are:
289
290 * Alexey Chumakov[32], with 22 closed bugs[33]
291 * Gentoo KDE team[34], with 19 closed bugs[35]
292 * Gentoo Games[36], with 19 closed bugs[37]
293 * AMD64 Porting Team[38], with 18 closed bugs[39]
294 * Gentoo Security[40], with 13 closed bugs[41]
295 * PPC Porters[42], with 13 closed bugs[43]
296 * Gentoo Science Related Packages[44], with 11 closed bugs[45]
297 * Gentoo X-windows packagers[46], with 10 closed bugs[47]
298 32. achumakov@g.o
299 33.
300 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=achumakov@g.o
301 34. kde@g.o
302 35.
303 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=kde@g.o
304 36. games@g.o
305 37.
306 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=games@g.o
307 38. amd64@g.o
308 39.
309 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=amd64@g.o
310 40. security@g.o
311 41.
312 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=security@g.o
313 42. ppc@g.o
314 43.
315 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=ppc@g.o
316 44. sci@g.o
317 45.
318 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=sci@g.o
319 46. x11@g.o
320 47.
321 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=x11@g.o
322
323 New bug rankings
324 ----------------
325
326 The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
327 this period are:
328
329 * Default Assignee for New Packages[48], with 44 new bugs[49]
330 * X11 External Driver Maintainers[50], with 10 new bugs[51]
331 * Gentoo Sound Team[52], with 9 new bugs[53]
332 * Gentoo Science Related Packages[54], with 9 new bugs[55]
333 * Gentoo X-windows packagers[56], with 8 new bugs[57]
334 * Xavier Neys[58], with 7 new bugs[59]
335 * Gentoo Kernel Bug Wranglers and Kernel Maintainers[60], with 7 new
336 bugs[61]
337 * Lim Swee Tat[62], with 6 new bugs[63]
338 48. maintainer-wanted@g.o
339 49.
340 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=maintainer-wanted@g.o
341 50. x11-drivers@g.o
342 51.
343 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=x11-drivers@g.o
344 52. sound@g.o
345 53.
346 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=sound@g.o
347 54. sci@g.o
348 55.
349 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=sci@g.o
350 56. x11@g.o
351 57.
352 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=x11@g.o
353 58. neysx@g.o
354 59.
355 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=neysx@g.o
356 60. kernel@g.o
357 61.
358 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=kernel@g.o
359 62. st_lim@g.o
360 63.
361 http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2005-11-13&chfieldto=2005-11-20&assigned_to=st_lim@g.o
362
363 ===============
364 8. GWN feedback
365 ===============
366
367 Please send us your feedback[64] and help make the GWN better.
368 64. gwn-feedback@g.o
369
370 ===============================
371 9. GWN subscription information
372 ===============================
373
374 To subscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to
375 gentoo-gwn+subscribe@g.o.
376
377 To unsubscribe to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, send a blank email to
378 gentoo-gwn+unsubscribe@g.o from the email address you are
379 subscribed under.
380
381 ===================
382 10. Other languages
383 ===================
384
385 The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
386
387 * Danish[65]
388 * Dutch[66]
389 * English[67]
390 * German[68]
391 * French[69]
392 * Korean[70]
393 * Japanese[71]
394 * Italian[72]
395 * Polish[73]
396 * Portuguese (Brazil)[74]
397 * Portuguese (Portugal)[75]
398 * Russian[76]
399 * Spanish[77]
400 * Turkish[78]
401 65. http://www.gentoo.org/news/da/gwn/gwn.xml
402 66. http://www.gentoo.org/news/nl/gwn/gwn.xml
403 67. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
404 68. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
405 69. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
406 70. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ko/gwn/gwn.xml
407 71. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ja/gwn/gwn.xml
408 72. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
409 73. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
410 74. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt_br/gwn/gwn.xml
411 75. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
412 76. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
413 77. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
414 78. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml
415
416 Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Editor
417 Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o> - Author
418
419 --
420 gentoo-gwn@g.o mailing list