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= Release Update =

Release Manager Adeodato Simó send a [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/02/msg00000.html release update]
regarding the upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny" which is now scheduled for February 14th 2009.

More detailed he notes that with the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/12/msg00006.html recent second release candidate]
of the debian-installer the archive went now into "deep freeze", which means that only packages fixing release critical bugs
will now be allowed to enter "Lenny". Remaining release critical bugs will now be sorted in three categories (must be fixed,
package may be removed, fix can wait for the first "point release"). People wanting to help can fix these bugs, test the debian-installer
or help with the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/2008/11/msg00034.html release notes].

Finally he mentions, that again a "Lenny-and-a-half" release is planed, too, which will add drivers needed for newer hardware.

[:DebianWiki/EditorGuide#translation:Translation(s)]: none

(!) ["/Discussion"]



Welcome to this year's 2nd issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:

  • ... and much more.

Release Update

Release Manager Adeodato Simó send a [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/02/msg00000.html release update] regarding the upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny" which is now scheduled for February 14th 2009.

More detailed he notes that with the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/12/msg00006.html recent second release candidate] of the debian-installer the archive went now into "deep freeze", which means that only packages fixing release critical bugs will now be allowed to enter "Lenny". Remaining release critical bugs will now be sorted in three categories (must be fixed, package may be removed, fix can wait for the first "point release"). People wanting to help can fix these bugs, test the debian-installer or help with the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/2008/11/msg00034.html release notes].

Finally he mentions, that again a "Lenny-and-a-half" release is planed, too, which will add drivers needed for newer hardware.

Debian Summer of Code '08: where are they now

Obey Arthur Liu [http://www.milliways.fr/2009/01/20/debian-2008-where-now-1/ gave] [http://www.milliways.fr/2009/01/28/debian-2008-where-now-2/ a] [http://www.milliways.fr/2009/02/01/debian-2008-where-now-2-5/ detailed] [http://www.milliways.fr/2009/02/02/debian-2008-where-now-3/ retrospective] about this years [http://code.google.com/soc/2008/ Google Summer of Code] projects, where students where paid by Google to work on different projects for free software projects.

The Debian Project got [http://www.debian.org/News/2008/20080427 twelve projects] granted of which some where ceased due to personal reasons. Of these projects most where very successful, are already in place or will be shipped shortly.

Dedicating Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny" to Thiemo "ths" Seufer

As already announced the Debian Project decided to dedicate its upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny" to Thiemo Seufer, who died on December 26th, 2008 in a tragic car accident.

For this Christoph Berg [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/02/msg00001.html called] for (gpg) signatures of a specific text file, which will be put along with all the signatures on our mirrors. Every Debian developer, maintainer, translator, or contributor in any other field is welcome to join us in signing this dedication.

Open Source study conducted by Heise Open

The German open source portal Heise Open conducted a survey on the use of open source software in German businesses. 1312 companies participated; 30 percent were from companies with less than ten employees, 51 percent were small and medium-sized business and 19 percent had more than 500 employees.

Debian was ranked as the leading server distribution used by 47 percent of all companies and as the second-most used distribution on the desktop with 29.9 percent (for companies with more than 500 employees the adoption rate was higher; at about 37 percent). The full survey (German language only) can be found at: http://www.heise.de/open/Trendstudie-Open-Source--/artikel/126682

Google portable devices running Debian

[http://technologyheaven.blogspot.com/2009/01/google-portable-devices-runs-debian.html Several] [http://www.saurik.com/id/10 people] [http://www.androidfanatic.com/cms/community-forums.html?func=view&catid=9&id=251#251 worked] on a way to install Debian GNU/Linux on their T-Mobile G1 Android phones. They have succeeded in running a full fledged Debian OS on their G1 Android cellphone, while retaining all the features which allow it to function as a cellphone such as receiving and making calls, by creating a chroot environment which can invoked from a shell and so opening the whole lot of Debian applications to be run on that device.

Joey Hess, long term developer of Debians installation system [http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/investigation_of_an_inelegant_installer/ analysed] their installation system and came to the conclusion that - while working - it's not technically elegant as he wished it to be, since it mainly extracts an archive containing the chroot environment instead of calling debootstrap, which would be the correct way to set a chroot up. More generally speaking he sees is as a pity that when people want to get Debian on a new device only about half of them seem to do it right, by modifying d-i and sending the modifications back to the installer team.

Bits from the Policy Team, call for volunteers

Debians policy team [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/01/msg00006.html announced], that version 3.8.1 of Debians package policy is in preparation and will be released very shortly after Lenny has been released. It includes 12 bug fixes and 7 normative changes (affecting the requirements set by Policy rather than the wording, presentation, or supporting documentation).

However more people working on Policy in general are needed, including simply participating in discussions on the mailing lists and evaluating proposals. But there's also the need for experienced Debian developers who have the time and background required to be full Policy delegates as well help converting the Debian Policy from ?DebianDoc-SGML to DocBook and formalizing a new structure that would make it easier to extract bits of information from Policy requirements.

Debian Project at SCaLE 2009

From Friday the 20th of February 2009 to Sunday the 22nd of February 2009, the Debian Project will participate with a booth at Seventh Annual Southern California Linux Expo in Los Angeles, USA. Please see the respective [http://www.debian.org/events/2009/0221-scale7x events page] for further details.

Gareth J. Greenaway [http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-na/2009/02/msg00000.html announced] that Debian Developers and Users will get a 50% discount off a full access pass to the show when using a special promotion code.

Other news

The Xth issue of the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/... miscellaneous news for developers] has been released and covers the following topics:

Bdale Garbee, a former DPL and current Project secretary and Technical Committee chairman, [http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22859/1090/ gave a detailed and very interesting interview] for IT Wire, talking about things those outside the Debian Project are not usually aware of.

Enrico Zini, a Debian Developer, [http://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/fellowship_interviews/fellowship_interview_with_enrico_zini gave an interview to FSFE], talking about Debian, women in FLOSS and Debian, FLOSS at schools, and social groups, among other subjects.

[http://times.debian.net/?category=interviews#1297 Lars Steinke] and [http://times.debian.net/?category=interviews#1300 Jeremy Malcolm] described how they became a Debian Developer, their present involvement, how they are using Debian, and their interests outside the Debian Project.

J. A. Watson was [http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2009012302335OSHW pleasantly surprised] by his experience installing Debian on Alpha machines. "The obvious choice was Debian, as it is well known as a good server distribution, and they still have Alpha distributions and installation instructions. [..] Less than an hour, and it was up and running like a charm."

A long time outstanding bug concerning the licensing of several GLX related files shipped with the package [http://packages.debian.org/xorg-server xorg-server] got closes by Bdale Garbee after the affected material has been relicensed under a License considered free according to the [http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines Debian Free Software Guidelines].

New Maintainers

Michael Hanke and Jan Hauke Rahm were [http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/01/msg00130.html added] as Debian Maintainers.

Please welcome Michael Hanke and Jan Hauke Rahm in our project!

Important Debian Security Advisories

Debian's Security Team recently released advisories for these packages (among others): [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1701 Openssl], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1702 ntp], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1703 bind9], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1704 xulrunner], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1706 amarok], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1707 iceweasel], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1708 git], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1709 shadow], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1711 typo3], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1712 rt2400], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1713 rt2500], [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1714 rt2570] and [http://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1715 moin]. Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.

Please note that these are a selection of the more important security advisories of the last two weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please subscribe to the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/ security mailing list] for announcements.

New and noteworthy packages

The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive recently ([http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg among others]):

Debian Package of the Day featured the packages [http://debaday.debian.net/2009/01/18/atop-an-ascii-full-screen-performance-monitor/ atop ] (an ASCII full-screen performance monitor), [http://debaday.debian.net/2009/01/25/iftop-display-bandwidth-usage-on-an-interface-by-host/ iftop] (display bandwidth usage on an interface by host) and [http://debaday.debian.net/2009/02/01/wip-rtpg-www-please-your-dearest-with-rtorrents-power/ rtpg-www ] (Please your dearest with rtorrent's power).

Work-needing packages

Currently x packages are orphaned and y packages are up for adoption. Please take a look at the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/... recent] [http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/... reports] to see if there are packages you are interested in or view the complete list of [http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested packages which need your help].

Want to continue reading DPN?

Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteer writers to watch the Debian community and report about what is going on. Please see the [http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute contributing page] to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail at debian-publicity@lists.debian.org.

[http://www.techforce.com.br/ Andre Felipe Machado], Moritz Muehlenhoff and Z contributed to this issue of the Debian Project News.


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