#use wml::debian::projectnews::header PUBDATE="2011-01-14" SUMMARY="Debian Squeeze in <q>Deep freeze</q>, Debian-Installer beta2, Machine-readable format for debian/copyright files"
#use wml::debian::acronyms

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<a name="0"></a>
<p>Welcome to this year's first issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:</p>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#1">Squeeze Deep Freeze</a></li>
  <li><a href="#2">Debian Installer 6.0 Beta1 release</a></li>
  <li><a href="#3">Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q> to be released with completely free Linux Kernel</a></li>
  <li><a href="#4">Machine-readable format for debian/copyright files</a></li>
  <li><a href="#5">Bits from the Debian Project Leader</a></li>
  <li><a href="#6">Further documentation on Emdebian: components and filters</a></li>
  <li><a href="#7">Two new Debian Women tutorials</a></li>
  <li><a href="#8">Further <q>This week in Debian</q> interviews</a></li>
  <li><a href="#9">... and much more</a>.</li>
</ul>

<!-- Release Team seems to be sending a "Bits from" mail soon, so this
paragraph might be (partially) rewritten -->
<a name="1"></a>
<h2><q>Squeeze</q> Deep Freeze</h2>

<p>Neil McGovern writes in an <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/20101213202220.GF3191@halon.org.uk">recent
email</a>:
<q>Following the plan outlined in the <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/20101114192542.GC3191@halon.org.uk">previous
release update</a>, we are 
now in deep freeze, which means that we'll only be migrating to testing 
packages that fix RC bugs.</q> A deep freeze is one of the last phases
before a release of Debian. There is lots of bug fixing and documentation
still to do and you can help. Check out the <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/NewInSqueeze">New in <q>Squeeze</q> page</a>
for example; and if you
find bugs in the installer help report and even fix them. </p>

<!-- A first release candidate of d-i has been released (but not yet
announced) so this paragraph might be changed partially, too -->
<a name="2"></a>
<h2>Debian Installer 6.0 Beta1 release</h2>

<p>
The second beta release of the installer for Debian Squeeze has been <a
href="http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2010/20101208">\
released on December 8 2010</a>.
Many fixes are part of this release of the installer, along with new
improvements: better OS and partition detection, new supported hardware, etc.
</p>
<p>
The <a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata">\
errata</a> gather details and a full list of known issues.
You are welcome to test the installer and report bugs;
media and other information are available on the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer">\
Debian Installer pages</a>.
</p>


<a name="3"></a>
<h2>Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q> to be released with completely free Linux Kernel</h2>

<p>As the Debian project announced, the upcoming stable release Debian 6.0
<q>Squeeze</q> will be shipped with a <a
href="http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101215">completely free Linux
Kernel</a>.  Thus achieving a long term goal, which was already set for
Debian 4.0 <q>Etch</q> and 5.0 </q>Lenny</q>.  Thanks to the work of the
<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernel">Debian Kernel team</a> and
various Linux upstream developers, non-free firmware files could be split
of; instead of being integral part of the driver, these files may now be
shipped separately and loaded if needed on runtime.  Such allowing those
who wish to have a free system to have it, while allowing those in need of
these non-free firmware files, to still use them.</p>

<p>Steve McIntyre, lead of Debian's CD team, added that <a 
href="http://blog.einval.com/2010/12/15#CDs_with_firmware">unofficial CD
images</a> are created, containing non-free, but distributable firmware
files, while USB-installations already supported loading additional firmware
files for some time.  More details can be found in <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/Firmware">Debian wiki</a>.</p>

<p>Debian Project leader Stefano Zacchiroli also blogged a bit about the <a
href="http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/12/squeeze_your_non-free_firmware_away/">background
of the changes</a>.</p>


<a name="4"></a>
<h2>Machine-readable format for debian/copyright files</h2>

<p>Lars Wirzenius <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/1294581615.20273.71.camel@havelock.lan">announced</a>,
that the <a hred="http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/">Debian Enhancement
Proposals 5 specifing a machine-readable
format for the copyright information of a Debian package</a> has become a
<q>candidate</q> status, meaning that discussion about the format has been
settled and no major changes are expected anymore: it is ready to be
used.</p>

<p><a href="$(HOME)/doc/debian-policy/">Debian's policy</a> mandates that Debian
software packages must come with copyright information of the used source
code, however a specific format isn't mandated.  Most packages come with a
free text file, making it hard to work with these informations
automatically.</p>


<a name="5"></a>
<h2>Bits from the Debian Project Leader</h2>

<p>Debian Project Leader Stefano Zacchiroli send new <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/20101224144600.GA336@upsilon.cc">bits from
the DPL</a>.  Besides mentioning various talks and interviews he gave, he
announced a new contact point for participants of Debian events:
<a href="antiharassment@debian.org">antiharassment@debian.org</a>.  A
anti-harassment policy for Debian sprints (based upon a draft for such a
policy for the <a
href="http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/StandardsOfRespect">DebConf</a>) is about
to follow soon.</p>

<p>He also mentioned that he approved two sprints: one for the Web Team
(which has already been taken place) and one for the Security Team (which
is forthcoming), as well as several cross distribution collaboration
activities, like <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/20101223084135.GB15864@upsilon.cc">organizing
a cross-distro face to face meeting to discuss the topic of integrating
third party applications</a> on top of FOSS distributions, a-la Software
Center / App Store.</p>


<a name="6"></a>
<h2>Further documentation on Emdebian: components and filters</h2>

<p>Continuing his intermittent series on Emdebian, <a
href="http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/serendipity/index.php?/archives/218-Documenting-Emdebian-components-and-filters.html">Neil
Williams described Emdebian's concepts of components and filters</a>.  As
the package data files of Debian's main distribution became too large to be
sanely handled on embedded systems, therefore Emdebian Grib sub-divides
Debian's main repository to minimize cached data, so systems not using e.g.
any Java components, don't need to download and cache meta data for Java
related packages. Neil also explained in detail further filtering
techniques done by Emdebian.</p>


<a name="7"></a>
<h2>Two new Debian Women tutorials</h2>

<p>The Debian Women project published two new tutorials.  In the first
tutorial Gerfried
Fuchs gave an <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/HowtoUseBTS">introduction
to Debian's bug tracking system</a>, including
explanation of the different tags and usage of package version informations
by the bug tracking system.
<br/>
In the second tutorial, Enrico
Zini introduced the <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianPackageInformation">various
information sources about Debian
packages</a>, ranging from data available through Debian's Package
repositories, over debtags and various package tracking tools to the
package tracking system.
</p>



<a name="8"></a>
<h2>Further <q>This week in Debian</q> interviews</h2>

<p>Since the last issue of the Debian Project News, five new issues of the
<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/ThisWeekInDebian"><q>This week in
Debian</q> podcast</a> have been published:  with
<a href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-11">Asheesh
Laroia</a>, member of the Debian Mentor Community; with
<a href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-12">Dave
Yates</a>, host of the <a href="http://lottalinuxlinks.com/podcast/">Lotta
Linux Links Podcast</a>; with
<a href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-13">George
Castro</a>, discussing Ubuntu as a Debian derivative; with
<a href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-14">Jonathan
Nadeau</a>, about the latest Debian news, and the upcoming release of <q>Squeeze</q>; and with
<a href="http://frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/this-week-in-debian-episode-15">Rhonda</a>,
member of Debian's Webmaster Team, discussing the updated
Debian Website, due for the release of <q>Squeeze</q>.
</p>

<p>There have also been two new <q>people behind Debian</q> interviews with
<a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/12/23/people-behind-debian-mehdi-dogguy-release-assistant/">Mehdi
Dogguy</a>, who became a member of Debian's Release team even though he's
a Debian Developer for barely a year, and with David Kalnischkies, one of
the developers of APT, Debian's package management system.  In the spirit
of these Interviews, there has also been a <q><a
href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/12/04/go2linux-interviewed-me-the-biggest-problem-of-debian/">Reverse
people behind Debian</a></q> interview with <a
href="http://www.go2linux.org/linux/2010/12/interview-debian-developer-rapha-l-hertzog-ubuntu-beneficial-debian-853">
Rapha&euml;l Herzog</a>.</p>


<a name="9"></a>
<h2>Other news</h2>

<p>Luca Capello announced that the <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/87pqsb78np.fsf@gismo.pca.it">annual
general meeting</a> of <a
href="http://debian.ch/">debian.ch</a>, the official representation of
the Debian project in Switzerland and in the Principality of Liechtenstein,
will take place 31st of January in Aareheim in the center of Bern.</p>

<p>
Sjoerd Simons <a 
href="http://sjoerd.luon.net/posts/2010/12/pkg_pulseaudio_needs_you/">
asked for help</a> in <a
href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-pulseaudio/">
PulseAudio Debian packaging</a>.
</p>

<p>
Richard Darst reported about the <a
href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/12">
successful first Debian-NYC Novice Night</a>, which is a meeting for
everyone who would like to install or configure Debian for his needs.
Next session will probably be <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianNYC/NoviceNights">
in January or Feburary</a>, some <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianNYC/NoviceNights/Planning">
planning hints</a> are also in place.
</p>

<p>
Alexander Wirt reported on his blog that <a 
href="http://blog.snow-crash.org/2010/12/new-debian-mailinglists.html">six
new mailing lists are now available on lists.debian.org</a>:
</p>
<ul>
 <li><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-gis">debian-gis</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-dug-in">debian-dug-in</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-tamil">debian-user-tamil</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-vietnamese">debian-l10n-vietnamese</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-indonesian">debian-l10n-indonesian</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce">debian-stable-announce</a></li>
</ul>

<p>
Kumar Appaiah <a 
href="http://www.debian-administration.org/users/kumanna/weblog/13">noted</a> 
that <a href="http://duckduckgo.com/">DuckDuckGo</a> has setted up
some shortcuts (the so called !bang) to searching into various Debian sites:
<tt>!dpkg</tt> goes to <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/">packages.debian.org</a>, <tt>!dpts</tt>
goes to <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org">packages.qa.debian.org</a> and
<tt>!dbugs</tt> goes to <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/">bugs.debian.org</a>.
</p>

<p>
Sandro Tosi mentions on his blog that <a
href="http://sandrotosi.blogspot.com/2010/12/bts-link-has-new-home.html">bts-link
has a new home</a>. Since several weeks, in fact, <a
href="http://bts-link.alioth.debian.org/">bts-link</a> was migrated from
merkel.debian.org to busoni.debian.org. 
</p>

<p>
Christian Perrier noticed that <a
href="http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2010/12/21#german-french-100percent-squeeze">German
and French localization reach 100% for po-debconf</a>.
Russian, Swedish, Portuguese and Czech localization may also be able
to make it, while it shouldn't be the case for Spanish this time.
</p>

<p>
Stefano Zacchiroli gathered various existing
documentation in order to answer the question <q><a
href="http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/12/how_to_contribute_to_Debian/">how
to contribute to Debian?</a><q> and thus pointed to the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/intro/help">official contribution
page of the website</a>, and its equivalent on the <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/HelpDebian">wiki</a> and on the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-contributing.en.html">FAQ</a>.
He also pointed less documented <q>cultural</q> aspects
of Debian technical life such as coordination over IRC
or interacting with package maintainers via the BTS.
</p>

<p>Raphael Geissert <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/201012161200.31008.geissert@debian.org">announced</a>
the <a href="http://qa.debian.org/daca/"><q>Debian's Automated Code
Analysis</q> (DACA) project</a>, which runs various source code quality
tools over all Debian source packages available.</p>


<a name="10"></a>
<h2>New Debian Contributors</h2>

	<p>
5 applicants have been
<a href="https://nm.debian.org/nmlist.php#newmaint">accepted</a>
	as Debian Developers and
1 applicant has been
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/E1PUrYr-0000Ag-MG@franck.debian.org">accepted</a>
	as Debian Maintainer and
12 people <a href="http://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/new-maintainers.cgi">started
        to maintain packages</a> since the previous issue of the Debian

	Project News. Please welcome
Didier Raboud, Benjamin Drung, K&aring;re Thor Olsen, Scott James Remnant, Jerome Marant,
Gregor Jasny, 
Gildardo Adrian Maravilla Jacome, Cristian Henzel, Colin Darie, Anton Gladky, Lukas Gaertner, Yask Gupta, Michael Lustfield, Pjotr Prins, Monica Ramirez Arceda, Tim Weippert, Milan Kupcevic, and Sven Eckelmann
	into our project!</p>

<p>It is our special pleasure to welcome with K&aring;re Thor Olsen, who is
our first <a href="http://www.debian.org/vote/2010/vote_002">official
non-packaging Debian Developer</a>!</p>


<a name="11"></a>
<h2>Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release</h2>

	<p>According to the <a href="http://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi">Bugs Search
        interface of the Ultimate Debian Database</a>, the upcoming release,
	Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q>, is currently affected by
93 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily solved
	or on the way to being solved, roughly speaking, about
25 release-critical bugs remain to be solved for the
	release to happen.</p>

	<p>There are also <a
href="http://blog.schmehl.info/Debian/rc-stats/#2011-01">more detailed
	statistics</a> as well as some <a
	href="http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/RC-Stats">hints on how to
	interpret</a> these numbers.</p>


<a name="12"></a>
<h2>Important Debian Security Advisories</h2>

	<p>Debian's Security Team recently released
	advisories for these packages (among others):
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2131">exim4</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2130">bind9</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2132">xulrunner</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2133">collectd</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2135">xpdf</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2136">tor</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2137">libxml2</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2138">wordpress</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2139">phpmyadmin</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2140">libapache2-mod-fcgid</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2141">openssl, nss and apache2</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2142">dpkg</a> and
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2122">glibc</a> (updated advisory).
	Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.</p>

        <p>Debian's Backports Team releases advisories for these packages:
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/20101222074418.GH8143@anguilla.noreply.org">tor</a>,
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/20110102194528.GB5290@glandium.org">iceweasel</a>,
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/20101213101706.889441A983F@taggart.lackof.org">wordpress</a>,
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/20110106142003.GD1999@downhill.g.la">exim4</a> and
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/4D2B21C5.7050407@elego.de">subversion</a>.
        Please read them carefully and take the proper measures.</p>

        <p>Debian's Volatile Team released an update announcement for the package:
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/"></a>.
        Please read it carefully and take the proper measures.</p>


<p>Please note that these are a selection of the more important security
advisories of the last weeks. If you need to be kept up to date about
security advisories released by the Debian Security Team, please
subscribe to the <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/">security mailing
list</a> (and the separate <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-backports-announce/">backports
list</a> and <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-volatile-announce">volatile list</a>) for announcements.</p>


<a name="13"></a>
<h2>New and noteworthy packages</h2>

<p>The following packages were added to the unstable Debian archive
recently (<a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg">among
others</a>):</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/clzip">clzip &mdash; data compressor based on the LZMA algorithm (C version)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/debian-reference-pt">debian-reference-pt &mdash; Debian system administration guide, Portuguese translation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/gjacktransport">gjacktransport &mdash; access to the JACK's transport mechanism as touchable slider</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/ir-keytable">ir-keytable &mdash; alter keymaps of remote controller devices</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/k8temp">k8temp &mdash; AMD K8 thermal diode reader for BSD system</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/nginx-full">nginx-full &mdash; small, but very powerful and efficient web server and mail proxy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/nginx-light">nginx-light &mdash; small, but very powerful and efficient web server - light</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/nodau">nodau &mdash; simple console based note taking program</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/plzip">plzip &mdash; parallel data compressor based on the LZMA algorithm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/pyppd">pyppd &mdash; CUPS PostScript Printer Description's compressor and generator</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/surf">surf &mdash; simple web browser</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/telepathy-ring">telepathy-ring &mdash; GSM and 3G UMTS Telepathy connection manager</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/transgui">transgui &mdash; front-end to remotely control Transmission</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/whyteboard">whyteboard &mdash; overlay painting and annotation application</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/wraplinux">wraplinux &mdash; utility to wrap a Linux kernel and initrd into an ELF or NBI file</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/xul-ext-quickproxy">xul-ext-quickproxy &mdash; statusbar button to turn the proxy on and off with a single click</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/zita-at1">zita-at1 &mdash; JACK autotuner</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/zutils">zutils &mdash; utilities for dealing with compressed files transparently</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Please note that due to the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100806">freeze of the upcoming
Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q></a> acceptance of new packages has almost ceased.</p>


<a name="14"></a>
<h2>Want to continue reading DPN?</h2>

<p>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
<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/HowToContribute">contributing
page</a> to find out how to help. We're looking forward to receiving your mail
at <a href="mailto:debian-publicity@lists.debian.org">debian-publicity@lists.debian.org</a>.</p>


#use wml::debian::projectnews::footer editor="Francesca Ciceri, Jeremiah Foster, David Pr&eacute;vot, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl"
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