#use wml::debian::projectnews::header PUBDATE="2010-09-06" SUMMARY=""
#use wml::debian::acronyms

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<a name="0"></a>
<p>Welcome to this year's eleventh issue of DPN, the newsletter for the
Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:</p>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#1">Bits from the Debian Women project</a></li>
  <li><a href="#2">DebConf10 DPL report</a></li>
  <li><a href="#3">Backports service becoming official</a></li>
  <li><a href="#x">Changelogs for testing available</a></li>
  <li><a href="#x">Debian growth over the releases</a></li>
  <li><a href="#4">Organizing the annual Debian Conference</a></li>
  <li><a href="#x">New signing key for the Debian Archive created</a></li>
  <li><a href="#5">... and much more</a>.</li>
</ul>


<a name="1"></a>
<h2>Bits from the Debian Women project</h2>

<p>The <a href="http://women.debian.org">Debian Women project</a> aims at
getting more women to participate in Debian, as packagers, bug reporters,
technical documentation writers, bug fixers, translators, artists and in
any other area that helps the development of Debian.  These goals are
achieved through IRC tutorials, a mentoring program, a mailing list and an
IRC channel.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://women.debian.org/mentoring/">Mentoring Program</a>
allows men and women that want to contribute to Debian but aren't sure
where or how to start, to get some help with their first steps.</p>

<p>There have been at least 38 women that have contributed in packaging
software for Debian, and there are currently 11 female Debian Developers
and 1 Debian Maintainer.  The group would like to raise those numbers to 50
packagers by the end of 2011, and 20 Debian Developers by the end of
2012.<br/> There are also some other <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/Statistics">interesting
statistics</a> about the current female participation in Debian.</p> 

<p>The project is also interested in getting more women to translate
debconf templates or package descriptions, contribute to the release
notes, as well as participate in any other areas of the Debian project.
In order to do this, we will be holding some <a
href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/TrainingSessions">IRC training
sessions</a> in the near future, to help people get started. We are
currently making the list of subjects and trainers, we'll publish more
news about this once the first sessions are scheduled.</p>

<p>For more information you can join the IRC channel #debian-women on
irc.oftc.net, or subscribe to the <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-women">debian-women mailing list</a>.
If you are a Spanish speaker, you can also join the #debian-mujeres IRC
channel on irc.oftc.net.</p>


<a name="2"></a>
<h2>DebConf10 DPL report</h2>

<p>The Debian Project Leader (DPL), Stefano Zacchiroli, provided a <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/20100829095149.GA5109@upsilon.cc">report
after the recent DebConf in New York City</a>. In the
report he discusses his recent activity speaking with academics in the Social
Sciences, as well as some other Debian developments. He also mentions Joey Hess' CUT 
proposal, a proposal that would help users understand that debian testing is actually
quite usable and work to polish it even more so that this becomes apparent. Our beloved 
DPL mentions the <a
href="http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/RCBC#RC_Bug_Squashing_Contest">Release
Critical Bug squashing Contest (RCBC)</a> which has prizes!
</p>
<p>
In addition to those subjects he also added some details on Debian Derivatives, 
the relationship between DebConf and Debian and init systems. As always, a wealth
of important information from the DPL.
</p>


<a name="3"></a>
<h2>Backports service becoming official</h2>

<p>The Debian Project is proud to announce that the backports service,
previously available at<a href="http://www.backports.org">
www.backports.org</a> is now an official Debian service and will be
available at <a
href="http://backports.debian.org">backports.debian.org</a>.</p>

<p>Backports are packages from the testing distribution recompiled for
the current stable (or even oldstable) release to provide users of the
stable distribution with new versions of certain packages, like the
Linux kernel, the Iceweasel browser or the OpenOffice.org suite, without
sacrificing the overall stability of the system.</p>

<p>The archive currently has 528 source packages in main, 2 in contrib
and 4 in non-free, backported for the Lenny distribution. As the
infrastructure to accept packages for the upcoming Squeeze release is
already in place, this allows Debian Installer images to configure the
backports repository by default without generating errors on user
systems. The service for Squeeze will be enabled at a later date, after
the release.</p>

<p>Because of limitations in the Debian Bug Tracking System, any bugs
relevant to backported packages still have to be reported to the
debian-backports list, which will now also move on lists.debian.org.</p>

<!--There are two things missing (which I didn't add to the whiteboard
list, so couldn't have foreseen them ;)

* The new backports key will no longer be signed by it's own key (or
only for a short period of time, Jörg?) but with Debian's own ftp-master
key.  That shouldn't change anything for the users, but as it is
security related, some people might wonder, so we better add it in a
sentence

* I think it would only be fair, to also add a paragraph about the
history, and mention, that it backports where started by Norbert
Tretkowski, continued by Alexander Wirt with a lot of volunteers, and
finally integrated by Jörg Jaspert (who did a lot of work, and had quite
some "fun", as bpo was running a quite older version of debian's archive
kit).-->

<!--There has been a (German) talk about that some month ago at the
MiniDebConf in Berlin, and the slides are available at:
http://people.debian.org/~formorer/talks/german/Minidebconf2010/-->

<!--If you are already using the backports.org service please read $WEBSITE 
for the necessary changes to your sources.list (where $WEBSITE does not
exist yet)-->

<!--The service is now open for debian maintainers and the preliminary
website is http://backports-master.debian.org/-->


<a name="xx"></a>
<h2>Changelogs for testing available</h2>

<p>Jörg Jaspert announce a new service for users of Debian's <q>testing</q>
branche:  <a
href="http://blog.ganneff.de/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/308"The
Changelogs of packages migrated to the testing branch</a> are now
agregaded and available in a single file.  That makes it easier for
<q>testing</q>-users to review changes in specific packages before they
install them.  The files are available from all mirrors in the
<tt>dists/testing</tt> directory and rotated on a date basis, keeping about
2 days.  There's also always a <a
href="http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/ChangeLog">symlink to the
latest one</a>.</p>


<a name="xx"></a>
<h2>Debian growth over the releases</h2>

<p>While analysing md5sum usage for internal package integrity checks,
Romain Francoise also published some <a href="http://blog.orebokech.com/2010/08/update-on-md5sums-and-debian-growth.html">numbers
about the growth of Debian's archive</a>.  To his astonishment Debian's
<q>unstable</q> branch grow from about 20'000 packages to over 30'000
within three years!</p>

<p>He also calculated the growth rate of the releases, and estimates, that
with the upcoming Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q> about 29'000 packages will be
released, which is a growth compared to Debian 5.0 <q>Lenny</q> of
29.6%.</p>


<a name="xx"></a>
<h2>Organizing the annual Debian Conference</h2>

<p>Richard Darst continued his blog post on how to organise the annual
Debian Conference.  He coveres the topics <q><a
href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/3">What is the
DebConf team?</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/4">The
DebConf selection process</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/5">How
DebConf manages money</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/6">DebConf
budgeting for a single conference</a></q>,
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/7">The
DebConf registration process</a></q>, and 
<q><a href="http://debian-administration.org/users/rkd/weblog/8">DebConf
Fundraising</a></q>


<a name="xx"></a>
<h2>New signing key for the Debian Archive created</h2>

<p>FTP-Master Jörg Jaspert announced <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/87d3t3as2k.fsf@gkar.ganneff.de">details of
the new signing key for the Debian archive</a>. The new key has already
been added to the <a
href="http://packages.debian.org/debian-archive-keyring">debian-archive-keyring</a>
package, which was also updated of the recent Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6
<q>Lenny</q> release.  The new key will be used once Debian 6.0
<q>Squeeze</q> is released or the old key is expired (by the end of 2012).
Whichever comes first.</p>


<a name="10"></a>
<h2>Other news</h2>

<p>Following the <q>unofficial</q> bits from the Arm porters mentioned in
last issue, Hector Oron posted <a
href="http://lists.debian.org/20100826105951.GB20172@enorme">official
bits</a>.  He gave more details about the work in the Hardfloat ARM port,
and also listed various supporter of the ARM port, including Linaro, which is a
not for profit organisation sponsored by manufacturers
with interest in ARM and with engineers.</p>

<p>Colin Watson <a
href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~cjwatson/blosxom/2010/08/28#2010-08-28-windows-applications-making-grub2-unbootable">called
for help debugging a GRUB2</a> problem with some Windows applications.
Appearently some proprietary software overwrite some parts of GRUB to store
some licensing information.  Colin asks affected users for same data and
gave instructioncs on how to obtain it.</p>


<a name="11"></a>
<h2>New Debian Contributors</h2>

	<p>
7 applicants have been
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/E1OsAC5-00065x-HX@franck.debian.org">accepted</a>
	as Debian Maintainer and
6 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
Javier Merino Cacho, Kurashiki Satoru, Sebastien Noel, Maia Kozheva, Tanguy
Ortolo, Thierry Carrez, Ulrich Dangel, Douglas Kirkland, Alice Ferrazzi,
Nicolas Valc&aacute;rcel Scerpella, T&aacute;ssia Cam&otilde;es Ara&uacute;jo, Ryan Tandy and
Marco Rodrigues
	into our project!</p>


<a name="12"></a>
<h2>Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release</h2>

	<p>According to the <a href="http://bts.turmzimmer.net/details.php">unofficial
	release-critical bug counter</a>, the upcoming release,
	Debian 6.0 <q>Squeeze</q>, is currently affected by
226 release-critical bugs. Ignoring bugs which are easily solved
	or on the way of being solved, roughly speaking, about
129 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/#2010-35">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="13"></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-2097">phpmyadmin</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2098">typo3-src</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2099">OpenOffice.org</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2100">openssl</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2101">wireshark</a>,
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2102">barnowl</a>, and
<a href="http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2103">smbind</a>.

	Please read them 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> for announcements.</p>


<a name="14"></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/ejabberd-mod-shared-roster-ldap">ejabberd-mod-shared-roster-ldap &mdash; Shared Roster via LDAP for ejabberd</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/fai-setup-storage">fai-setup-storage &mdash; automatically prepare storage devices</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/openttd-openmsx">openttd-openmsx &mdash; a free music set for use with the OpenTTD game</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/sugar-turtleart-activity">sugar-turtleart-activity &mdash; a LOGO-like tool for teaching programming - Sugar activity</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/system-config-printer-udev">system-config-printer-udev &mdash; Utilities to detect and configure printers automatically</a></li>
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/turtleart">turtleart &mdash; a LOGO-like tool for teaching programming</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="15"></a>
<h2>Work-needing packages</h2>

	<p>Currently
564 packages are orphaned and
133 packages are up for adoption. Please take a look at the
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/E1Oomo8-0003kY-F5@merkel.debian.org">recent</a>
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/E1OrK8o-0002UL-G1@merkel.debian.org">reports</a>
	to see if there are packages you are interested in or view the complete
	list of <a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested">packages
	which need your help</a>.</p>


<a name="16"></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="Margarita Manterola, Jeremiah C. Foster, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl"
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