Freshrpms for Fedora 7
by Matthias Saou
Hi,
All freshrpms add-on packages are now available for Fedora 7.
http://freshrpms.net/ - "click here" to import yum configuration
http://moonshine.freshrpms.net/ for the complete package listing
Have fun!
Matthias
--
Clean custom Red Hat Linux rpm packages : http://freshrpms.net/
Fedora Core release 6 (Zod) - Linux kernel 2.6.20-1.2952.fc6
Load : 0.41 0.18 0.15
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
Announcing Fedora 7 (Moonshine)
by The Fedora Project
Howdy, cousins! Welcome to our little Fedora hollow, where we've
brewed up some mighty, mighty Fedora 7 Moonshine for your enjoyment.
Here, I'll help you pour that ... and some for me ... *cough, cough*
Smoooooth ... sure does taste good. It's been sitting here in the jug
for almost a whole month now! Go ahead and help yourself to some
more:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora.html
What's the most important thing to do if you are upgrading your Fedora
version? Why, that's easy! Read the release notes, it prevents
hangovers:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes
What are new things to do with your Moonshine?
* Mix and remix this Moonshine to come up with as many flavored drinks
as there is Joe-Pye weed in the Appalachians. Want an OS to
send home with the students or staff? Add packages, remove
packages, spin it any way you like. Let a thousand distros bloom!
* Bottle up that custom mix and call it an appliance. ISV building an
appliance product? Make an RPM, identify the minimal number of
packages needed for an appliance around that RPM, then build a
distro and a live image. Easy as moon pie.
Gol' darn, but this is good 'shine. *hic* There, is that enough? No?
Here, let me pour us some more, and we can toast the most important
part of this Moonshine -- the makers. You thought I made it? Oh, no.
No special elite brewmaster here, I'm just a bartender, and this log
is my bar! Ha ha. No, really ... see ...
Fedora 7 is the first release where the development was one hunnerd
and one per-cent in the community. How? It's simple, cousin -- all
the code was merged into a single external repository. Why? Same
great distribution quality, even more high-quality developers able to
work directly with the code and improve the flavor of over 7500
packages.
Grab that jug, look inside, and you find:
* KDE? Yep, with Moonshine, Fedora and KDE are gettin' downright
friendly with each other.
* Laptops? A tickless kernel means better power consumption for
laptops; extended wireless functionality, meaning more chances
hardware will Just Work. Yee-ha!
* Get those Live images, burn CDs or DVDs, and share them with your
friends and neighbors. This is the first Fedora distribution with
full Live CD/DVD capability.
* Interoperability? Let's start with resizing and reading of NTFS
file systems. How about those Liberation fonts, d'you like how they
just slip right in where other fonts were used?
* Why stop with just one fruit jar of virtualization? This release
includes support for KVM and overall more virtualization capability.
* As always, tasty new graphics for the Fedora 7 desktop, as well as
an updated Website look and functionality, including a new build and
package update system.
More? Read up at:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f7/en_US/sn-OverView.html
Oops, looks like we drank up all that jug. Guess I'll just make a
trip over the torrents to get me another. All right, then, we'll
see you. Y'all come back soon now, ya hear?
= Want Fedora? Get Fedora =
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora.html
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
ATrpms for Fedora 7
by Axel Thimm
ATrpms is officially launching Fedora 7 support for i386, x86_64 and
ppc.
http://ATrpms.net/dist/f7/
o The packages will be available at `date -d "Thu May 31 14:00 UTC"',
which is Fedora's release. I usually wait for the official release
announcement of Fedora to announce ATrpms' support, but due to
LinuxTag activities I'll be afk for about 24h.
o The actual download location is http://dl.atrpms.net/. Mirrors are
listed at http://atrpms.net/mirrors/
o "stable", "testing" and "bleeding", the three subrepos per
distribution are not cumulative inclusive on the server
side.
E.g. you need to add "stable" for "testing", and both "stable"
and "testing" for "bleeding".
ATrpms is a 3rd party general purpose package repository. It currently
supports
o F7/i386, F7/x86_64, F7/ppc, FC6/i386, FC6/x86_64, FC6/ppc, FC5/i386,
FC5/x86_64, FC5/ppc
o RHEL5/i386, RHEL5/x86_64, RHEL4/i386, RHEL4/x86_64, RHEL3/i386,
RHEL3/x86_64
ATrpms support for RH7.3, RH8.0, RH9 and FC1-FC4 was EOL'd with the
last year's passing. FC5 support will be EOL'd once the Fedora Project
drops support for it (e.g. in approximately one month).
Configuration for package resolvers (replace i386 with x86_64 or ppc
as needed)
o yum
[atrpms]
name=Fedora 7 - i386 - ATrpms
baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/f7-i386/atrpms/stable
o smart
[atrpms]
name=Fedora 7 - i386 - ATrpms
baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/f7-i386/atrpms/stable
type=rpm-md
o apt
repomd http://dl.atrpms.net f7-i386/atrpms/stable
you can provide feedback or request support on the ATrpms lists
(http://lists.atrpms.net/), or the common bug tracker
(http://bugzilla.atrpms.net/).
Enjoy!
--
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
a few words about Fedora 7
by Max Spevack
My fellow Fedorans,
In a few hours (about 10:00 AM EDT/2:00 PM GMT), Fedora 7 will go live
to the world.
It's the middle of the night in the main Red Hat offices in Raleigh and
Westford, but I amm in Berlin this week for LinuxTag, which is the
largest Linux conference in Europe (10,000 visitors over 4 days).
We have a great looking Fedora booth, and we are holding a FUDCon
(Fedora Users and Developers Conference) here today during which we have
a conference hall that probably seats 150 people all to ourselves. We
are giving speeches and talks about Fedora all day long, both in German
and in English. I've already had several people come by asking when
Alan Cox will be arriving. Answer: Real Soon Now.
We have several activities ongoing at the Fedora booth, including an
install-fest, and a troubleshooting contest with prizes that include
free books and free Red Hat training classes. We have all variety of
Fedora swag as well. It's quite an impressive setup here at LinuxTag,
and worth noting that the entire organizational force behind the event
was driven by our Fedora Ambassador community of volunteers.
This email is my "personal" Fedora 7 release announcement, and also
touches on some of the topics that I will mention during my speech at
FUDCon today.
Before I talk about Fedora 7, it's useful to look at recent history.
One of the Fedora Project's mottos is "the rapid progress of free and
open source software." With Fedora Core 5 in March of 2006, Fedora Core
6 in October of 2006, and Fedora 7 today, that's about 7 months per
release. And with several million Fedora Core 6 installs, everyone who
works on Fedora should feel very proud that not only is the software
being released often, but it's also high quality, and in high use around
the world.
====
Fedora 7 represents the culmination of several goals that Fedora has
spent the last few releases (spanning the course of at least 2 years)
working to achieve.
I've written previously on this list about the aspects of Fedora 7 that
I think are the most important (http://tinyurl.com/yuc7ax).
>From my perspective, it is the fundamental infrastructure changes that
Fedora 7 represents that are the biggest achievement.
The entire Fedora toolchain has been freed. Every step in the
distribution-building process is completely open.
Code checked into an external CVS. Packages built on a completely
external build system. Distros and LiveCDs built on completely open
compose tools.
All of this functionality is available via the command line or via a
graphical tool that is build on the APIs that we provide.
For folks who hack on free software, I hope that this is a compelling
development environment in which to work. For folks who are end users
of free software, we believe that the Fedora toolchain allows people to
remix Fedora, and customize it in ways that will provide a much wider
variety of Fedora-based spins than we could ever offer if "Fedora
Release Engineering" had to build them all directly.
There is plenty more, but this email isn't meant to be an exhaustive
list of Fedora 7 release features.
====
Additionally, I'd like to mention a few other new things that Fedora has
completed in time for Fedora 7:
Our home page, fedoraproject.org has a new look. We've added a series
of static HTML pages that sit on top of our wiki, and I think it makes
the initial experience of fedoraproject.org much simpler, and much more
useful. The organized chaos of the wiki is all still just one click
away, but we didn't want first-time visitors to fp.o overwhelmed with
the wiki from the first instant.
Our documentation pages have also been given some new organization,
living at docs.fedoraproject.org.
The lifespan of a Fedora release has been increased to "two releases
plus one month". This means that Fedora Core 6 will continue to be
updated until one month after Fedora 8 is released, and Fedora 7 will be
updated until one month after Fedora 9 is released.
We've put into production new mirror management software.
The EPEL project, which aims to make packages from the Fedora repository
available for Enterprise Linux customers, has been making tremendous
progress.
The Fedora News team, which already had been doing a fantastic job, has
expanded the coverage that they provide the Fedora Project, and their
Fedora Weekly News reports offer people a fantastic summary of all the
interesting things that are happening in the Fedora Project.
And more.
====
Finally, a few words of thanks. I debated for a while listing specific
names in this email, but the number of people who deserve credit for
Fedora 7 and all of the work that has happened around Fedora 7 cannot be
enumerated without accidentally forgetting someone. So instead I will
simply say that every item discussed in this email has happened as a
result of tremendous work by Fedora contributors both inside and outside
of Red Hat. And it is the partnership of Red Hat and the Fedora
community that allows both groups to be successful.
And I speak for everyone at Red Hat when I say that it is an honor to be
a part of something like Fedora.
Congratulations to everyone on today's release.
Sincerely,
Max Spevack
Fedora Project Leader
--
Max Spevack
+ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack
+ gpg key -- http://spevack.org/max.asc
+ fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
Fedora Weekly News Issue 89
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 89 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 89[1] for the week of May 20th
through May 26th, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2]
and RSS Feed can be found here[3].
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue89
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue
[3] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fwn
1. Fedora Weekly News Issue 89
1. Announcements
1. Fedora Project Web gets a face lift
2. Fedora 7 RC2 "Fedora" spin i386 available
2. Planet Fedora
1. Spank that webpage, it's been born again
2. We're golden
3. Marketing
1. Fedora 7 at Respins.org
2. Release Announcement Talking Points
4. Developments
1. Could A Truly Minimal Install Be Added in F7 Or F8?
2. Mdraid and Hidden Partition Area Upgrade Blocker Solved
3. Status Of Support for IWP3945abg Wireless In Fedora 7
4. Fedora7RC2 Torrent
5. Upgrade FC6 To F7t4 Fails On LVM Fstab Naming
6. Guidelines For Huge SPEC Changelogs
7. IPv6 Explicitly Disabled.
8. The Future Of the Bootloader
9. Wireshark Included On F7 Media
10. KDE4 For Fedora8 Draft Document Discussion
5. Maintainers
1. No More New Packages For Fedora 7
6. Documentation
1. Future of The Software Management Guide
2. Language Codes
3. Live CD Guide
7. Infrastructure
1. Image Standard
2. Pushing Updates
3. Static Content
8. Artwork
1. Fedora 7 CD/DVD Labels And Covers
9. Security Week
1. A Mighty Number Falls
2. 28% of software is unpatched
10. Security Advisories and Package Updates
1. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories and Package Updates
2. Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories and Package Updates
11. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting Minutes 2007-05-24
2. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-05-27
3. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-17
4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-24
5. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-23
6. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-21
12. Feedback
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
=== Fedora Project Web gets a face lift ===
MikeMcGrath announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"The Fedora Project website has gotten a face lift:
http://fedoraproject.org/
Prior to today that site went straight to the wiki, which is largely
developer content with good (but somewhat hard to find) docs. Now
we're expanding on fedoraproject.org and adding some more user-centric
content like that found at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/
The websites team has been hard at work at this for a while and we're
all excited to release it today.
Help get the word out and digg[2]."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-May/msg00006.html
[2] http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_Project_gets_a_web_face_lift
=== Fedora 7 RC2 "Fedora" spin i386 available ===
JesseKeating announces in fedora-devel-list[1],
"I've uploaded the i386 DVD and rescue image for the "Fedora" spin of Fedora 7
RC2. You can find it at http://torrent.fedoraproject.org
The x86_64 iso set is still uploading, to be followed by the PPC iso set.
I'll reply to this once they are ready for torrenting. Happy testing!"
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01628.html
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
=== Spank that webpage, it's been born again ===
KarstenWade points out in his blog[1],
"Breathing new life into this URL: http://fedoraproject.org
In anticipation of heavy server loads during the upcoming Fedora 7
release, we decided to post a series of lightweight, static HTML pages
as the front of fedoraproject.org. Those pages quietly went live
today."
[1] http://iquaid.livejournal.com/18843.html
=== We're golden ===
PaulFrields points out in his blog[1],
"From the IRC buffer of #fedora-devel, looks like Fedora 7 will be in
General Availability on 31 May. To all those who repeatedly tested and
fed back bugs and information, a hearty and heartfelt thank you. I'm
sure the actual release engineering folks will have more to say about
this shortly; stay tuned."
[1] http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=785
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
=== Fedora 7 at Respins.org ===
KarlieRobinson reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"On May 12, I went to a Bar``Camp at RIT [2] and Saw a presentation on
F7 by Luke Macken.
That reminded me of how cool the Re-spin feature on 7 is.
My hope is that we can encourage the community to get creative with
Fedora by giving them an outlet for their work.
To that end, Webpath Technologies has created respins.org[3]."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00064.html
[2] http://barcamp.org/BarCampRochester2
[3] http://respins.org
=== Release Announcement Talking Points ===
KarstenWade reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Please help us get these completed[2]:
Um ... by tomorrow. Seriously. Or there won't be any time at all for
Ambassadors et al to write up their local version[3]. "
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00061.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/ReleaseAnnouncements/TalkingPoints
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/ReleaseAnnouncements#Schedule
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
=== Could A Truly Minimal Install Be Added in F7 Or F8? ===
An often debated Fedora Project issue has been, which packages should
be available bundled in an installable image. Many different reasons
have been offered to define what are necessary packages to include,
such as size. As a consequence of these protracted discussions over
whether there should be "everything" installs or "Windowmaker
flavored" installs, Fedora has been made more flexible to allow users
to compose their own spins. This progress of customization was
demonstrated when "Mark" raised a request[1] for a "minimal" install.
FlorianLaRoche suggested[2] using kickstart, while JesseKeating
thought[3] that redefining the Core and using Pungi (the Fedora
Project's FL/OSS installation-tree/ISO composer [2a]) is the best
approach.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01393.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01425.html
[2a] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/pungi/wiki/PungiDocs
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01394.html
After Jesse asked that Mark propose suggested changes to the comps
groups for installation, Mark noted[4] that he had little programming
ability. NicolasMailhot explained that this was not needed and
AhmedKamal posted[5] a link to a guide for minimizing CentOS install
size to circa 400MB. Nicolas posted[6] a summary of what to do in
order to see a minimal-install produced.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01400.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01422.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01424.html
=== Mdraid and Hidden Partition Area Upgrade Blocker Solved ===
The summary of ReleaseEngineering's IRC meeting was posted by
JohnPoelstra[1] and contained three salient issues:
1. The need for testers to be aware of a respin of the initial
release candidate (see "Fedora7RC2 Torrent" below);
1. The continuing need for testers of the iwl3945 wireless (see
"Status Of Support for IWP3945abg Wireless In Fedora7" below);
1. Upgrade problems with mdraid/dmraid. WillWoods identified the
latter as being the most serious, since it affected a large set of
committed users whom it would be good to keep. The iwl3945 issue is
dealt with in a separate section of this FWN issue.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01380.html
The new libata drivers caused a problem[2] for JarodWilson as they
were able to read the hidden protected area[3] of one of the drives in
an mdraid set, which caused a discrepancy between the partition table
and what the BIOS reports as the last usable drive sector. The older
PATA drivers seemed to pay attention to the information passed by the
BIOS. Jarod followed up by removing the affected drive and confirming
that without it he could upgrade from an mdraid'ed FC6 to F7. Jarod
then investigated passing the module parameter 'libata.ignore_hpa=1'
on the boot commandline and reported[4] it did not work and anyone
using anaconda to upgrade a similar setup would be out of luck.
However, adding "options libata libata.ignore_hpa=1" to
/etc/modprobe.conf and then doing a "yum upgrade" should work[5].
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01389.html
[3] http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Hidden_Protected_Area
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01572.htm
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01586.html
Following on from a suggestion from BrunoWolff that users might want
to look into removing the HPA before upgrading, JarodWilson found a
tool called "setmax" that Bruno built with minor problems[5a], but the
licensing is unknown. AlanCox cautioned[6] that this might not be a
good idea, especially with laptops. Alan also noted[7] that Fedora
could benefit from advance testing by Ubuntu in this area, where it
seemed reasonably certain that if anaconda could be convinced to
ignore HPA, then there would not be problems.
[5a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01690.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01615.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01614.html
JeremyKatz saved the day[8] by patching anaconda to recognize and use
"libata.ignore_hpa=1" on the commandline and TonyNelson tested[9] this
successfully.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01604.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01695.html
=== Status Of Support for IWP3945abg Wireless In Fedora 7 ===
A query[1] from DeependraShekhawat about whether users should continue
to use the ATrpms repository for drivers for IntelProWireless3945ABG
was answered quickly[2] by KevinKofler with the information that
Fedora would be shipping iwlwifi patched into the kernel.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01515.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01517.html
A further query from SteveHill led AndyGreen and JarodWilson to
attempt[3][4] to straighten out the terminology. The old version of
the driver is named "ipw3945" and uses the "80211" kernel stack. An
initial newwer version of the driver using the new "mac80211" kernel
wireless stack was initially named "iwlwifi" and then renamed to
"iwl3945". The thinking behind this is that iwlwifi is now a project
name for a collection of drivers.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01521.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01534.html
The problem of getting NetworkManager (NM) and IPW3945 hardware to
play nice together was mentioned[5] by LamontPeterson. AndyGreen
followed up on this, reporting[6] that with a specific kernel
(2.6.21-1.3194.fc7) it was possible for NetworkManager to scan and
detect networks, but that associating failed intitially with WPA2
requiring a restart of NM, nm-applet, and wpa-supplicant.
ToddZullinger reported[7] that he had no problems with NM and the
older ipw3945, but no success with the new iwl3945 driver.
RalfErtzinger confirmed[8] Todd's happy experiences with the older
driver but by contrast was successful with the new iwl3945 except for
the issue of the LED lights not working.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01551.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01553.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01554.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01588.html
Deependra and SteveHill were still having problems with the newer
driver. After suggestions that testers should move to the latest
kernel (available from Koji[9]) Deependra posted[10] logs of his
failure with the latest kernel. JohnLinville tried[11] to help out by
sacrificing some chickens, AndyGreen suggested disabling[12] the
closed, proprietary hardware scan in order to reduce confusion, but
Deependra still had no luck[13]. OlaThoresen reported[14] some
progress, but still no working interface.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01538.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01549.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01557.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01563.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01623.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01569.html
In discussion with Deependra over whether iwl3945 ought to be shipped,
AndyGreen argued[15] that the old ipw3945 driver wasn't an option
because of the licensing of the regulatory daemon being unacceptable
to the Fedora Project. Andy offered some other compelling reasons:
the iwl3945 driver, although unstable, was working well for many
users, and Intel were very actively working with JohnLinville to
improve it. Deependra was unhappy with this, prompting DaveHollis to
share[16] a workaround that allows both drivers to be present.
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01530.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01540.html
=== Fedora7RC2 Torrent ===
JesseKeating posted[1] that the latest and greatest version of F7
available for testing was the "Fedora" spin of F7 Release Candidate 2
(F7RC2), available as a torrent. The i386 version was followed
shortly by the x86_64 version and then the PPC version[1a]. Jesse
clarified that this would be the final release before GA, as long as
nothing really terrible was wrong[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01628.html
[1a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01659.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01630.html
A worried SteveHill wondered[3] if the 3194 kernel (which fixes a lot
of problems for people using IPW3945ABG hardware as reported elsewhere
in this FWN issue) would be in F7rc2. JeremyKatz confirmed[4] that it
would and the reason it hadn't shown up in rawhide was because it was
more recent than that.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01639.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01652.html
DavidNielsen queried whether the version of anaconda fixed the RAID
HPA issues (covered in this version of FWN) and was assured[5] by
JeremyKatz that they were (version 11.2.0.65-1).
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01653.html
SeanDarcy and ChelbanVasile appeared[6] to have found an AMD64 kernel
bug. Sean further found a problem with the incorrect (older) kernel
being selected as default in grub.conf when upgrading from F7t4 to
F7rc2. JesseKeating confirmed that this was a known bug and WillWoods
added[7] the information that it only appeared to happen with F7t4 and
the Red Hat Summit Preview, but should be alright for FC6 upgraders.
OttoHaliburton seemed to have contradictory[8] experience.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01718.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01717.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01719.html
=== Upgrade FC6 To F7t4 Fails On LVM Fstab Naming ===
An upgrade from FC6 to F7t4 failed[1] for SeanDarcy, necessitating the
manual removal of LVM partitions from /etc/fstab until after the
upgrade. Sean wanted to know[2] why the install insisted on using
labels instead of the simpler /dev naming convention.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01660.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01666.html
ChuckAnderson answered[3] that LABELs were unchanging, as opposed to
/dev names. While Sean conceded that LABELs had advantages, he
pressed[4] the point that the upgrade should not abort, and Mike
agreed that it sounded like an anaconda bug. TillMaas thought[5] that
LABELs could still be improved in respect of having unique names.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01671.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01679.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01703.html
Addressing the immediate practical problem, MikeChambers suggested
trying an upgrade to the very newest version of F7 (which was then
F7RC2 instead of F7t4) and this worked perfectly[6] for Sean.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01713.html
=== Guidelines For Huge SPEC Changelogs ===
Some of the RPM packages maintained by the Fedora Project were
observed[1] by MichaelSchwendt to have very large %changelog sections
in their spec files due to the packages being in maintenance since the
1990s. Michael wasn't making a big deal about it, but was interested
to know whether there were plans for dealing with what are sometimes
bloated and inaccurate records of changes. NigelJones concurred[2],
giving the specific example of anaconda's spec file being 5 times as
large as the actual code.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01646.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01647.html
MamoruTasaka suggested[3] copying vim's approach, which was welcomed
by KarstenHopp[4] and others. RalfCorsepius pointed out[5] that this
was a move from an inline changelog to a detached, separate one.
JesseKeating clarified that this was only for archived changelogs and
wondered if Ralf really needed all the history in the package. Ralf
disavowed this and suggested manually pruning them as he does for his
own packages. Karsten reiterated this point, separately adding the
information[6] that F7 has approximately 20MB of changelogs in the
spec files, and suggesting a similar approach to Ralf of
trimming/editing the changelogs so that appropriate recent changes are
easily seen through the same rpm queries as used presently.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01648.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01649.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01670.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01705.html
"Nodata" wondered[7] why there couldn't be a standard (presumably
networked?) place for the changelogs, which "rpm -q --changelog" would
silently examine.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01673.html
=== IPv6 Explicitly Disabled. iwl3495 Negative Interaction With IPv6? ===
SteveHill observed[1] that IPv6 seemed to be disabled by default in
rawhide and wondered why this was so. JesseKeating asked[2] if Steve
had enabled IPv6 during install. DavidWoodhouse explained[3] that
this was jsut a mixup in the initscripts for F7t4, but that the actual
F7 would not suffer from this problem.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01577.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01580.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01583.html
Diverging slightly from the original thread title, Steve also noted[4]
a problem with IPv6 autoconfiguration when the interface required the
iwl3945 driver. After examining the bugzilla entry, David suggested[5]
using tcpdump to check whether all multicast packets were missing.
Steve wasn't convinced and thought that the problem lay in the
interface seeing its own packets and assuming that these meant the
address was in use[6]. This theory seemed to be bolstered by an
observation[7] from JohnDeDourek.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01600.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01618.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01637.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01644.html
=== The Future Of the Bootloader ===
Our attention was drawn by KenYang[1] to an earlier (2006)
discussion[2] about whether or not Fedora could get an animated GRUB,
similar to SuSE10.2. Included in this was a link to an interesting
exploration[3] of the GRUB code by "TheStarman". The resulting
discussion revealed that the current perceived problems with booting
include a lengthy video modeswitch (needed to display a graphical boot
menu), and a "timeout" that needs to be long enough so that people
using ATs (assistive technologies[3a], for example, screenreaders)
have time to interact easily with the machine.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01429.html
[2] http://marc.info/?l=fedora-list&m=115693747626918&w=2
[3] http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/GRUB.htm
[3a] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/presentations/GUAD3C/making-apps-...
MatejCepl pleaded[4] against using SuSE's specific animated GRUB on
the grounds that it was in real-mode and thus broke Xen, and
MatthiasClasen reminded us[5] that the DesktopTeam had already made
plans to remove the GRUB menu from the startup, but that this depended
on a lot of components being changed[6] upstream, including
DRM-mode-setting being incorporated into the kernel.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01430.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01437.html
[6] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureBetterStartup
Responding to these plans, both NicolasMailhot[7] and AlanCox
corrected one of the listed tasks that suggested setting "timeout 0"
in grub.conf to avoid pausing and displaying a splash image in the
GRUB menu during boot. Alan explained [8] that drivers or BIOSes could
steal a keystroke leading to a need to edit grub.conf with a rescue
disk. Another consideration raised[9] by Alan was accessibility
(a11y) for people using text-to-speech screen readers. DavidZeuthen
and JesseKeating thought that if the bootloader were completely
removed[10], it would obviate the need for making it accessible.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01439.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01441.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01497.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01558.html
The main case for retaining the bootmenu display seemed to be for
users that were dual-booting (especially for non-technical users with
dual installs of Linux and Windows). JeremyKatz noted that the GRUB
bootmenu hasn't been shown during installation by default since 2004
anyway[11] and DavidZeuthen responded that it would still be a good
idea to get rid of the timeout. JasonTibbitts wanted a short,
interruptable timeout and drew a parallel to what happens during
hibernation, to which JesseKeating responded[10a] that this was partly
to prevent data corruption. David referenced[12] the manner in which
other OSes, e.g. Mac OSX, require special keypresses to bring up boot
menus. NicolasMailhot felt[13] that this behavior was too close to
vendor lock-in. AlanCox thought that twenty years of history of
hardware manufacturers showed[14] that this was a bad idea as the
manuals documenting this inevitably got lost.
[10a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01511.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01560.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01561.html
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01568.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01612.html
ChristopherAillon spiced things up[15] by sprinkling some crack on the
discussion, suggesting modifying anaconda to detect the presence of
other OSes and renable the timeout if they were present, or to modify
GNOME's reboot dialog to allow booting to another OS. NicolasMailhot
reacted to the latter unfavourably because it would mean that to boot
Windows, we'd have to first boot Fedora, prompting Christopher to
clarify[16] that there could also be DavidZeuthen's secret handshake
with an associated problem of non-discoverability. AdamJackson didn't
think discoverability was that important, as evidenced by the fact
that neither Windows nor MacOSX ship with it. AlanCox thought that
this absence was due to a cynical monetary incentive to make
interoperability hard[16a]. Christopher dismissed it as a failing
that should not be emulated in Fedora, pointing out the dual-booting
Windows for games was probably a major use-case[17]. An ensuing
discussion between David and NicolasMailhot resulted[18] in competing
claims as to whether removing the current defaults and moving the
configurability into specialised utilities and/or secret keypresses
would distress various user-cases.
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01570.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01578.html
[16a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01613.html
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01587.html
[18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01611.html
=== Wireshark Included On F7 Media ===
Wireshark[1] is a network protocol analyzer that used to be named
"ethereal". SteveDickson wondered[2] why it was not on the F7test4
spin, while the inferior tcpdump was present. Steve suggested that
"tshark", a text-mode version should be the default, with tcpdump made
optional.
[1] http://www.wireshark.org/
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01446.html
EnricoScholz pointed to the relative smallness of tcpdump, to which
Steve replied[3] that this was a consequence of tcpdump having a
limited functionality.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01467.html
A full response[4] from WillWoods explained that Wireshark was
actually available from the repositories, just not included in the
comps file for the default spin. Will argued that the absence of
complaints probably meant that it wasn't as appalling a choice as
Steve suggested and while agreeing that the tshark suggestion was
worthwhile pointed out that F7 was now in a freeze prior to final
release. "SteveG" suggested[5] that the absence of complaints might
have been because many testers use the rawhide network updates, not
ISO images, and that essential network troubleshooting tools really
had to be available on the ISO in case the network was broken.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01448.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01457.html
Elaborating[6] on the advantages of wirehark over tcpdump,
SteveDickson managed to convince[7] JesseKeating (Release Manager) to
include Wireshark as part of the f7-desktop manifest. Jesse was at
pains to point out that contrary to Steve's assertion, Wireshark had
never been a default, but had rather been an optional package in the
system-tools group for FC5 and FC6. Although Wireshark is now on the
ISO, it will not included on the Live-CD.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01464.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01498.html
NicolasMailhot and JefSpaleta were stimulated to toss around ideas
about how to easily determine a full list of packages installed by
default. Jef thought[8] that Pungi seemed like the likely place to
obtain this information.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01480.html
=== KDE4 For Fedora8 Draft Document Discussion ===
KevinKofler sought discussion[1] of a plan for getting KDE4 into F8.
ThorstenLeemhuis thought[2] that getting release schedules for KDE4
and F8 to align properly would be difficult and that a better bet was
to maintain two repositories of KDE4, one for rawhide the other for
F7. These would be hosted officially within the Fedora Project.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01291.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01346.html
Kevin and DennisGilmore preferred[3] the idea of trucking ahead with
the KDE4 plan but having a fallback to a usable KDE3. Discussion
between Kevin and JeremyKatz revealed[4] that there were
potential/probable conflicts (due to clashing sonames) in the -devel
packages. Jeremy thought there was no way that KDE3 and KDE4 could be
installed in parallel if what Kevin reported about upstream KDE were
true. Kevin was aware of the suckage and thought[5] about some
possible ways around it.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01364.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01392.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01397.html
Jeremy emphasized[6] that concerned people really needed to make
upstream KDE understand that such conflicts were a massive problem.
Kevin then proposed[7] creating a new root in which to place the
-devel files. NicolasMailhot was strongly against this idea[8] as it
broke the FHS and introduced a bad precedent. JeremyKatz thought[9]
that the need of ordinary users to build software without mock was
sufficiently great that it was worth deviating from standard practice
in this case.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01402.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01403.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01428.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01443.html
FlorianLaRoche was inspired by all the talk of file conflicts to
post[10] a list of all those that he could identify in FC-devel for
i386.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01427.html
== Maintainers ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who
maintain the software packages in Fedora
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers
=== No More New Packages For Fedora 7 ===
With the release of Fedora 7 coming up very shortly, Jesse Keating has
sent out a warning that no more "new" packages for F7-final[1] will be
accepted. Those that did not get their new packages committed in time
must wait for the first round of Fedora 7 updates. The final kernel
built for Fedora 7[2] (kernel-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7) is also now
available.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00934.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00958.html
== Documentation ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
=== Future of The Software Management Guide ===
There has been some discussion about the future of the Software
Management Guide[1], and the possibility of pushing relevant content
to the Fedora User Guide and the Administration Guide[2]. This would
help to separate material that new users are going to deal with,
making the experience less intimidating.
[1] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/yum/
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00102.html
=== Language Codes ===
The Documentation Project is going to be updating all the current
documents to use the en-US language code[1] instead of the ambigous
"-en". This removes any existing inconsistencies and makes it possible
to produce en-UK and en-AU versions of the documents. These change are
being saved for post-Fedora 7 release to prevent any problems arising,
and to allow sufficient time to talk with developers[2]. Changes
would appear in CVS, the toolchain, and in publication.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00105.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00125.html
=== Live CD Guide ===
After a request for help polishing a document about creating localized
spins of the Fedora KDE live CD[1], it was very quickly decided that a
canonical guide about creating live CDs using Fedora's new tools is an
important short-term goal[2].
The discussion then moved on to talk about creating separate user
guides for each of the official spins, with the current Fedora User
Guide forming the base for the GNOME live CD guide [3].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00148.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00152.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00158.html
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
=== Image Standard ===
There was some discussion[1] this week about which image format to use
project wide. There was no conclusion reached as it was decided to
forward the matter to the Board for further review. However, the
Project Board concluded JPEG no longer seemed encumbered, image
decisions aren't their business, and you should use whatever you feel
is best[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-May/msg00138.html
=== Pushing Updates ===
With bodhi being pushed into service shortly, BillNottingham started a
thread[1] about the mechanics of how updates are/will be pushed.
LukeMacken and others are hard at work this week to see the new system
implemented[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
=== Static Content ===
The project servers have been using puppet to distribute static
content among themselves. Due to the amount of files distributed,
puppet has produced a higher than comfortable load on the servers.
Discussion was had[1] on possible solutions.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
== Artwork ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
=== Fedora 7 CD/DVD Labels And Covers ===
Máirín Duffy sent her proposals for the CD/DVD labels and covers to
the fedora-art-list this week [1]. They were well received [2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00030.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00035.html
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
=== A Mighty Number Falls ===
There was much news last week regarding the factoring of a 307 digit
number[1]. Wikipedia has a nice example of what factoring means for
the RSA algorithm[2].
[1] http://actualites.epfl.ch/presseinfo-com?id=441
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA#Security
This event is probably not newsworthy to most people, but it's a huge
feat for those in the encryption industry. The researchers took 11
months to factor this number. This seems like a very long time, but
when you take Moore's Law into account, this 11 months will be a
couple of days in several years. The moral of the story is that data
strongly encrypted today, can be broken tomorrow.
=== 28% of software is unpatched ===
Secunia published a report stating that 28% of software installed on a
user's computer is unpatched[1].
[1] http://www.betanews.com/article/Secunia_28_Percent_of_Software_Unpatched/...
This can be a serious problem when you have to rely on more than one
vendor for your updates. The article doesn't specify it, but it seems
this survey was conducted on Windows computers. One of the problems
that exists in the Windows universe is that every third party vendor
has their own (if any) update system. A system such as yum, which
supports multiple repositories, GPG signed packages, and a single
update mechanism, can be a huge advantage.
Ideally for a non-technical desktop user, their update system should
automatically update software on a regular basis. This is the
behavior seen when a Microsoft Windows user installs Firefox, and it
has proven to be rather successful. In the above study, only 5.4% of
Firefox users were not running the latest secure version. I suspect
few other software projects can boast such numbers. Whether you agree
with this method or not, there is no denying it does work.
== Security Advisories and Package Updates ==
In this section, we cover Secuirity Advisories and Package Updates
from fedora-package-announce.
=== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories and Package Updates ===
* 2007-05-24 [SECURITY] libpng-1.2.10-9.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-529
* 2007-05-24 bind-9.3.4-5.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-524
* 2007-05-24 nfs-utils-1.0.10-12.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-520
* 2007-05-24 selinux-policy-2.4.6-69.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-508
* 2007-05-21 alsa-utils-1.0.14-0.2.rc1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-511
* 2007-05-21 cups-1.2.10-7.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-497
* 2007-05-21 hal-cups-utils-0.6.9-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-470
* 2007-05-21 jakarta-commons-modeler-1.1-8jpp.2.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-514
* 2007-05-21 minicom-2.2-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-490
* 2007-05-21 screen-4.0.3-3.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-515
* 2007-05-21 tomcat5-5.5.23-0jpp.2.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-514-1
* 2007-05-21 xinetd-2.3.14-9.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-512
=== Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories and Package Updates ===
* 2007-05-24 [SECURITY] libpng-1.2.8-3.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-528
* 2007-05-24 [SECURITY] php-5.1.6-1.6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-526
* 2007-05-21 samba-3.0.24-6.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-518
* 2007-05-21 SDL-1.2.9-6.1 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-517
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
=== Fedora Ambassadors Meeting Minutes 2007-05-24 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00155...
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-05-27 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00165.html
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-17 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00844.html
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-05-24 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00988.html
=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-23 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00926.html
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-21 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01380.html
== Feedback ==
This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1]. Please feel
free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute
to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2]
page to find out how to help.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
16 years, 6 months
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Fedora Project Web gets a face lift
by Mike McGrath
The Fedora Project website has gotten a face lift:
http://fedoraproject.org/
Prior to today that site went straight to the wiki, which is largely
developer content with good (but somewhat hard to find) docs. Now we're
expanding on fedoraproject.org and adding some more user-centric content
like that found at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/
The websites team has been hard at work at this for a while and we're
all excited to release it today.
Help get the word out and digg:
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_Project_gets_a_web_face_lift
-Mike
16 years, 6 months
- 1
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Fedora Weekly News Issue 88
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 88 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 88[1] for the week of May 13th
through May 19th, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2]
and RSS Feed can be found here[3].
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue88
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue
[3] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fwn
1. Fedora Weekly News Issue 88
1. Announcements
1. Deep Freeze coming for Fedora 7
2. Announcing fedora-cs-list for Czech and Slovak Fedora users
3. Fedora Rawhide Live Images (20070517)
2. Planet Fedora
1. Summary from the Red Hat Summit
2. F7 Firstboot and EULA
3. 'Play Ogg': FSF launches free audio format campaign
3. Marketing
1. OLPC on CBS 60 Minutes
4. Developments
1. New Suspend Quirks Functionality of F7 Explained
2. XChat Package Maintenance: First Post-Merge Co-Maintenance?
3. PowerTOP Release Opens Up New Directions In Power Saving
4. Massive size increase in some packages
5. Rawhide Report 17 May 2007:Liberated Fonts, Corrupt Metadata
6. Making Beagle Optional
7. Legality of Fedora In Some Jurisdictions Contd.
8. Making Koji A Complete rpmfind Replacement
5. Maintainers
1. Why Not Build For EPEL Too?
2. Fedora 7 Deep Freeze
3. Help Wanted: Package Co-maintainers
4. Improving Fedora Package Documentation
6. Documentation
1. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee Meeting
2. Welcome Wizard
3. Hardware Solutions Knowledge Base
7. Infrastructure
1. Fedora Mirror System
2. Koji
3. Proxy Server
8. Artwork
1. Ambassador Program Banner
2. Shutdown and Logout Icons
9. Security Week
1. Samba
10. Security Advisories
1. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
2. Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories
11. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-14
2. Fedora French Ambassadors Meeting 2007-05-13
3. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee 2007-05-10
12. Feedback
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
=== Deep Freeze coming for Fedora 7 ===
JesseKeating announces in fedora-maintainers[1],
"We're planning on entering "Deep Freeze" this Thursday. From that point on
we'll only be accepting build tag requests for builds that are fixing release
blockers. See Fedora Release Criteria[2] for current release criteria."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00351.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/ReleaseCriteria
=== Announcing fedora-cs-list for Czech and Slovak Fedora users ===
MarekMahut announces in fedora-ambassadors-list[1],
"Let me introduce you our new mailing list [2] for Czech and Slovak
Fedora users. If you are speaking one of those languages, feel free to
join."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00104...
[2] http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-cs-list
=== Fedora Rawhide Live Images (20070517) ===
JeremyKatz announces in fedora-test-list[1],
"First set of post-merge rawhide live images. These are based off of
yesterday's rawhide (packages tagged f7-final in koji).
You can get the torrent file from Fedora Project Torrent[2].
Available images are i386, x86_64, i386 KDE and also an x86_64 KDE
image. Note that the x86_64 images require DVD media, the i386 images
will fit on 700 meg CD media. Please file any issues against
product Fedora Core, version devel and against the relevant component or
LiveCD if you're unsure."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2007-May/msg00558.html
[2] http://torrent.fedoraproject.org.
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
=== Summary from the Red Hat Summit ===
ChristopherBlizzard points out in his blog[1],
"We announced a pile of things at the Red Hat Summit[2]. Lots of
confusing articles have been written. Lots of press releases have been
sent out filled with warnings about forward looking statements. Maybe
you just want the run down on all the things that happened. This is
your simple cheat sheet. Here's the list:.."
[1] http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=289
[2] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/news/
=== F7 Firstboot and EULA ===
MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1],
"In an attempt to have some transparency and no surprises, I've sent
an email[2] to Fedora Advisory Board that details some of the changes
we've made to firstboot and the EULA in Fedora 7. My personal opinion
is that the changes are good for Fedora, and also relatively
innocuous."
[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/16260.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-May/msg00111.html
=== 'Play Ogg': FSF launches free audio format campaign ===
ThomasChung points out in his blog[1]
"The Free Software Foundation (FSF)[2] today launched
Play``Ogg.org[3], a campaign to encourage use of the patent- and
license-free standard Ogg Vorbis as an ethically, legally and
technically superior audio alternative to the proprietary MP3 format."
[1] http://fedora-tchung.blogspot.com/2007/05/play-ogg-fsf-launches-free-audi...
[2] http://www.fsf.org/news/playogg.html
[3] http://playogg.org/
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
=== OLPC on CBS 60 Minutes ===
ThomasChung reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"CBS 60 Minutes[2] will air OLPC[3] story on Sunday, May 20, 2007 (7PM ET/PT)"
"ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD – MIT Prof. Nicholas Negroponte's dream is to
put a laptop computer into the hands of every child as an educational
aid. Lesley Stahl reports on his progress in Cambodia and Brazil.
Catherine Olian is the producer."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00057.html
[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC
UPDATE: The video is now available from CBS News Video archive[1]. You
may need to install Real Player[2].
Here is the transcript for the entire show[3]. You may need to click
on 'Print' button from main page.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2830221n
[2] http://www.real.com/linux
[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/printable2830058.shtml
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
=== New Suspend Quirks Functionality of F7 Explained ===
A "heads up" was announced by RichardHughes with regard to the changes in
power management and HAL for Fedora 7, which would probably affect suspension
[1]. Richard summarised the implications as "Some machines that suspended in
FC6 might not work in F7; Lots of machines that did not suspend in FC6
might work in F7".
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01065.html
These changes are as a result of trying to make suspend and resume Just Work
by using a modular hal-info DMI whitelist which is being updated regularly.
Explaining this on a separate page [2] Richard noted that the ability
to share specific rules for specific hardware allows one user to
figure out the "quirks" and then share the appropriate rule with other users
that have the exact same hardware.
[2] http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/temp/quirk/quirk-intro.html
This page explains how to see what quirks exist for your laptop, and how to
help in creating an fdi file to share with other users.
JefSpaleta wanted to know [3] at what point this had all happened so that he
could investigate the actual effect that it had on his machines. PeterJones
was able to answer very specifically [4] that the code had entered the tree on
March 13, but had some problems until April 25th (pm-utils-0.99.2-1,
hal-0.5.9-0.git20070304).
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01071.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01090.html
In further testing Jef was isolated an unwanted interaction between
NetworkManager and gnome-power-manager which RichardHughes and PeterJones
agreed could be easily eliminated [5].
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01203.html
ThorstenLeemhuis suggested [6] that Richard's webpage for gathering user data
should also ask about the proprietary ATI driver "fglrx" and that it should
solicit information as to whether the user selected a plain vga console or a
framebuffer, both of which suggestions Richard willingly incorporated.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01123.html
=== XChat Package Maintenance: First Post-Merge Co-Maintenance? ===
A discussion was initiated, by an apparently testy [1] KevinKofler,
around the apparent radio-silence of XChat-maintainer
ChristopherAillon to Kevin's bug reports, which asked for X-Chat to be
kept in sync with upstream. Kevin was willing to become
co-maintainer, but pointed out [1a] that a lot of good work had
already been done by RemiCollet. Kevin wondered if the
AWOL-maintainers policy [1b] would be applied post-merge.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01201.html
[1a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01208.html
[1b] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/Policy/AWOL_Maintainers
A few things transpired from this: first, Chrisopher noted that the upstream Xch
at developers are apparently unresponsive [3] to patches; second, that
Xchat-gnome may have responsive upstream developers [4].
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01204.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01210.html
Additionally WarrenTogami noted [5] that there are problems with
XChat's ability to use multilinugal input methods such as SCIM or IM
[6].
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01206.html
[6] http://www.scim-im.org/
A brief exchange over the respective merits of Xchat-gnome [7] versus Xchat [8]
saw both groups of believers unshaken in their faith, although
CallumLerwick revealed himself as an apostate heretic user of Irssi.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01222.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01207.html
The upshot of all this was that RemiCollet expressed interest [9] in
being a co-maintainer and wondered if this could be a paradigm for The
Merge.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01226.html
=== PowerTOP Release Opens Up New Directions In Power Saving ===
Reporting on his work on decreasing power wastage on laptops,
ArjanvandeVen (ex-Red Hat, now Intel) suggested that we might want to
try [1] his new tool that allows individual analysis of power
consumption.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00796.html
JoshBoyer was excited enough to want to package it [2], but
AdamJackson (ajax) had already done that.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00799.html
After DominikMierzejewski (Rathann) and "Dragoran" reported a lack of functional
ity on AMD64 and x86_64 (Intel Core 2 Duo) repectively, JesseBarnes pointed out
[3] that x86_64 tickless support in the kernel is an essential
pre-requisite and this is not yet available in the rawhide kernels,
necessitating a manual patch by anyone interested.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00838.html
DavidTimms wanted to know [4] if it would help in finding out what was
causing disk-accesses. Arjan replied that this was a frequent request
which he was going to attempt to accomodate in the next version,
possibly using blktrace. BillNottingham cautioned [5] that blktrace
was not currently shipped in Fedora.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00811.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00932.html
ThorstenLeemhuis followed up [6] on DavidTimms' question with some
general queries about how Fedora, and more specifically
gnome-power-manager, handles spinning down inactive hard-drives.
Thorsten remembered RichardHughes' 2005 attempts to get a patch into
HAL to allow similar functionality to that which WinXP was alleged to
have.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00818.html
Richard answered [7] that Fedora does not currently spin down drives
by default and that one had to balance a significantly increased
spin-up power drain compared to that saved by spinning down.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00820.html
Thorsten wondered [7a] whether or not the new Robson/TurboMemory and
hybrid drives would change that equation.
[7a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00822.html
JonathanUnderwood shifted the focus [8] to considering drive
longevity, worrying that attempts to save power by spinning
up-and-down would shorten drive life. Richard agreed, and AndyGreen
provided some figures [9] which suggested that laptop drives (2.5")
could be power spun 6 times per hour, whereas server (3.5") drives
could only do 1 times per hour if one estimated a 5 year lifespan.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00850.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00861.html
TomLondon posted some early observations [10], in which PowerTOP
revealed that if Firefox were displaying GMail there were about 60
wakeups-per-second, but that activating the "Gmail Talk" pushed the
rate to 300 wakeups-per-second. NicolasMailhot responded that this was
AJAX at work.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00826.html
MartinSourada was puzzled [11] by what appeared to be an unnaturally
low power usage of 1.2W reported by PowerTOP, compared to an expected
16W reported by the /proc subsystem. JonBurgess explained that what
was being reported was "present rate" in milliamperes (e.g. current)
and showed how to calculate the power in Watts from that. TillMaas
thought [12] that some notebooks actually reported the present rate in
mW instead of mA.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00831.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00835.html
In a discussion of the packaging PatriceDumas suggested that the spec
file be modified to preserve timestamps. AdamJackson wondered why
[13] and ThorstenLeemhuis answered that it was necessary for multilib
[14] and would make things easier for presto. MatthiasClasen agreed
with DavidWoodhouse that including timestamps in file identity tests
was not a good idea [15]. MichaelSchwendt and "nodata" thought that
in contrast that it was nice to know when a file was several years old
especially for documentation and scripts [16]. AdamJackson (ajax)
said [17] that it wasn't a multilib package, but "sure why not".
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01011.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01017.html
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01018.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01025.html
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01024.html
=== Massive size increase in some packages ===
The eagle eyed OrionPoplawski maintains python-numarray, and in the course of
rebuilding the package from its Fedora Extras 6 version to Fedora 7
spotted [1] that the size had increased by an order of magnitude. He
also noted that a subsequent rebuild now, produced packages of a
normal size. Further investigation revealed by Orion suggested that
this was due to the shared libraries, and a comparison of FE6 to
FE-devel turned up some other candidates which had increased in size
by at least a factor of two.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01161.html
The first possible culprit was guessed to be debug symbols by
BillNottingham who asked [2] whether debug packages had been turned
off for these builds, but Orion reported that he'd just done a
straightforward rebuild.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01164.html
Orion posted an objdump [3] which showed that although the
shared-object files appeared to have been stripped, the large one was
possibly including the whole of the libpython shared-object instead of
linking it dynamically at runtime, which might explain the bloat. A
diff of the two objdumps appeared to also show different glibc
versions [4].
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01168.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01170.html
One conclusion drawn from this [5] was that all non-arch python
packages built within the timeframe of Dec 8th 2006 to Jan 6th 2007,
(or prior to python-2.5.3-8) should be rebuilt. Another conclusion
was drawn by AxelThimm, who revisited [6] the mass-rebuild debate
(reported in FWN84 [7],[8]) and argued
that this backed up his viewpoint that mass rebuilds were useful.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01171.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01174.html
[7] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue84
[8] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue85
=== Rawhide Report 17 May 2007:Liberated Fonts, Corrupt Metadata ===
On Thursday 17th May 2007, the rawhide report [1] listed 5 new
packages: gsm, kde-settings, liberation-fonts, mcpp and
php-pear-HTML-QuickForm-ElementGrid. The Liberation-fonts package is a
result of Red Hat contracting Ascender Corp. to develop replacements
for proprietary Microsoft fonts, including but not limited to Times
New Roman, Arial and Courier New.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01111.html
[2] http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/
MilesLane was first off the block to report [3] that "yum update" was
not picking up an updated version of control-center, but that it could
be seen to be present at its URL in the repository. The usual "yum
clean all" had been tried first. RoddClarkson reported related
problems [4], which indicated to JeremyKatz [5] that the something was
misaligned with the tree.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01114.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01133.html
NicolasMailhot suspected [6] proxies as the problem, but NigelJones
refuted this possibility with some data [7]. MattDomsch suggested
that the frequently-updated content at mirrors.fedoraproject.org was a
better argument to mirrorlist than fedora.redhat.com, but this still
didn't help Miles.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01118.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01121.html
The was identified by BillNottingham [8] as a partially synced tree
(primary.xml.gz was the only thing missing) and BrendanConoboy added
[9] that repomd.xml needed to be regenerated too.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01146.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01150.html
=== Making Beagle Optional ===
In response to frequent bugs in Beagle (a desktop search tool) causing
CPU and memory stress, AlexanderLarsson made it optional [1] in the
default install. While regretting that this was a regression in terms
of features he pointed out that Beagle was still available for those
who wanted it. There was a mild amount of satisfaction expressed in
response to the decision.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00887.html
DavidNielsen thought [2] that Tracker was superior because Beagle
consumed 100% CPU without tweaking. KevinKofler mentioned that Strigi
would be part of KDE4, which will ship in Fedora 8, and worried about
multiple desktop search daemons. David pointed out the Xesam Project
[3] from Freedesktop which may
mitigate this, and noted that there was a real need for desktop
improvements using the technology which weren't simply replacements of
the search dialog.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00914.html
[3] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/XesamAbout
In response to Alexander's proposal JesseKeating reported [4] that the
Release Team agreed with this late regression, with the caveat that
Beagle must be in the manifest of the "Fedora" spin of F7 so that
upgraders from FC6 to F7 will not suffer.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00942.html
A few people were disappointed. DavidNielsen pointed out [5] that
hard testing and stabilization would ensure that Beagle would return
in F8, and AlexanderLarsson pointed to some specific bugs that those
with an interest in running Beagle on Fedora could help [6] to fix.
JefSpaleta expanded on the
rationale behind why Beagle had to be removed due to failing QA, but
could still be installed from a repository [7].
RahulSundaram and DejiAkingunola [8] re-emphasized that Beagle was
being removed from the default-install, not removed altogether, and
that it is still in the official Fedora repositories for those who
like it.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00964.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01008.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01053.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01054.html
In response to a suggestion by MatejCepl that Beagle was not greatly
admired due to being built on Mono [9], Alexander hastened to clarify
[10] that this was not the reason and that the problems on display
were going to be faced by any indexer. In fact, Alexander thought that
Mono might have advantages by being (as all managed runtimes are)
harder to crash. DavidNielsen was largely in agreement with this and
also pointed out that Beagle had excellent documenation [11].
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00992.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01007.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00992.html
=== Legality of Fedora In Some Jurisdictions Contd. ===
Last week's discussion [1] of the need to be able to show a
"Certificate of Authenticity" to the IP police in some countries,
continued [2] with RalfCorsepius arguing forcefully that it was
necessary to have a specific limitation on what language was
acceptable for software packaged by Fedora.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00697.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00810.html
JoshBoyer thought that Ralf should make a proposal about this to the
Packaging Committee as he is a member, but Ralf thought [3] that
responsibility was split between FESCo and GregDeKoenigsberg. Josh
pointed out that no rule existed to say that Ralf shouldn't do this,
and that he appeared to have a good
understanding of the issue [4], and that something along these lines
would need to augment the packaging guidelines in the future anyway.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00908.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00924.html
Rahul also agreed with Ralf that bugs should be filed against packages
with non-English licenses [5], but disagreed that non-English licenses
were unreadable. Rahul sought further non-English examples from Ralf.
One that had been previously discussed was "mecab", maintained by
MamoruTasaka. Mamoru
mentioned [6] that he had sent a translation of a Japanese license for
another package to TomCallaway who had then queried the FSF and was
awaiting a reply from them. Mamoru had unsuccesfully requested the
developer to use the GPL and had previously followed the same process
[7] of going through TomCallaway and the FSF.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00906.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00910.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00913.html
AndrewHaley thought that license translation wasn't the FSF's job, but
Rahul pointed out that they had done so whenever asked in the past
[8].
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00912.html
NicolasMailhot took exception [9] to the idea that English was more
blessed than other languages and an exchange between Rahul and Nicolas
followed which revolved around the US (hence English speaking) nature
of Fedora (via Red Hat), the need to define what is an official
translation, and the cost burden
of producing these translations.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00915.html
SimoSorce thought [10] that placing the onus on non-English speaking
developers to
provide English translations of their licenses to Fedora was
burdensome. He also argued [11] that mere translation to English was
not enough, but rephrasing to take account of the local legal context
was essential. At this point the conversation appeared to return to a
familiar place, where Rahul
argued that non-US contributors would need to accept a US legal
framework [12], or else the Fedora Project would have to regretfully
decline their code.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00926.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00943.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00947.html
=== Making Koji A Complete rpmfind Replacement ===
During the blip with syncing rawhide, NicolasMailhot explored one of
Koji's less appreciated abilities. Koji [1] is a package build system
developed for the Fedora Project , but Nicolas pointed out that with a
little work [2] it could also fill the functional role that rpmfind
fills on the web, making it easier for users to find specific RPMs.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01057.html
Agreeing with Nicolas that adding resolution of dependency links and
display of rpm metadata, NigelJones added [3] that it would be nice to
also see build-requires, so that packagers could contact other
affected maintainers. In response MikeBonnet pointed to where this
information appeared to be already
provided by Koji [4] and asked for some more information. Nicolas
advised looking at rpmfind.net to see what he meant.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01058.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01064.html
An offer of help [5] was received from OliverFalk, who had explored
similar ideas, and JoshBoyer noted that "patches [were] welcome"!
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01059.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01060.html
== Maintainers ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Maintainers, the group of people who
maintain the software packages in Fedora
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-maintainers
=== Why Not Build For EPEL Too? ===
ThorstenLeemhuis sent out a start signal[1] this week to let Fedora
contributors know they can also help out with EPEL, or Extra Packages
for Enterprise Linux. The invitation was made by Thorsten for Fedora
packagers to build their packages for EPEL, which will allow RHEL and
CentOS users (and other RHEL-based distributions) access to the vast
array of packages found in the Fedora repository.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00323.html
=== Fedora 7 Deep Freeze ===
This past Thursday, May 17, marked Fedora 7 entering a deep freeze[1].
With this period now in effect, only build tag requests for builds
that fix release blockers will be permitted until the May 31st launch
of Fedora 7.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00351.html
=== Help Wanted: Package Co-maintainers ===
JochenSchmitt has put out a request for co-maintainers on a variety of
different packages from blender to luma. If you have some time to help
out another Fedora contributor, check out his message[1] for a list of
packages needing another maintainer.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00380.html
=== Improving Fedora Package Documentation ===
JonathanUnderwood has also put out a request, but this time it's for
improving the Fedora packaging documentation[1]. The packaging
documentation is in need of rewriting and then making it known and
easy to find, and Underwood is initiating a movement to fix this area
in despair.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00598.html
== Documentation ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee Meeting ===
The FDSCo meeting was rescheduled last week and took place on Tuesday
15th May[1]. The meetings log was posted to the docs-list[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00061.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00068.html
=== Welcome Wizard ===
The idea of creating a Welcome Wizard was submitted to the
docs-list[1]. Following discussions it was decided that if such an
addition were to be made to Fedora it would be best suited as its own
piece of software, separate from the First Run Wizard[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00066.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00081.html
=== Hardware Solutions Knowledge Base ===
A long desired addition to the Fedora Project is a community
contributed database of hardware compatibility and solutions. It is
thought that a knowledge base solution would be most appropriate but
the best method for implementation remains undiscovered[1]. Some
people believe that integration with Smolt will be possible to an
extent, helping to automate the creation of much of the content[2].
Anybody interested in seeing this become a reality should post a
message to the docs-list.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00072.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-May/msg00080.html
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
=== Fedora Mirror System ===
Thanks to MattDomsch for following news contribution[1].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-news-list/2007-May/msg00012.html
Fedora is fortunate to have nearly 200 volunteer mirror sites globally
which helps distribute CD and DVD images, OS installs and updated
packages to nearly 3 million systems [1]. Managing the list of mirror
sites and their content had been a tedious manual process. In late
October 2006, the Fedora Infrastructure team recognized the need to
automate managing the mirror list. In January 2007, MattDomsch
started working on code in earnest with the goal of being in
production by the Fedora 7 release. With help from the entire
Infrastructure team, especially ToshioKuratomi, MikeMcGrath,
SethVidal, and LukeMacken, that system is now in place.
Mirrormanager[2] is licensed under the MIT/X11 license and is written
using the Turbo``Gears web application framework. It includes:
* a database of mirror sites, individual mirror hosts, content
carried such as Core, Extras, EPEL, and soon the Fedora Releases.
Mirrors may choose to carry whichever subsets of the whole tree they
wish.
* an administration web app for mirror admins to manage detail about
their own site.
* a web crawler that crawls each mirror site several times a day
updating the database with what they carry
* the yum mirrorlist handler which tells yum the list of mirrors to try.
With this system in place, users should begin to see faster yum
downloads, from a mirror in your country if possible. You can see the
whole list of mirrors by country and content[3].
We're always looking for additional mirrors. If you would like to
provide a public Fedora mirror, please see [4].
Troubles with new system should be reported to
fedora-infrastructure-list redhat com or #fedora-admin on Free``Node.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics
[2] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/mirrormanager
[3] http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist
[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Mirroring
=== Koji ===
Koji[1] (buildsystem software) was upgraded this week to a new version
and moved to heavier duty hardware. The upgrade went well, though the
outage lasted longer than initially anticipated. MikeMcGrath has more
here[2].
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
=== Proxy Server ===
The proxy servers[1] were upgraded[2] this week to RHEL 5. All went
well and no outages were reported.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Architecture
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
== Artwork ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
=== Ambassador Program Banner ===
After a posting to the art-list requesting a new banner for the
Ambassador Program's websites[1], one was quickly forwarded[2] and is
now part of the Ambassador's websites.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00010.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00011.html
The Ambassadors are still looking for some print banners[1], however,
for LinuxTag Germany, and work is underway[2] but new contributions
are always welcome.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00013.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00014.html
=== Shutdown and Logout Icons ===
A discussion was prompted about the usability of Fedora's current
approach to logging out and shutting down, the functions respective
icons and menu locations[1].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-May/msg00024.html
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
=== Samba ===
Last week a round of Samba flaws were fixed[1]:
This update fixed three security flaws, all of which could allow a
remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with the same permissions of
the Samba server. Some of these flaws are especially dangerous as they
allow an anonymous attacker on the network to compromise the Samba
server. The anonymous part is what makes the flaws the most scary. If
an attacker has to be authenticated against the Samba server, you have
a known number of attackers. If anyone attached to the network is able
to attack Samba, there can be a near infinite number of attackers
depending on the network setup.
The lesson one should take away from this, is that proper network
setup is important. Sane firewall rules can go a long way. If you only
need one machine to talk to the Samba server, you should only allow
that machine access, not the whole network. Spending some time
thinking about your network needs can make a big difference when a
security flaw is found.
[1] http://news.samba.org/releases/samba_3_0_25_release/
== Security Advisories ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
=== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ===
* 2007-05-15 nfs-utils-1.0.10-10.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-510
* 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] freeradius-1.1.3-2.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-499
* 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] php-5.1.6-3.6.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-503
* 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] samba-3.0.24-5.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-507
* 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] squirrelmail-1.4.10a-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-505
* 2007-05-14 firefox-1.5.0.10-6.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-500
* 2007-05-14 foomatic-3.0.2-39.5.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-446
* 2007-05-14 logrotate-3.7.4-13.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-504
* 2007-05-14 openldap-2.3.30-2.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-467
* 2007-05-14 procps-3.2.7-10.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-495
* 2007-05-14 ypbind-1.19-7.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-502
=== Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories ===
* 2007-05-14 [SECURITY] samba-3.0.24-5.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-506
* 2007-05-14 openldap-2.3.30-2.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-468
* 2007-05-14 procps-3.2.7-2.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-494
* 2007-05-14 SDL-1.2.9-6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-498
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-14 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg01192.html
=== Fedora French Ambassadors Meeting 2007-05-13 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00094...
=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee 2007-05-10 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00474.html
== Feedback ==
This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1]. Please feel
free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute
to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2]
page to find out how to help.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
Fedora Weekly News Issue 87
by Thomas Chung
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 87 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 87[1] for the week of May 6th
through May 12th, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2]
and RSS Feed can be found here[3].
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue87
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue
[3] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fwn
1. Fedora Weekly News Issue 87
1. Announcements
1. Fedora 7 -- what, when, and why
2. Fedora 7 Deep Freeze/GA release schedule change
3. Post-merge howto and FAQ
2. Planet Fedora
1. Red Hat Summit - Update from the Left Coast
2. Red Hat Summit - Fedora Unity, Custom Spins of Fedora
3. Red Hat Summit - ATI and Open Source
4. Java One and OpenJDK
5. Red Hat Summer Intern: Python Web Programming
3. Marketing
1. Liberations fonts from Red Hat
2. Distrowatch on Fedora Repo Merge
4. Developments
1. Rawhide Merge Status
2. AlphaCore Project Gets Help Patching The Kernel Spec File
3. Zope. A Tale Of Two Threads
4. Avoid Inane Regulatory Licensing Shakedowns
5. Missed Contributor Returns
6. Fedora Standards For Contents Of /etc/pki
7. Sun's GPL'ed Java To Arrive Soon In Fedora
8. DeltaRPM, YUMPresto plans
9. Wireless Test Request for ipw3945 etc Users
10. Why Does Nautilus Create Folders in ~ By Default ?
5. Translation
1. Completion Summary
6. Infrastructure
1. Cacti
2. System Flux
7. Security Advisories
1. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
2. Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories
8. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-08
2. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-07
3. Event Report: 2007 Upstate Hamfest - South Carolina, USA
4. Event Report: LinuxTag at Fachhochschule - Salzburg, Austria
9. Editor's Note: Red Hat Summmit 2007
10. Feedback
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.
=== Fedora 7 -- what, when, and why ===
MaxSpevack announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"The next version of Fedora will be released on May 24th. It will be
called "Fedora 7" -- not "Fedora Core 7". It's the most ambitious
release of Fedora that we've undertaken, and I hope that when we look
back at Fedora 7 one or two years down the road, the decisions that we
made for this release will have proven to be as impactful as anything
we've done in the Fedora space since the start of the Fedora Project."
In one sentence: "Fedora 7 has been about improving the manner in
which all future Fedora releases will be made."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-May/msg00002.html
=== Fedora 7 Deep Freeze/GA release schedule change ===
JoshBoyer announces in fedora-maintainers[1],
"The bulk of the Core/Extras merge has now been finished, and the Release
Engineering team has been working hard to get things back in shape for
the final F7 release. However, due to the massive nature of this
undertaking, we are not coming back online as fast as we had hoped."
"While this slip is unfortunate, it is also in the best interest for the
quality of the release. Please bear with us as we strive to make this
the best release of Fedora to date!"
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00236.html
=== Post-merge howto and FAQ ===
JoshBoyer announces in fedora-maintainers[1],
"Due to popular demand, I sat down and wrote up a brief howto for
handling packages in the merged world. Given that I'm almost guaranteed
to have not answered all the questions, it's living under the wiki[2]
for the moment.
Hopefully it will give the package maintainers a high
level overview of what to do and how to do it. Feel free to ask
questions and I (or others) will try to address them."
[1]https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00220.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JoshBoyer/MergeHOWTO
== Planet Fedora ==
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an
aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet
=== Red Hat Summit - Update from the Left Coast ===
PaulFrields points out in his blog[1],
"In the afternoon a bunch of Fedora folks (including your humble
reporter) gathered in a posh executive conference room, complete with
snazzy lighting and decor, for a video interview conducted by Kim
Jokisch and mainly shot by Red Hat filmmaker extraordinaire Tim
Kiernan[2]. Tim pops up again later in this post. We talked about all
the cool things going on in Fedora, including but not limited to the
new release. We also talked about what is so fricking cool about
working on Fedora. Why do we do it, beyone the simple "scratch an
itch" answers? I'm hoping some of this interview will make it out into
public space at some point."
[1] http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=778
[2] http://www.redhat.com/magazine/006apr05/departments/red_hat_speaks/
=== Red Hat Summit - Fedora Unity, Custom Spins of Fedora ===
MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1],
"So I'm sitting here in the first big Fedora talk at the Red Hat
Summit[2]. Jon Steffan. Bob Jensen, and Jesse Keating talking about
how to build custom versions of Fedora.
The tools that they used? Pungi, LiveCD Creator, and Revisor.
In my opinion, the ability to generate customized versions of Fedora
is one of the most important pieces of Fedora 7[3]."
[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/14639.html
[2] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-May/msg00002.html
=== Red Hat Summit - ATI and Open Source ===
ChristopherBlizzard points out in his blog[1],
"The (AMD) ATI[2] marketing guy on stage (Henri Richard) at the Red
Hat Summit[3] just committed to fixing the ATI problems with open
source. To paraphrase "most people are worried about what they will
lose…IP, etc…we're worried about what we can win." They know it's a
problem and they are committed to fixing it."
[1] http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=288
[2] http://ati.amd.com/
[3] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/
=== Java One and OpenJDK ===
TomTromey points out in his blog[1],
"Java One[1] is huge, much huger than I'd imagined. The opening
keynote had a steady stream of corporate luminaries onstage to talk
about their Java-related plans. Many thanks to Bruno for saving us
some great seats — and also to Tom Marble for making the effort to
include me in the various goings on.
The big news is that OpenJDK[3] sources are available, and that
Dalibor is on the initial OpenJDK governance board. Next step: replace
the remaining binary blobs with free software."
[1] http://tromey.com/blog/?p=350
[2] http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/index.jsp
[3] http://openjdk.java.net/
=== Red Hat Summer Intern: Python Web Programming ===
WarrenTogami points out in his blog[1],
"Paid Intern Job through runs through May 14th and August 14th.
This position requires use of the Python programming language with the
Turbogears web application framework and a RDBMS database backend.
This position would be responsible to drive not just the
implementation of software deliverables, but also the creation of a
community project that works on its design and implementation.
Location: Red Hat's Westford, MA or Raleigh, NC office. Work Remote
over Internet is possible if you have the ability to work closely with
our engineers located in the American EDT timezone."
[1] http://wtogami.livejournal.com/16659.html
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
=== Liberations fonts from Red Hat ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Red Hat has released Liberation fonts[2] under the GPL+ fonts
exception license. Liberation fonts are metric equivalent to key
Microsoft fonts. This is a major milestone and significantly enhances
the interoperability of documents and content under these Microsoft
fonts in Linux."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00020.html
[2] http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/
=== Distrowatch on Fedora Repo Merge ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"The long-promised merge of Fedora's core and extras repositories is
finally under way: "Merge is going well now. A bunch of hiccups early
on as we moved our test scripts into acting with real bits and
databases and such, but now that that's over..." As for the hiccups,
Jesse Keating explains: "We're scrambling to create ppc64 builds of
all the extras packages, as those didn't exist before, but now they
will be built for ppc64. Also we need to hook up some software to make
rawhide appear. It may just be in package repo form (not installable)
to begin with, we'll see. I wouldn't expect anything this weekend."
For more information about the merge and other Fedora topics, please
check out the latest issue of Fedora Weekly News."
"Digg this up folks[2]."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-May/msg00013.html
[2] http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_merging_Core_and_Extras_repositories_today
== Developments ==
In this section, we cover the problems/solutions,
people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on
Fedora Developments.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
=== Rawhide Merge Status ===
BillNottingham gave us a heads-up [1] that a huge merged rawhide tree
had been pushed out to the master mirror. MichaelSchwendt wanted to
know [2] if the wiki had been updated to document the merge process
and whether the tool was available publically. DavidNielsen suggested
liquid celebrations [3].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00776.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00786.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00782.html
DennisGilmore and JoshBoyer explained that the rawhide compose tools
were publically available in the form of "pungi" and "mash" and that a
rawhide report could be generated using "treediff" just as with the
old rawhide.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00793.html
=== AlphaCore Project Gets Help Patching The Kernel Spec File ===
OliverFalk gauged the busyness of the kernel team by posting [1] a
request for help to patch the kernel .spec file so that Fedora can
continue to be ported to the Alpha architecture. JoshBoyer asked [2]
for the patches, which DavidWoodhouse then reviewed thoroughly [3].
JoshBoyer and Jarod Wilson also took the time to provide detailed
feedback [4].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00680.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00682.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00683.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00699.html
=== Zope. A Tale Of Two Threads ===
Last week we reported [1] on the problems that the Zope package is
facing in living up to the packaging requirements of Fedora, and a
changed Python API. The thread was replete with high emotion from
Zope users who felt that a compatability package for the EOL'ed
Python-2.4 should be included in the distro. A separate thread about
a tool for reading the SMBIOS sparked a discussion about what the
people maintaining packages should do and should be called [2]. The
issues discussed in both threads overlapped considerably, having at
heart the issue of exactly who is responsible for what work and in
which manner. And so, it was natural that the threads would
eventually merge and overlap. There are two main threads buried in
here. One of them contains all sorts of technical goodies about
SELinux and packaging, the other contains stuff to do with the random
electrical activity performed by the soft, squishy material in our
heads.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue86#head-9d00b6b611ad698b385581e369...
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue86#head-ab47d69eeea718f121b1017265...
Disappointment with the decision not to pursue the maintenance burden
led JoshBoyer to clarify [3] that this was a decision by the Fedora
python maintainer, backed by the community in the form of FESCo.
DavidMackay still wanted to know why the responsibility was being
pushed onto the Zope maintainers when, as he saw it, the problem was
caused by the Python developers. JesseKeating answered [4] that the
responsibility was theirs because this had been flagged over 9 months
in adavance as a major change by the Python developers.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00372.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00391.html
JonathanSteffan made his position as Fedora Zope maintainer clear in
no uncertain way [5] when he posted references from upstream Zope
development that suggested that there would never be support for
Zope-2 with Python-2.5. Jonathan asked rhetorically whether he should
really be expected to take on the massive and potentially futile task
that some were suggesting. Following this DavidWoodhouse acknowleged
Jonathan's work and opened up a larger discussion about what it meant
to be a package maintainer [6]. David had taken a fair amount of
criticism for some of his earlier statements about package maintainers
and he took the opportunity to try to explain what he had been
thinking: namely that in order to produce a coherent collection of
separate codebases that worked together (e.g. a distro) it was exactly
necessary for maintainers to take on the sort of task to which
Jonathan referred. "Dragoran" was particularly in agreement [7] with
a part of this post of David's in which he mentioned that it was
necessary for packagers to deal with SELinux issues. Dragoran, David
and ManuelWolfshant were in agreement [8] that the package review
guidelines should be changed to make SELinux compliance necessary.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00294.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00306.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00308.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00311.html
HansdeGoede expressed irritation at DavidWoodhouse's apparent attitude
to package maintainers [9] and thus began a part of the thread, Gentle
Reader, into which you may not wish to delve. Suffice to say it
involved accusations of bedwetting, political correctness,
Californianism and disrespect. David's essential point seemed to be
that a higher standard and expectations should be applied to
packagers, while others thought that a higher standard of courtesy was
needed.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00317.html
There were, however, some very enlightening and useful parts to the
thread. TillMaas drew attention several times [10][11] to the paucity
of good SELinux packaging documentation, and the problem of getting
help. These points were acknowleged by David [12] who suggested that
packagers could file a bug against their package CC'ing DanielWalsh,
while noting that Dan might not be able to do all of this on his own.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00322.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00427.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00549.html
JakubJelinek replied to Till's specific problem with the information
[13] that DC_TEXTREL shared libraries should fixed not by massaging
SELinux contexts, but by compiling with the appropriate
position-independent code flags. TillMaas referenced some material
from UlrichDrepper suggesting that it wasn't simply an "-fpic" problem
and KarlMacMillan agreed with this [14]. Further probing from Till
and JonathanUnderwood led to a wealth of information from PaulHowarth
[15] and KarlMacMillan [16] about where SELinux contexts should be
set.
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00554.html
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00565.html
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00587.html
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00643.html
Jakub's expertise was further drawn out by a question from Hans about
the difference between "-fpic" and "-fPIC" which led to yet more
nuggets of information [16].
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00561.html
=== Avoid Inane Regulatory Licensing Shakedowns ===
A Russian contributor, DmitryButskoy, opened a thread [1] about
potential temporary confiscation of hardware running Free software due
to new regulations. Apparently in Russia it is necessary for a
business to be able to show a "certificate" attesting to the origin of
the software so that the police can determine that it is not pirated.
Obviously as Fedora is downloaded for "free" this is a little
difficult to obtain. JoshBoyer sympathised but wasn't sure what this
had to do with the Fedora Project, pointing out that the licenses for
all packages were available. Dmitry answered [2] that it was an extra
hurdle for those that wished to deploy Fedora in a production
environment and that failure to address such problems could mean less
testing, which would in turn affect RHEL.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00697.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00721.html
In response to RandyWyatt's suggestion of simply printing the GPL,
NicuBuculei pointed out that such regulations are usually carefully
worded at the behest of the BSA to make this difficult. Nicu also
reported that Romania has a registry of acceptable programs and that
one is not supposed to use any software not on that list! [3].
AlanCox thought [4] that this was a violation of EU single-market laws
and hoped that the law was thus now obsolete.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00705.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00714.html
Suggesting that the print-your-own license was a plausible route,
AlanCox noted that other people faced with similar situations often
made a hard-copy of the GPL, and also suggested [5] that as Dmitry had
a boxed-set supplier that they might be able to do something. The
idea was further expanded [6] to include a webpage of the Fedora
Project auto-generating a suitably official looking license and text.
All the usual disclaimers about not being lawyers were applied by
participants to the discussion.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00710.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00722.html
BenjaminKosnik volunteered [7] to be responsible for producing an
impressive and accurate document, and further discussion with Dmitry
about which shiny metal seals would make policemen happy turned up
some pertinent counter-examples from the UK [8]. In response to
RickVinyards suggestion that official Fedora cover images be available
for CD/DVDs, JeremyKatz pointed [9] to those which are already
available on the wiki and JefSpaleta suggested that they be bundled
with the torrents.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00719.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00730.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00748.html
RahulSundaram and others provided a link to the Fedora Project EULA,
but AndyShevchenko responded [10] out that what was needed was a
Russian-language version which could be approved by the police.
SimoSorce had an inside scoop [11] that promised further information
from one of the prominent Russian distributors (of ALTLinux) and
suggested that collaboration and co-operation with other such
distributors would be mutually beneficial for Free Software.
MatejCepl warned of the dangers of meddling with legal matters [12].
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00749.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00745.html
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00760.html
=== Missed Contributor Returns ===
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams made a return to the list [1] after an
unscheduled absence and was greeted warmly, not least by an offer from
DonRussell of a tasty bug in mgetty [2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00613.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00633.html
=== Fedora Standards For Contents Of /etc/pki ===
RichardJones wanted [1] details of what it was acceptable to put into
the /etc/pki directory as he was writing an application which needed
to generate and store some TSL certificates. DavidWoodhouse objected
[2] to the length of Richard's signature (which was a Red Hat UK
corporate one) igniting not so much a flamewar, as a brief brush fire
which culminated in AlanCox suggesting that the proper place to put
such information was in an "Organisation:" header [3] and that IBM had
succesfully sorted out issues like this in the past [4].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00580.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00590.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00639.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00788.html
Directly addressing the substance rather than the form of the original
email, JoeOrton replied [5] that there was at present no standard
being enforced and asked for further details about the requirements of
the application. Joe futher suggested that it would be best to put TLS
certificates in "/etc/pki/tls/appname". Richard provided links to the
background of his problem [6], which is the libvirt toolkit for
interacting with Xen, QEMU and KVM.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00645.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00662.html
=== Sun's GPL'ed Java To Arrive Soon In Fedora ===
Welcoming the release of (most of) Sun's Java SDK HansdeGoede wondered
[1] what strategy should be followed to integrate it into Fedora.
AndrewOverholt and TomTromey [2] thought that platform coverage was
going to be an important issue as was the ability to remove the
remaining non-Free encumbrances. BillNottingham wanted to know
whether these non-Free pieces could just be ripped out, or whether
they needed replacements coded [3]. Responses identified variously:
font-rendering [4], color-management and parts of Java 2D rendering
[5]. TomTromey pointed out that Sun were keen to do all of this and
AndrewHaley is going to figure out a more detailed answer to the
question.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00497.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00528.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00535.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00539.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00566.html
Addressing the issue of platform-coverage, RahulSundaram [6] argued
that x86 and x86_64 constituted about 80% of current users, based on
the statistics gathered with the smolt-profiler. DimiPaun suspected
[7] that it was more like 98%.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00529.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00531.html
=== DeltaRPM, YUMPresto plans ===
ValentTurkovic wanted to know [1] whether yum-presto and deltarpm
would be installed by default in Fedora7. JoshBoyer was able to
quickly respond in the negative [2], citing the late (frozen) stage of
the release cycle, while acknowleging the apparent advantages of the
software. Valent posted a couple more examples of the bandwidth
savings obtainable and ManuelWolfshant pointed out again that there
was no doubt that it was useful, but that F7 was now in a freeze for
new features. Manuel suggested [3] that rawhide might see the
inclusion of the software, and Josh clarified [4] that this would
probably be so, but that the repositories might not get changed to
enable them to work with the tools.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00483.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00485.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00521.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00524.html
WillWoods pointed out [5] encouragingly that in a mere six to seven
months Fedora 8 would be under way, but that the repository mirrors
would have to be considered.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00527.html
JonathanDieter drew attention [6] to the fact that yum-presto and
deltarpm were both officially present in (what was called Extras for
FC6 and F7 prior to the merge of the Core and Extras repositories ),
but just wasn't included in any spins. In a completely separate
thread about the merged rawhide push, Jonathan also noted [7] that
i386 updates were available using yum-presto, except for packages that
were in the old "Extras" repository.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00534.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00789.html
=== Wireless Test Request for ipw3945 etc Users ===
A request from JohnLinville to test [1] a new wireless driver for the
ipw3945 drew lots of responses. (In an earlier issue [2] we covered
earlier investigations of whether iwlwifi or iwl3945 worked best).
John wanted specifically to know the version of the last best working
kernel, and whether the new DaveJones kernels worked better.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00441.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue83#head-288d7145f160acc3f8f3febf5b...
ThomasBaker initially found the new driver (iwl3945) worked better,
but then had to report failure [3]. JohnLinville suggested [4] the
appropriate bugzilla entry [4]. RichardHughes had a similar
experience, which led AndrewBartlett to suggest [4a] possible problems
with interrupt handling. Richard started trying to track down the
problem by rebuilding iwlwifi. He rebuilt succesfully using a custom
linus kernel, but failed with Fedora [4b], with what looked like an
incorrect include.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00473.html
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00474.html
[4a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00543.html
[4b] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00576.html
Both YuanYijun [5] and AndyGreen [6] reported instability but still
thought it was stable enough to use, comparing favourable to e.g.
earlier bcm43xx stability.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00446.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00450.html
A detailed log from TomLondon seemed to indicate a possible renaming
issue [7] as a result of running both drivers alternately. This was
confirmed in a follow up post by another user. DennisGilmore and
AndrewBartlett had more negative experiences, leading DanWilliams to
request the output from "lshal". RalfCorsepius and JarodWilson did as
asked, leading Dan to enquire about whether SELinux was in enforcing
mode, and explaining the interaction between HAL and NM which might
cause this failure. Unfortunately Jarod had already tried to take
this into account [8] and had to still report a failure.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00466.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00575.html
=== Why Does Nautilus Create Folders in ~ By Default ? ===
Rubin was searching [1] for the knob that turned off the automatic
creation of three directories in his home directory. JesseKeating and
BrianPepple suggested [2] that there might have been discussion about
this on @fedora-desktop or in blog entries in Planet GNOME or Fedora
People. "Nodata" was able to point to an @fedora-devel thread [3]
which discussed the issue, and agreed with Rubin.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00318.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00321.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00323.html
RahulSundaram provided a fix [4] (editing ~/.config) and DavidNielsen
came out swinging as an unabashed defender [5] of the technology that
does this, Fedora 7's implementation of the freedesktop.org
XDG-Base-Directory specification: xdg-user-dirs. RonYorston was
unimpressed and mentioned [6] his partially succesful efforts to
remove this new feature.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00327.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00326.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00332.html
MatthiasClasen hastened [7] to clear nautilus of any responsibility
and suggested to simply remove the directories, although Rubin
reported that this didn't work, but that ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
could be edited. Further down the thread AlexanderLarsson suggested
and RahulSundaram confirmed [8] that it is necessary to re-run
xdg-user-dirs after blowing away the unwanted directories with a "rm".
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00330.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00394.html
Rubin also thought that this change should be presented and explained
to people a bit better. Others echoed this sentiment [8] in separate
parts of the thread, and KarstenWade pointed out the Release Notes [9]
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00331.html
== Translation ==
This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation
(L10n) Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
=== Completion Summary ===
This week saw the translation deadline for FC7 (2359 10 May 2007).
PaulFrields had a status[1] report ready for the translation team.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-May/msg00024.html
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
=== Cacti ===
Cacti (provides system status/usage information) has been in use for a
while by the infrastructure team. MikeMcGrath reconfigured[1] it so
that the public can now see the information as well.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
=== System Flux ===
This week saw a wiki [1]crash and some Xen issues[2]. The team has
been able to track down some possible causes and will be looking to
get fixes implemented forthwith.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-May/msg00...
== Security Advisories ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
=== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ===
* 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] evolution-data-server-1.8.3-6.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-484
* 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] gimp-2.2.14-5.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-489
* 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] vim-7.0.235-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-492
* 2007-05-07 eclipse-3.2.2-5.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-488
* 2007-05-07 eclipse-cdt-3.1.2-3.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-450
* 2007-05-07 elfutils-0.127-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-460
* 2007-05-07 gstreamer-plugins-base-0.10.11-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-476
* 2007-05-07 libxml2-2.6.28-1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-459
* 2007-05-07 man-pages-fr-2.39-7.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-496
* 2007-05-07 policycoreutils-1.34.1-9.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-479
* 2007-05-07 smartmontools-5.37-1.1.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-474
=== Fedora Core 5 Security Advisories ===
* 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] dovecot-1.0-0.beta8.4.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-493
* 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] evolution-data-server-1.6.3-4.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-485
* 2007-05-07 [SECURITY] gimp-2.2.14-5.fc5 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC5/FEDORA-2007-491
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.
=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-05-08 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-May/msg00252.html
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-05-07 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00415.html
=== Event Report: 2007 Upstate Hamfest - South Carolina, USA ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00069...
=== Event Report: LinuxTag at Fachhochschule - Salzburg, Austria ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2007-May/msg00066...
== Editor's Note: Red Hat Summmit 2007 ==
It was a great experience at Red Hat Summit 2007[1] for three days
(May 9th-11th) in San Diego. This was my first time in Red Hat Summit
and wish I had attended last two summits[2]. I had a chance to meet
Matthew Szulik[3] in person as well as GregDeKoenigsberg, MaxSpevack
and MikeMcGrath[4]. The highlight for this entire trip was being a
part of such a wonderful group called Fedora[5].
[1] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2007/
[2] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2006/ and
http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2005/
[3] http://picasaweb.google.com/fedora.tchung/RedHatSummit07/photo#5063974696...
[4] http://picasaweb.google.com/fedora.tchung/RedHatSummit07/photo#5063974700...
[5] http://picasaweb.google.com/fedora.tchung/RedHatSummit07/photo#5063974988...
== Feedback ==
This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1]. Please feel
free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute
to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2]
page to find out how to help.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
Seth Vidal and Toshio Kuratomi joining Red Hat
by Max Spevack
Fedorans,
Another day, another email to fedora-announce-list from me.
As those of you who read this list may remember, back when we announced
the hiring of Mike McGrath as the Fedora Infrastructure Leader, the part
of that announcement that made me most happy was that we were able to hire
folks who were already well-established Fedora contributors to continue
their Fedora work full time, and earn a Red Hat paycheck doing it.
Well, I'm equally happy to announce today that both Seth Vidal and Toshio
Kuratomi have accepted jobs at Red Hat.
Now I'm make them both blush a little bit by talking a bit about their
contributions to Fedora.
Seth has been a Fedora contributor since the beginning. He is a member of
the Fedora Project Board. When I started my job with the Fedora Project
15 months ago, Seth was one of the guys who I was encouraged to talk to
frequently, and pay attention to what he says. Seth has also been known
to write some code from time to time. He leads the development of yum,
and will continue to do some from within Red Hat. He is very active in
the Fedora Infrastructure project. He has contributed significantly to
the code that makes the Fedora build system work. I don't think there is
any question that Seth is one of the true leaders within Fedora. People
seem to think he works for Red Hat already, and so we're glad to eliminate
that point of confusion also. :-)
Toshio is a rock-star programmer. Similar to Seth, he's been a Fedora
contributor for several years. He's been a member of the Fedora Extras
Steering Committee. He's worked closely with the Fedora Infrastrucutre
team on projects like the package database, and a lot of the work that
Fedora is doing with TurboGears. Toshio has worked on the Fedora Account
System, and is basically the lead developer for the Fedora Infrastructure
team. He cranks out really good code, and it's a great boon for Red Hat
to have him full time. As a signing bonus, I have set aside the LAST PAIR
of Fedora flip flops that exists for the next time I see him.
Congrats to both Seth and Toshio. Back to work, now! :-)
--
Max Spevack
+ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack
+ gpg key -- http://spevack.org/max.asc
+ fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21
16 years, 6 months
- 1
- 0
Fedora 7 -- what, when, and why
by Max Spevack
With the Red Hat Summit kicking off, I'd like to take a few minutes to
discuss some of the recent happenings in the Fedora Project, particularly
around Fedora 7. This email is being sent both to public Fedora mailing
lists, and to Red Hat mailing lists, so that folks in both the external
and internal Fedora communities can have a chance to read it, and people
can all sort of consistently spread the same message about Fedora.
FEDORA 7
The next version of Fedora will be released on May 24th. It will be
called "Fedora 7" -- not "Fedora Core 7". It's the most ambitious release
of Fedora that we've undertaken, and I hope that when we look back at
Fedora 7 one or two years down the road, the decisions that we made for
this release will have proven to be as impactful as anything we've done in
the Fedora space since the start of the Fedora Project.
In one sentence: "Fedora 7 has been about improving the manner in which
all future Fedora releases will be made."
(1) The entire toolchain is free. Every step in the distro creation
process is free software, and can take place on hardware that is
accessible both to Red Hat employees and the general Fedora community.
Source code in an external version control system.
RPMs built on an external, open source build system.
Distributions built with an external, open source compose tool.
Why is this important? Because Fedora's ultimate goal over the past few
years has been to allow proven non-Red Hat contributors to have greater
influence and access to the Fedora Project. From the technical side, this
goal has been pushed forward by the Fedora Extras project and the Fedora
Infrastructure projects, especially.
One of the Fedora Project's success metrics is building and running itself
in a way such that no single entity can completely control Fedora's fate.
Fedora 7 gets us there, insofar as there is no "secret sauce" in the
ability to spin a Fedora distribution. Nothing is hidden.
Balanced against these goals of increased openness has been the need to
create systems and infrastructure that continue to allow RHEL or other Red
Hat (not Fedora) branded products to be built and to be more firmly
controlled by Red Hat than Fedora is. Fedora serves as an upstream for
various Red Hat products, and Fedora has a responsibility to provide a
good "service" to those downstream "customers".
(2) Custom spins of Fedora. The primary consequence of (1) is that
customized versions of Fedora are now possible to an extent that was not
available previously. User-generated Fedora, if you're looking for a
buzzword. :-P
Think about some of the possibilities:
+ People in various countries *directly* managing localized spins of
Fedora, customized both for language requirements and bandwidth
requirements.
+ "Competing" spins of the Fedora Desktop, or server-ready package sets,
allowing the best ones to gain popularity and be shared.
+ The ability for a business or a university that uses Fedora to take
their own third-party RPMs and create a Fedora-derived distribution that
integrates them at build time.
(3) Live CD, DVD, and USB technology. A Fedora spin can be loaded onto
various forms of bootable media, which allows users to run their OS
without hard disk installation, and gives users the ability to launch the
installer with a simple double click. As with what is written above, the
tools used for this are all free software, and therefore everything in
this space is also fully customizable by users.
(4) Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology has been integrated with
the Fedora graphical virtualization manager tool. KVM provides a full
virtualization solution, and users have a choice between KVM and Xen,
along with Qemu, in this release.
(5) The usual set of upstream changes and improvements that are a part of
any Fedora release.
RED HAT SUMMIT
Fedora will have a good presence at the Red Hat Summit, beginning on May
9th. There are four talks specifically about Fedora -- a general Q&A, a
talk about Fedora Infrastructure, a talk about building custom versions of
Fedora, and a talk about the Live CD technology.
Furthermore, there will be a Fedora booth in the main area, where Fedora
folks will be able to have general conversations with folks. If you are
looking for me, this is a good place to start!
Additionally, we will be able to give folks who attend the Summit a Fedora
7 Preview Live DVD. This is a special spin of Fedora that we did for the
RH Summit, with custom artwork, Firefox start page, and various other
goodies.
We'll also have some of the bootable USB keys around for demonstration
purposes, as well as demonstrations going on showing folks how to build
custom spins of Fedora.
I'm putting the finishing touches on this note on a plane somewhere
between Raleigh and San Diego. :-)
FEDORA 7 LAUNCH
As stated earlier, the Fedora 7 release date is May 24th. This is one
week before LinuxTag 2007 in Berlin, which we are using as the "European
Launch" of Fedora 7. Our LinuxTag presence is being organized by Gerold
Kassube, one of our Fedora Ambassadors. The community of folks in Europe
who care deeply about Fedora is definitely a bright spot.
For those of you in Europe who will attend LinuxTag, I look forward to
seeing you there.
--
Max Spevack
+ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack
+ gpg key -- http://spevack.org/max.asc
+ fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21
16 years, 7 months
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