Fedora Weekly News Issue 94

[Thomas Chung]

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 94 =

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 94[1] for the week of June 24th
through July 1st, 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2]
and RSS Feed can be found here[3].

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue94

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue

[3] http://fedoranews.org/cms/FWN/feed

   1. Announcements
   2. Fedora Board elections - Voting Open
         1. Fedora 8's FUDCon Cancelled
   3. Planet Fedora
         1. Fedora Translation Project
         2. Max Talks to the Children 2.0
         3. Smolt passes the 50k mark
         4. Creating Re-Spins with Revisor
   4. Developments
         1. Fedora Features Process
         2. Changing the Default Syslog Package
   5. Maintainers
         1. A Mass Rebuild For Fedora 8
         2. Package Name Change
   6. Documentation
         1. Status Update
   7. Translation
         1. More Bugzilla
         2. Wiki Localization
   8. Infrastructure
         1. New Test Server
         2. Streamlining Account Signups
   9. Artwork
         1. Fedora 8 Deadlines
         2. Community Artwork
         3. Nodoka Metacity Theme
         4. Theme Proposals
  10. Security Week
         1. Red Hat Linux Gets Top Government Security Rating
         2. Third-Party Severity Ratings
         3. Fedora Security Response Team
  11. Advisories and Updates
         1. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
         2. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories
  12. Events and Meetings
         1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-06-26
         2. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD
         3. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-06-28
         4. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux  (EPEL) (Log)  2007-06-27
         5. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-06-28
         6. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-06-26
         7. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-06-25
         8. Fedora Translation Project Meeting 2007-06-26
  13. Feedback

== Announcements ==

In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

== Fedora Board elections - Voting Open ==

MaxSpevack announces in fedora-announce-list[1],

"Voting is now open for the Fedora Board elections. As a reminder, we
are electing 3 of the 9 seats during this election."

"Voting will end at Jul 8 23:59:59 UTC Please go to [2]."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-June/msg00009.html

[2] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/voting/

=== Fedora 8's FUDCon Cancelled ===

MaxSpevack announces in fedora-devel-announce[1],

"Yesterday the Fedora Board made the decision not to hold an in-person
FUDCon for F8.  Like you, I'm a disappointed, but I'm also excited for
us to try out an organized, weekend-long virtual hackfest (more
below)."

"The feature list for Fedora 8 is coming together very well, and we're
planning over the next few weeks how we can do a virtual hackfest for
F8.  The idea is to pick some days, probably the same weekend (4, 5
August), and organize energy around people having an IRC-based
hackfest that weekend."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2007-June/msg00011....

== 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

Contributing Writers: ThomasChung

=== Fedora Translation Project ===

FabianAffolter points out in his blog[1],

"The Fedora Translation Project has now a logo. If you want to help
translate applications, documentation, and websites check out this web
page for futher information. We are still looking for fellows for ther
german team (for the other teams of course, too)."

[1] http://fabaff.blogspot.com/2007/06/fedora-translation-project.html

[2] http://translate.fedoraproject.org/

=== Max Talks to the Children 2.0 ===

MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1]

"I spent 45 minutes the other day at Shodor Education Foundation[2].
They were having a career day, and they invited 4 people from
companies in the Raleigh/Durham area to talk to a group of kids. I
would say there were about 30 kids total, ranging from probably 7th
grade through early college-age, with most of them in the 8th-11th
grade group."

[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/22033.html

[2] http://www.shodor.org/

=== Smolt passes the 50k mark ===

RolandWolters points out in his blog[1],

"Smolt[2], Fedora's tool of choice to collect information about uses
hardware, showed once again that it has a healthy growth: in the night
from Thursday to Friday last week the 50k-users line was crossed."

[1]
http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/smolt-passes-the-50k-mark-and-en...

[2] http://smolt.fedoraproject.org/

=== Creating Re-Spins with Revisor ===

JeroenVanMeeuwen points out in his blog[1]

"Creating re-spins has never been this easy. Of course we had pungi
and livecd-tools to which we had added this GUI thing in Revisor[2],
but since I've re-enabled the CLI mode in Revisor, re-spins go even
easier and quicker by just copying these lines..."

[1] http://kanarip.blogspot.com/2007/06/creating-re-spins-with-revisor.html

[2] http://revisor.fedoraunity.org/

== 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

Contributing Writer: KarstenWade

(This week's Developments section is being covered by KarstenWade
while OisinFeeley is on vacation.)

=== Fedora Features Process ===

For the first time, Fedora is working on a feature tracking
process. JohnPoelstra presented an initial proposal[1], which did not
get much on-list discussion.  ChristopherAillon wondered[2] what exactly
a feature is, but his major point was around feature-driven versus
time-driven release scheduling.  His concern was that tracking
features in this fashion is orthogonal to the Fedora time-driven
release schedule.  JeremyKatz[3] replied with a list of reasons to
track featurs in a time-driven schedule.

 1. You have an idea of things that people are working on.  This can
help in getting feedback or suggestions that could improve it;
 1. You get people interested in it.  And perhaps even helping out;
 1. You get some idea of areas that are going to need testing so that
testers can build up experience and knowledge about the area;
 1. You generate some excitement around what's being worked on."

This list was identified in the discussion on this topic during the
FESCo meeting[4] as being essential to understanding the reason for
the new process.  The result from that meeting[5] was to have John
work on the next version of the draft based on the in-meeting
discussion.

[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02382.html

[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02567.html

[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02587.html

[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/SteeringCommittee/Meeting-20070628

[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg00025.html

=== Changing the Default Syslog Package ===

In response to an apparently dead upstream for sysklogd, SteveGrubb
proposed[1] a change to the default syslog package.  The reason is to
gain an active upstream that has, or is working on, features that are
generally desired.  Steve's team reviewed a number of choices and
settled on rsyslog, a fork of the current default daemon with many new
features[2].  JasonLTibbets wondered[3] what happened to syslog-ng as
the choice for a syslog replacement in Fedora.  Steve's reply[4]
mentioned licensing concerns and compatibility issues; one advantage
he sees for rsyslog is backwards compatibility so no changes to
existing installations should be needed.

[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02375.html

[2] http://www.rsyslog.com/module-Static_Docs-view-f-features.html.phtml

[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02381.html

[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02385.html

NicolasMailhot expressed the view that syslog_ng's log format is much
nicer to look at, compared to traditional syslog format.  He was also
sure that people who are not running default configurations would not
have any issues with syslog-ng's format.  JeremyKatz asked for
specific use cases that switching supports, and he pointed Steve at
the release feature template in order to fill out a full feature
description for the wiki.

[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02401.html

[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02383.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

Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel

=== A Mass Rebuild For Fedora 8 ===

RahulSundaram asked on the fedora-maintainers-list[1] whether there
will be a mass package rebuild for Fedora 8 or if it was already done.
 JesseKeating replied that the rebuild should be coordinated with the
glibc, gcc, and tools packagers, while David Woodhouse added that any
new secondary architectures (Alpha or SPARC) should be merged before
the rebuild as well.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-June/msg00763.html

=== Package Name Change ===

QuentinSpencer asked the Fedora Maintainers[1] what to do when a
package name changes. JasonTibbitts responded with a link to the
Fedora Project Wiki[2] that details the Fedora CVS Admin Procedure for
handling package changes.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-June/msg00806.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/CVSAdminProcedure

== Documentation ==

In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject

Contributing Writer: JonathanRoberts

=== Status Update ===

The FDSCo meeting was canceled this week, for a number of reasons[1],
and in lieu of this KarstenWade posted a status update of various
DocsProject activities to the docs-list[2]. He points out that the
task of porting content from the Software Management Guide to the User
Guide and Administration Guide is now complete, and the focus is now
on getting the User Guide in shape for a new release. Also talked
about was the new publication system, which is being held up as we
wait for a new Plone release before deploying; the new translation
system which went live this week[3]; the project to create a web
interface to reading and editing man/info pages is also making
progress[4].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-June/msg00173.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-June/msg00180.html

[3] http://translate.fedoraproject.org/

[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SummerOfCode/2007/VillePekkaVainio

== Translation ==

This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation
(L10n) Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N

Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor

=== More Bugzilla ===

DimitrisGlezos[1] had more this week on fine tuning Bugzilla for the
Translation team. Specifically concerning bug reports and which
mailing lists they are sent to.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-June/msg00163.html

=== Wiki Localization ===

SamuelBizien[1] has started some discussion about how to localize the
wiki pages for various browser locales. With the international nature
of Fedora it would be a nice feature to have.  The Infrastructure team
has also been involved[2], and we look forward to seeing what they
come up with.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-June/msg00178.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-June/msg0...

== Infrastructure ==

In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure

Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor

=== New Test Server ===

MikeMcGrath, working feverishly as always, got a new test server,
publictest1.fedora.redhat.com, up and running this week[1]. A public
test group[2] has also been added.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-June/msg0...

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-June/msg0...

=== Streamlining Account Signups ===

RayVanDolson had this[1] post about observations of the current
account creation and CLA procedure. The various teams are aware that
this process is slightly archaic and a new process which is much more
intuitive has been designed and will be implemented shortly[2].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-June/msg0...

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-June/msg0...

== Artwork ==

In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork

Contributing Writer: JonathanRoberts

=== Fedora 8 Deadlines ===

NicuBuculei writes to the art-list to remind everyone that, due to the
short release schedule of Fedora 8, the deadline for the first round
of theme submissions is fast approaching[1]. He also points out that
the first round of submissions are just concept ideas, so polish is
not required[2]. Seeing this post, MairinDuffy updated the schedule
and slipped the date for this deadline to the 11th July[3].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00211.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F8Themes

[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00241.html

=== Community Artwork ===

In response to questions about whether the art work will end up being
created by Red Hat, as in the previous release schedule[1], it was
pointed out that Red Hat no longer has an employee focused on Desktop
Artwork, and so the artwork for Fedora 8 will be down to the Art
team[2].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00216.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00220.html

=== Nodoka Metacity Theme ===

MartinSourada, who has been developing the Nodoka metacity theme in
correspondence with the art-list, has posted the 0.2 release of his
metacity theme[1]. Testers will be appreciated and feedback welcome.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00232.html

=== Theme Proposals ===

MairinDuffy sent a theme proposal to the list[1], entitled Fedora
Infinity. MolaPahnadayan also sent a message to the list linking to
two backgrounds he'd created[2], along with a theme proposal for
Fedora 8[3].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00242.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00246.html

[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-June/msg00252.html

== Security Week ==

In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.

Contributing Writer: JoshBressers

=== Red Hat Linux Gets Top Government Security Rating ===

 * http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,132978-c,redhat/article.html

The news of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 attaining EAL4 + LSPP is
important to the entire Linux community.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
now holds the highest possible government security rating that can be
acquired by an off-the-shelf operating system.  A great deal of work
has gone into this certification, but it speaks volumes about the
maturity of Linux.  It is unlikely that any other operating system in
history has progressed so quickly in so many directions. No doubt this
is a great example of how impressive the open source development model
can be.

This particular certification is due to the progress made with
SELinux. SELinux is still a relatively young addition to the Linux
kernel.  No doubt great things will be accomplished with SELinux in
the future.

=== Third-Party Severity Ratings ===

 * http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/06/27/third-party-severity-ratings/

The above story compares how Red Hat rated the severity of a number of
security flaws compared to how The National Vulnerability Database
(NVD) rated the same flaws.  The Red Hat Enterprise Linux ratings are
comparable to how the same flaws are rated for Fedora.  The one
sentence summary is that the way Red Hat rates flaws and the way NVD
rates flaws is different.  The analysis in the article does a nice job
of explaining why this likely is.

=== Fedora Security Response Team ===

The Fedora Security Response Team is still moving along.  Things
aren't moving terribly fast, but they are moving.  The team is still
primarily slogging through the list of old CVE ids to ensure that
we've not missed anything in Fedora 7.  I hope to use this article to
keep the community in general up to date on the progress of security
issues in Fedora.

== Advisories and Updates ==

In this section, we cover Secuirity Advisories and Package Updates
from fedora-package-announce.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

=== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ===

 * [SECURITY] c-ares-1.4.0-1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0724
 * [SECURITY] firestarter-1.0.3-16.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0700
 * [SECURITY] gimp-2.2.15-3.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0725
 * [SECURITY] HelixPlayer-1.0.7-6.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0756
 * [SECURITY] httpd-2.2.4-4.1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0704
 * [SECURITY] krb5-1.6.1-2.1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0740
 * [SECURITY] perl-Net-DNS-0.60-1.fc7 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/F7/FEDORA-2007-0668

=== Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories ===

 * [SECURITY] evolution-data-server-1.8.3-7.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-594
 * [SECURITY] gimp-2.2.15-3.fc6  -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-619
 * [SECURITY] kernel-2.6.20-1.2962.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-600
 * [SECURITY] krb5-1.5-21.1 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-621
 * [SECURITY] libexif-0.6.15-2.fc6 -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FSA/FC6/FEDORA-2007-614

== Events and Meetings ==

In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various projects.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-06-26 ===

 * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-June/msg00152....

=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD ===

 * No report

=== Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-06-28 ===

 * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-July/msg00025.html

=== Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting (EPEL) (log)
2007-06-27 ===

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/Reports/Week26

=== Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-06-28 ===

 * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-June/msg0...

=== Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-06-26 ===

 * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/2007-June/msg00790.html

=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-06-25 ===

 * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-June/msg02589.html

=== Fedora Translation Project Meeting 2007-06-26 ===

 * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-June/msg00192.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