Fedora Weekly News Issue 136 (fwd)
Mike McGrath
mmcgrath at redhat.com
Mon Jul 28 16:04:01 UTC 2008
What happened to our beat guy? Anyone else want to volunteer?
-Mike
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:17:10 -0400
From: Pascal Calarco <pcalarco at nd.edu>
Reply-To: fedora-list at redhat.com
To: fedora-announce-list at redhat.com
Subject: Fedora Weekly News Issue 136
=== Fedora Weekly News Issue 136
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 136 for the week ending July 26, 2008.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue136
Fedora Weekly News keep you updated with the latest issues, events and
activities in the fedora community.
If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our
'join' page. Being a Fedora Weekly News beat writer gives you a chance to work
on one of our community's most important sources of news, and can be done in
only about 1 hour per week of your time.
We are still looking for a beat writer to summarize the Fedora Events and
Meetings that happened during each week.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join
* 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 136
o 1.1 Announcements
+ 1.1.1 FESCo Election Results
+ 1.1.2 Cast your vote for the Fedora 10 Codename!
+ 1.1.3 Fedora 10 Alpha Freeze
+ 1.1.4 Announcing the Fedora OLPC Special Interest Group
+ 1.1.5 Fedora Unity releases updated Fedora 9 Re-Spin
+ 1.1.6 Feature Process Improvements
+ 1.1.7 FUEL opens up collaborative standardization of localization terms
o 1.2 Planet Fedora
+ 1.2.1 Shameless Recruiting Pitch
+ 1.2.2 Intel's Moblin moves to Fedora
+ 1.2.3 Events
+ 1.2.4 Tech Tidbits
+ 1.2.5 Other Interesting Posts
o 1.3 Marketing
+ 1.3.1 Linus Torvalds' personal Linux distro? Fedora 9, of course
+ 1.3.2 Asus Eee PC Fedora Respin
+ 1.3.3 Zimbra changes license to address Fedora concerns
+ 1.3.4 Seneca College teams with FOSS projects for hands-on learning
+ 1.3.5 Intel's Moblin switches from Ubuntu in favor of Fedora
+ 1.3.6 Fedora launches OLPC group
+ 1.3.7 Ring. Ring. It's Fedora calling
+ 1.3.8 Linux Symposium Proceedings Available
+ 1.3.9 Video: Fedora Live
o 1.4 Ambassadors
+ 1.4.1 FAD EMEA 2008 - Date & Location Determined
+ 1.4.2 Planning for Fedora 10 Release Parties
+ 1.4.3 Event Reports Reminder
o 1.5 Developments
+ 1.5.1 Erratum: FWN#133 "Shark" is a JIT not a VM
+ 1.5.3 XULRunner Security Update Breakage Stimulates Bodhi Discussion
+ 1.5.4 Broken Upgrade Paths Due to NEVR
+ 1.5.5 Application Installer "Amber" Provides Browser Interface to Packages
+ 1.5.6 RPM Inspires Intel Moblin2 Shift From Ubuntu
o 1.6 Artwork
+ 1.6.1 Nodoka development
+ 1.6.2 Gathering feed-back about Fedora 10 theme proposals
+ 1.6.3 A possible Bluecurve revival
o 1.7 Security Advisories
+ 1.7.1 Fedora 9 Security Advisories
+ 1.7.2 Fedora 8 Security Advisories
=== Announcements
In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-announce
Contributing Writer: Max Spevack
=== FESCo Election Results
Brian Pepple announced the results of the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee
election[1]:
"The results of the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) election are
in: Bill Nottingham, Kevin Fenzi, Dennis Gilmore, Brian Pepple, and David
Woodhouse have been elected to full two-release terms, and Jarod Wilson, Josh
Boyer, Jon Stanley and Karsten Hopp have been elected to a one-release term."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-July/msg00010.html
=== Cast your vote for the Fedora 10 Codename!
Josh Boyer reminded folks to vote[1]:
"As long as you have signed the CLA and belong to one additional group in the
Fedora Account System, you can cast your vote.
Voting will end and be tallied at 23:59:59 28 July 2008 UTC."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-July/msg00011.html
=== Fedora 10 Alpha Freeze
Jesse Keating announced[1]:
"We have our first development freeze of the Fedora 10 cycle tomorrow. This is
the alpha freeze, which is non-blocking. Release Engineering will be making a
freeze inside the buildsystem of tomorrow's rawhide content. This will be the
basis of the Fedora 10 Alpha release."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2008-July/msg00008.html
=== Announcing the Fedora OLPC Special Interest Group
Greg DeKoenigsberg announced[1]:
"Thus, I am proud to announce the formation of the Fedora OLPC Special Interest
Group. Our mission: to provide the OLPC project with a strong, sustainable,
scalable, community-driven base platform for innovation.
Immediate Goals:
1. To identify and take responsible ownership of as many OLPC base packages as
possible.
2. To maintain an excellent Sugar environment for Fedora, including a dedicated
Sugar spin.
3. To identify useful opportunities for collaboration (infrastructure,
localization, etc.)"
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-July/msg00009.html
=== Fedora Unity releases updated Fedora 9 Re-Spin
Jeroen van Meeuwen informed us[1]:
"The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the release of new ISO Re-Spins
(DVD) of Fedora 9.
These Re-Spin ISOs are based on the officially released Fedora 9 installation
media and include all updates released as of July 18th, 2008. The ISO images are
available for i386 and x86_64 architectures via Jigdo starting Sunday, July
20th, 2008."
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-July/msg00007.html
=== Feature Process Improvements
John Poelstra had some excellent news on the feature front[1]:
"I was recently talking with Paul Frields about how to make the feature process
more accessible... this combined with feedback in the rpm thread have led to a
(hopefully) clearer presentation of how the feature process works."
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2008-July/msg00009.html
=== FUEL opens up collaborative standardization of localization terms
FUEL (Frequently Used Entries for Localization) aims at solving the problem of
inconsistency and lack of standardization in computer software translation
across the platform for all Languages. It will try to provide a standardized and
consistent look of computer for a language computer users.
https://fedorahosted.org/fuel
=== Planet Fedora
In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of
blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide.
http://planet.fedoraproject.org
Contributing Writer: Max Spevack
=== Shameless Recruiting Pitch
We begin this week's summary of Planet Fedora with a recruitment pitch for
Fedora Weekly News beat writers, scribed by Karsten Wade.
=== Intel's Moblin moves to Fedora
The topic that took Planet Fedora by storm on Friday and Saturday was the
announcement of Intel's Moblin moving from Ubuntu to Fedora as its base OS.
Yaakov Nemoy, John Palmieri, Seth Vidal, and Karsten Wade all weighed in with
their thoughts.
=== Events
A number of event reports were posted on Planet Fedora this week.
* LUG Radio Live UK, attended by Max Spevack.
* Ottawa Linux Symposium (day 1), as reported by Dennis Gilmore.
* LTSP Hackfest (day 1), which included hackers from numerous Linux distros,
and Fedora's own Warren Togami.
* A GUADEC trip report (including pictures) from Dimitris Glezos.
* A second place finish in the 2008 RoboCup World Championships, with a
report from Tim Niemueller.
In other event news:
* Sandro "red" Mathys has posted details about the upcoming Fedora
Ambassador Day EMEA.
* James Morris shared his Ottawa Linux Symposium paper with us, which is a
detailed update on SELinux.
=== Tech Tidbits
Transifex 0.3 has been released. "Transifex 0.3 is a major release, including a
lot of under-the-hood changes. We’ve added full i18n support, and now in
addition to the templates, per-module information stored in the database, such
as names and descriptions, can be translated as well," explains project lead
Dimitris Glezos.
Lorenzo Villani is working on adding the ZYpp stack into Fedora. He explains,
"It seems that with the latest releases of sat-solver, libzypp and zypper, the
whole stack has become more stable on Fedora, especially, in the past few weeks
I wasn’t able to update packages due to various resolver’s problems, but now it
seems that 'zypper up' does its job smoothly."
Fedora Electronics Lab now has its own mailing list, and there has been lots of
discussion about this particular respin on Planet Fedora over the past few days.
Red Hat Magazine has a great article about NetworkManager, written by Kyle
Gonzales.
=== Other Interesting Posts
Nicu Buculei gave us a detailed look at the first round of themes that have been
developed by the Art Team for Fedora 10.
David Nalley authored what might be the first in a four part series about
Fedora's new "Freedom, Friends, Features, First" marketing focus. This post
focuses on the Freedom topic.
=== Marketing
In this section, we cover the Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco
=== Linus Torvalds' personal Linux distro? Fedora 9, of course
Larry Cafiero reported[1] that the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, currently
uses Fedora 9 "on most of his computers" as reported in a recent interview[2].
"I've used different distributions over the years ... Fedora had fairly good
support for PowerPC back when I used that, so I grew used to it. But I actually
don't care too much about the distribution, as long as it makes it easy to
install and keep reasonably up-to-date," Torvalds added.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00150.html
[2]
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/linus-torvalds,-geek-of-the-week/
=== Asus Eee PC Fedora Respin
Valent Turkovic asked[1] if there was interest in working on a Fedora spin for
the Eee PC. Clint Savage reported[2] that his kickstart for the Eee is working
almost perfectly, and Mathieu Bridon pointed[3] to the [EeePc wiki page] for
this activity.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00156.html
[2]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00164.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00160.html
=== Zimbra changes license to address Fedora concerns
Rahul Sundaram reported[1] that Yahoo has responded[2] to the suggestion that
the license language for Zimbra be modified to allow it to be consonant with the
Fedora project, which now paves the way for Zimbra to be made available in
Fedora. "Our colleagues in the Fedora community were concerned that the old
version of 6.2 did not give licensees enough certainty that they could keep
exercising their license, even if they followed its requirements. We thought
this change was a reasonable request, and we were very pleased that we were able
to respond to the Fedora community in the way they asked. Many thanks to our
Fedora friends for their input," the Yahoo spokesman explained. Jeroen Van
Meeuwen added[3] that efforts are already underway to package Zimbra for Fedora.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00147.html
[2] http://www.zimbra.com/forums/announcements/19581-license-5-0-7-foss.html
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00172.html
=== Seneca College teams with FOSS projects for hands-on learning
Rahul Sundaram shared[1] a feature[2] from Linux.com detailing the growth of the
free and open source software program at Seneca College in Toronto, Canada.
Beginning this fall, thanks to Fedora, it will add the graduate-level Linux/Unix
System Administration program. The article continues with Greg DeKoenigsberg,
Fedora's liaison with Seneca, saying, "There's a lot of knowledge that's just
not taught that you need [in order] to participate in an open source project.
There's a difference in how open source is approached [compared to] traditional
software, and it's not like you can learn it in a book. It's very much an
apprenticeship model."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00176.html
[2] http://www.linux.com/feature/140097
=== Intel's Moblin switches from Ubuntu in favor of Fedora
Rahul Sundaram shared[1] news reported in the UK's Register that Intel has
shifted from use of Ubuntu to Fedora. "Under the changes, the existing
Ubuntu-based kernel is out and Fedora is in, along with a set of
Gnome-compatible mobile components that updates Moblin's previous Gnome
implementation." Intel's director of Linux and open-source strategy explained
that "there was no falling out with Ubuntu, but the move to Fedora was a
technical decision based on the desire to adopt RPM for package management."
Rahul followed up with more information on this development[3], reported later
in heise open source[4].
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00185.html
[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/moblin_reworked/
[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00205.html
[4]
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/open/Intel-switches-from-Ubuntu-to-Fedora-for-Mobile-Linux--/news/111166
=== Fedora launches OLPC group
Rahul Sundaram forwarded[1] news[2] that the Fedora Project has started a Open
Laptop per Child[3] Special Interest Group to help with the educational
computing effort. Fedora will offer increased help with package maintenance for
OLPC, "maintain an excellent Sugar environment for Fedora, including a dedicated
Sugar spin; to identify opportunities for collaboration on things such as
infrastructure and localisation." A discussion list has also been established[4]
for this, and all are welcome to join these efforts.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00186.html
[2] http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2647
[3] http://www.laptop.org/
[4] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-olpc-list
=== Ring. Ring. It's Fedora calling
Rahul Sundaram shared[1] a story in CNET News[2] this week about Fedora Talk[3],
a VOIP project that "allows Fedora contributors to use any standard VoIP
hardware or software to sign into the Fedora system and make and receive calls
to other Fedora contributors." CNET added, "It's an intriguing way for the
Fedora community to tighten the development process by bringing developers
together. IM, mailing lists, and e-mail are great, but talking with someone is
sometimes the best way to make things happen."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00207.html
[2] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9998526-16.html
[3] http://talk.fedoraproject.org/
=== Linux Symposium Proceedings Available
Rahul Sundaram posted[1] that the 2001-2008 proceedings of the Linux
Symposium[3] were now freely-available[4], along with the GCC Summit
Proceedings.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00210.html
[2] http://ols.fedoraproject.org
[3] http://www.linuxsymposium.org/
[4] http://ols.fedoraproject.org/
=== Video: Fedora Live
Rahul Sundaram shared[1] a recent article in Red Hat Magazine[2] featuring the
Fedora Project's Paul Frields talking with developer Jeremy Katz "to discuss the
Live USB feature debuted in Fedora 9 ... See a live demo of the persistent
desktop, and find out how to get more involved in the next Fedora release."
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00188.html
[2] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/07/23/video-fedora-live/
=== Ambassadors
In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
Contributing Writer: Jeffrey Tadlock
=== FAD EMEA 2008 - Date & Location Determined
Sandro Mathys announced[1] that the data and location for FAD EMEA 2008 have
been determined. It will take place in Basel, Switzerland from 2008-11-14 to
2008-11-16. Additional information is available on the FAD EMEA 2008 wiki
page[2].
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-July/msg00304.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD/FADEMEA2008
=== Planning for Fedora 10 Release Parties
Francesco Ugolini posted[1] to the ambassadors list a request for feedback for
planning for Fedora 10 release parties. We had great success with out Fedora 9
release parties - be sure to get your suggestions in for planning Fedora 10
release parties in the future.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-July/msg00328.html
=== Event Reports Reminder
Max Spevack posted[1] a reminder that event reports are required if you were the
leader of an event. Event reports are also encouraged from attendees of events
as well. The event reporting guidelines page[2] covers what should be included
in an event report.
[1]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-July/msg00326.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/ReportingGuidelines
=== Developments
In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel
mailing list are summarized.
Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley
=== Erratum: FWN#133 "Shark" is a JIT not a VM
Gary Benson kindly corrected an error in FWN#133 "Java, So Many Free Choices"[1]
which reported on the work being done by Red Hat engineers to expand the
availability of a FOSS Java across more architectures. The gist of the
correction is that Shark is not a Virtual Machine(VM) as stated in the article.
Gary explained that OpenJDK is composed of a VM named HotSpot and a class
library. HotSpot runs on a limited number of architectures and so there have
been two independent attempts to increase VM coverage. One of these is
pre-existing project named CACAO which is a VM whose maintainers are
implementing the OpenJDK class interface. The other is a Red Hat initiative,
named zero, to remove architecture-specific code from HotSpot in order to make
compilation on diverse platforms easier. As zero is slow and in need of a JIT.
This JIT could well end up being Shark. Thanks to Gary for taking the time to
clarify this point. We encourage readers to correct important technical issues
and misunderstandings and can be contacted via "news at fedoraproject.org".
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue133#Java.2C_So_Many_Free_Choices
=== New libraw1394 Rebuild Exposes Closed ACLs
A simple warning made[1] by Jarod Wilson of a soname bump of libraw1394 (which
among other things allows easy switching between juju and the older drivers)
revealed that Fedora's KDE maintainers are not using open ACLs for their
packages. The issue of whether open ACLs should be used to allow any interested
community member (e.g. with a FAS account) to start making changes without
bureaucracy has been visited several times on @fedora-devel and has been
argued[1a] to be one of the exciting "post-merge" aspects of the FedoraProject.
Objections have included those based on security (see FWN#112 "Open By Default:
New FAS Groups Proposed"[1b]) and the logistics of co-ordinating such open
access (see FWN#91 "Community Control And Documentation Of New Workflows"[1c]).
At times it has appeared that those who were non-Red Hat employees and
contributing to the pre-merge "Extras" repository were the strongest advocates
for open ACLs.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01159.html
[1a] http://lwn.net/Articles/237700/
[1b]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue112#Open_By_Default:_New_FAS_Groups_Proposed
[1c]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue91#Community_Control_And_Documentation_Of_New_Workflows
Jarod provided a short list of affected packages including kdebase and kdebase3
and wondered whether he should "do a fancy chainbuild[2], or just let rawhide be
busted for a day?" Following advice received[3] offlist he decided that the
procedure would be to first bump and tag each of the packages, and then from
within the devel-branch of a dependent package issue a:
[jwilson foo fedora-cvs/pkg11/devel]$ make chain-build CHAIN="libraw1394 pkg1
... pkg10"
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/UsingKoji#Chained.builds
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01161.html
This eventually worked[4], but first Jarod had to contact maintainers that
disallowed commit access using open ACLs and get them to do the bump and tag in
order to use the above method.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01316.html
Early on in the chain of events Kevin Koffler noted[5] the necessity to do this
for the KDE packages. "Drago01" wondered why there were closed ACLs to which Rex
Dieter replied[6] that it was not necessary for non-core development platform
bits and he would try to change the ACLs for them. Konrad Meyer defended[7] the
choice on the basis that "KDE is a major system component and the KDE team
(which is something like 6-8 people) does a very good job of fixing things as
soon as they need fixing." Further probing for an actual reason by Rahul
Sundaram resulted in Konrad stating[8] that it was necessary to prevent people
from making mistakes and that the kernel package was handled similarly. Rahul
was unconvinced by this and Jon Stanley agreed[9] it should be possible, as with
GNOME, to use open ACLs to allow anyone to help.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01164.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01192.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01181.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01223.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01225.html
=== XULRunner Security Update Breakage Stimulates Bodhi Discussion
After Michael Schwendt published[1] a summary of broken dependencies for Fedora
9 it was noticed[2] by Martin Sourada that most of the problems were due to a
recent update of xulrunner which now provides gecko-libs (see FWN#110[3].)
Martin discovered that gxine, which was his particular responsibility, did not
depend on a specific version of gecko-libs and thus removed the versioned
dependencies. He suggested that a review by carried out of the other affected
packages to determine whether this was also the case for them.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01175.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01177.html
[3]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue110#Gecko-libs.Now.Provided.By.Xulrunnerdevel
Martin was further concerned that the policies for pushing security updates for
a stable release be examined in the light of this particular case because it
would fail to install due to all the broken dependencies. He suggested that it
ought to be possible to use chain builds (the Koji buildsystem allows packages
to be grouped into sets during the build process and to only report success if
all the packages complete perfectly) to ensure that such breakage does not
occur. He also wondered why the security update was not mentioned on the
"-devel(-announce) list?"
Nicolas Mailhot agreed[4] strongly wondering: "why the hell is this stuff not
tested in -devel first? [...] When the update process is not streamlined in
-devel, it's no surprise it bombs in -stable when security updates are due." The
answers to these questions came from Adel Gadllah (drago01) who replied[5] that
as it was a security fix it had to go to updates-stable immediately instead of
following the normal procedure[6]. David Nielsen interjected[7] that this method
did not deliver a quick security fix because those using, for example, epiphany
failed to get the update because the dependencies had not been properly handled.
Michael Schwendt also made[8] the same point: "Doesn't matter. It doesn't
install at all if it breaks dependencies of *installed* packages. Not even
*skip-broken helps in that case." Adel clarified[9] that he was explaining "why
it was done, not that it was the right thing to do. As I already said, bodhi
should block updates that break deps."
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01182.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01183.html
[6] Generally bleeding-edge changes for the next version of Fedora are published
in the "fedora-rawhide" repository, which is derived from a CVS branch named
"-devel". The "fedora-updatestesting" repository contains bleeding edge changes
for the current maintained release, the idea being that volunteers will test
them and provide feedback before they are pushed to the "fedora-updates"
repository for general consumption.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01184.html
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01185.html
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01188.html
=== Broken Upgrade Paths Due to NEVR
A report listing packages which failed to upgrade smoothly was emailed[1] to the
list on Mon 21st. This would appear[2] to be the output of Jesse Keating's
revamped version of the old Extras script upgradecheck (previously discussed in
FWN#108 "Package EVR Problems"[3]) which examines Koji tags[4] to determine
whether upgrades from one package version to another will work.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01253.html
[2]
http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=releng;a=blob;f=scripts/check-upgradepaths.py;hb=HEAD
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue108#Package.EVR.Problems
[4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji
Michael Schwendt noticed[5] that at least one reported failure, of audacity to
upgrade from "dist-f8-updates-testing" to "dist-f9-updates" was a false positive
because it omitted to take the possible intermediate tag
"dist-f9-updates-testing" into account. Jesse Keating pondered[6] the idea and
while admitting the possibility that someone might "at one time [have] installed
F8 testing updates, and then upgraded to F9 + updates, but without F9
updates-testing. However, it's more plausible that if they were using
updates-testing on F8 that they would upgrade to F9 + updates +
updates-testing." He suggested that he would break the testing down into two
separate paths: "F8, F8-updates, f9-updates" and "F8-updates-testing,
F9-updates-testing" and also list the person that built the broken instance
instead of listing the owners of the broken packages.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01296.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01317.html
As the owner can change per branch Michael Schwendt suggested that the pkgdb
could be queried for branch-specific ownership data, but Jesse thought that it
was more interesting to know who built the package rather than who owned it. He
hoped that "the <pkg>-contact fedoraproject org or some such gets created soon
so that the script can just email that + the person whom built the problematic
package" and Seth Vidal quickly implemented[7] this after Toshio Kuratomi made
some changes to pkgdb.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01489.html
=== Application Installer "Amber" Provides Browser Interface to Packages
A description was posted[1] by Owen Taylor of a visual means to rate, browse and
install packaged applications in a repository. The discussion around this
revealed some differences over the advisability of providing separate ways for
ordinary end-users on the one hand and package maintainers on the other to
discover and discuss the software available from the FedoraProject. Owen's post
was to announce that he had hacked up a web-browser plugin (a detailed README is
available[2] which includes discussion of security and cross-browser support)
which used PackageKit to allow the installation of packages selected from this
website. He had hopes that this would be "robust against inter-distro
differences in package names" and wondered "[w]hat do people think... does this
make sense as part of the PackageKit project?"
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01433.html
[2] http://git.o/shsoup.net/cgit/packagekit-plugin/tree/README
Following a suggestion from Tom Callaway that it be integrated with PackageDB
(this is the central repository of meta-information on packages and is currently
targeted to the needs of package maintainers and release-engineering[3] to track
ownership and ACLs[4]) there were questions from Jeff Spaleta about what that
meant. Owen replied[5] with more detail, and explained that the web application
would take information from PackageDB but that the plugin would use PackageKit
(and YUM and hence comps.xml) to display actual installable packages. He listed
other possible operations beyond simple installation of packages. It would be
possible to offer installation to any anonymous user, but after authentication
rating and commenting on packages could be authorized for users in the FAS[6]
class. Similarly, the ability to edit package information could be authorized
for package owners.
[3] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb
[4] https://fedorahosted.org/packagedb/
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01440.html
[6] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/
Jeff emphasized[7] that he would prefer to see Owen's interface replace, or
augment, the existing PackageDB one[8] in order to increase user-maintainer
communication by simplifying and reducing the number of interfaces. Bill
Nottingham wondered[9] "Does anyone actually use packagedb to browse for
available software?" and although there were a couple of affirmative replies
there was no aggregate data presented to answer this question. Nicolas Mailhot
replied[10] with some possible uses for expanded meta-information based upon the
experience of the Fonts SIG.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01442.html
[8] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01445.html
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01474.html
Robin Norwood explained[11] to Jeff that the PackageDB was for one audience
"(mostly) targeted at people interested in the plumbing of Fedora" while the new
interface was "targeted at people who are looking for applications to install
and 'do stuff' with." He posted[12] a link to the Feature page for this
ApplicationInstaller. Work seems to have progressed quite far with both the
web-application side, which is tentatively named "Amber" and is available for
proof-of-concept testing[13] and also with Owen's plugin.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01460.html
[12] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ApplicationInstaller
[13] http://publictest10.fedoraproject.org/amber
Jeff re-iterated[14] his point that "driving users to a different site than the
package maintainers... and allowing them to comment [is] going to cause a
communication gap" and characterized this as "driveby commenting and rating."
Matthias Clasen did not accept that the use cases and requirements were the same
as those for PackageDB and argued that "[t]his is not an effort to improve
package quality or gain new contributors. This is an effort to make life of
users better. It is not about packages, but about applications." Robin was[15]
against Jeff's idea of a "monolithic app" and emphasized that he was using
existing infrastructure to provide a new interface and also planning easy export
of the data. He envisioned this data as providing, for example, a feed of
comments about each package to PackageDB: "More of a semantic web type idea than
an isolated database or a 'one-stop shop'."
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01472.html
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01481.html
=== RPM Inspires Intel Moblin2 Shift From Ubuntu
An excited Peter Robinson copied[1] a link to "The Register" to the list. The
article claimed that Intel's next version of "Moblin"[2] (cunningly codenamed
Moblin2) would be replacing the "Ubuntu-based kernel" with the Fedora kernel and
cited Dirk Hohndel. Specifically it attributed a desire to "move to Fedora [as]
a technical decision based on the desire to adopt RPM for package management
[and also that] having a vibrant community push is the winning factor." The
article has since been rebuffed[3] by Hohndel in a comment on one of his blogs
as "not only low on detail, it's also high in content that's made up or blown
out of proportion" but he does confirm that "we decided to move to an rpm based
distribution as that gave us better build tools and most importantly a better
way to manage the licenses under which the individual packages are released."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01381.html
[2] Moblin is a GNU/Linux-based software stack for Mobile Internet Devices which
includes Xorg,GStreamer,ALSA,the MatchboxWM, GTK, Cairo, Pango, D-Bus, Avahi,
Evolution Data Server and more. In order to make life easy for developers a
Moblin Image Creator makes it easy to create a small 350-600MB binary image for
a particular architecture. Moblin explicitly aims to provide an alternative to
GNOME and KDE. http://www.moblin.org/resource.center.php
[3] http://www.hohndel.org/communitymatters/moblin/moblin-at-oscon/
Commentary on @fedora-devel tended to cautious optimism mixed with a desire for
a lot more information. Jeff Spaleta asked[4] whether the idea was to have
Moblin2 be a "part of the larger Fedora project or is it going to be a
downstream derived distribution that will include components such that it can
not carry the Fedora name?" and broached the idea that Moblin2 might be a
candidate for a Secondary Architecture (see FWN#90[5] and FWN#92[6].)
DavidWoodhouse (posting with an Intel.com sig) also liked[7] the idea of a
Moblin2 SIG producing a Fedora spin for MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices.)
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01386.html
[5]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue90#Fedora.Secondary.Architectures.Proposal
[6] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue92#Secondary.Arch.Proposal.Cont
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01417.html
While "yersinia" thought that the emphasis on RPM was interesting Hansde Goede
was intrigued[8] by the emphasis on community activity. Hans suggested that Jeff
Spaleta contact Dirk Hohndel to emphasize the dynamic nature of the FOSS
community behind Fedora. Jeff suggested that Karsten Wade could meet with Dirk
at this week's OSCON[9]. Ex-Red Hat star employee Arjanvande Ven volunteered[10]
to do what he could to help make contact with Dirk, describing himself as "on
the other side of a cube wall" from him. In response to Rahul Sundaram's request
for concrete information from Intel Arjan responded[11] that he would do his
best to get the right people to make contact, but that much of the speculation
on @fedora-devel concerned topics which have an "eh we don't know yet" answer.
He also repeated cautions against believing anything which journalists write.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01397.html
[9] http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/content/home
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01447.html
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01523.html
Paul Frields followed up[12] with details of a meeting at OSCON with senior
Fedora hackers. It seemed that the ability to use OpenSuSE's Open Build System
(which is based on RPM) was one of the main motivations behind Intel's move.
Apparently Koji (the Fedora Project's buildsystem) lacks some specific
functionality. Discussion between Paul Frields and Jeff Spaleta centered[13]
around whether the apparent Moblin2 plan of acting as a downstream derivative of
the Fedora kernel would allow them to garner community contributions and whether
this mattered anyway given Intel's vast resources.
[12]
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00198.html
[13]
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-July/msg00214.html
Arthur Pemberton thought that this was a good opportunity to take on some of the
anti-RPM and anti-YUM misinformation which had been spread about. David Nielsen
thought it was best to merely demand proof from those spreading FUD. Seth Vidal
conceded[14] that perhaps not enough had been done to publicize the improvements
in YUM and RPM over the last few years and cited[15] a particular case-study of
a smartpm user comparing it with YUM to the advantage of the latter.
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01503.html
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-July/msg01507.html
=== Artwork
In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei
=== Nodoka development
After Martin Sourada laid out some plans last week for the Nodoka GTK2 theme
engine development, he updated the Fedora Art list with news about the topic:
"Considering that the Feature freeze for F10 is nearing and I haven't finished
yet with the sketching, I'll push it for Fedora 11, while in Fedora 10 we'll
have new notification theme [1], maybe the Echo icons and some minor
improvements to the gtk theme/engine."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-July/msg00217.html
=== Gathering feed-back about Fedora 10 theme proposals
After the first round of the theme creation process for Fedora 10 ended, Nicu
Buculei started gathering[1] feed-back from the community (everyone is invited
to participated, including the Fedora Weekly News readers): "Since the first
round for F10 themes just ended, I wrote to my (infamous) blog an article[2]
listing all the proposals, including thumbnails and descriptions and asked for
feedback (noting that the preferred way is this mailing list). Also posted about
it on FedoraForum[3]."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-July/msg00222.html
[2] http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2008/07/fedora-10-themes-round-1.html
[3] http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1050722
=== A possible Bluecurve revival
Andy Fitzsimon shared[1] on the Fedora Art list a theme mockup "I didn't design
it specifically for fedora but I hope someone here finds it useful for future
mocks" and very quickly Hylke Bons expressed his interest[2] and idea about
using it in combination with his own project[3] "I think this will fit well in
my attempt to ressurect Bluecurve" (Bluecurve is the venerable theme introduced
in Red Hat Linux 8 and used as a default until Fedora 6).
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-July/msg00225.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-July/msg00226.html
[3] http://bomahy.nl/hylke/wip/bluetwist.png
=== Security Advisories
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: David Nalley
=== Fedora 9 Security Advisories
* mantis-1.1.2-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00801.html
* dbmail-2.2.9-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg01094.html
* libetpan-0.54-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg01093.html
* php-5.2.6-2.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg01021.html
* ruby-1.8.6.230-1.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg01016.html
* gnutls-2.0.4-3.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00980.html
* licq-1.3.5-2.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00879.html
* perl-5.10.0-27.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00874.html
* linuxdcpp-1.0.1-3.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg01106.html
* sipp-3.1-2.fc9 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg01160.html
=== Fedora 8 Security Advisories
* wireshark-1.0.2-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00798.html
* asterisk-1.4.21.2-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00839.html
* mantis-1.1.2-1.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-July/msg00813.html
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