= Fedora Weekly News Issue 121 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 121 for the week of February 18th,
2008. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue121
In Announcements, we have "Fedora 10's FUDCon", "LWN subscription?",
"Fedora Amateur Radio SIG" and "Fedora Education SIG"
In Planet Fedora, we have "What a FOSDEM Day!", "FOSDEM08 - Saturday",
"The FOSDEM Buzz", "LWN, Fedora and you", "Fedora 10's FUDCon" and
"Fedora by Night"
To join or give us your feedback, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.
1. Announcements
1. Fedora 10's FUDCon
2. LWN subscription?
3. Fedora Amateur Radio SIG
4. Fedora Education SIG
2. Planet Fedora
1. What a FOSDEM Day!
2. FOSDEM08 - Saturday
3. The FOSDEM Buzz
4. LWN, Fedora and you
5. Fedora 10's FUDCon
6. Fedora by Night
3. Marketing
1. Dig the KDE4 Interview
2. Fedora Studios Spin?
3. Free Me Too
4. Fedora and the art of creating an inclusive community
5. Fedora Store SIG Update
6. Windows -> Fedora -> Windows
7. Best way to announce things?
8. Logo War: Red Hat Takes On DataPortability
9. Ubuntu Marketing
10. Fedora and alternative desktops
11. AMD Releases 3D Programming Documentation
4. Ambassadors
1. Fedora By Night Event Report
2. FOSDEM Reports
5. Developments
1. Evolution Of Mail Client Preferences
2. Incompatible Unison Update
3. Three Simple Steps To Speed Up Booting / Shutdown
4. When To Introduce Asterisk 1.6
5. SELinux Smolt Statistics
6. How To Get Mock To Include Testing Packages In Buildroot
7. Auto-rebuild Release Bump Errors
8. GCC 4.3 Mass Rebuild
6. Documentation
1. Generating PDFs with Publican
2. F9 Toolchain
7. Infrastructure
1. Koji Bandaid
2. news.fp.o
3. Mailman List Policy for Fedora Hosted
8. Artwork
1. Theming the distro: the new GDM
2. EeeDora Artwork
9. Security Week
1. CUPS flaw
2. Disk Encryption Isn't So Safe
10. Security Advisories
1. Fedora 8 Security Advisories
2. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
11. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2008-02-19
2. Fedora Community Architecture Meeting 2008-02-18
3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2008-02-20
4. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2008-02-21
5. Fedora Bug Zappers Meeting 2008-02-20
6. Fedora SIG EPEL Report Week 07/2008
7. Fedora SIG KDE Report Week 2008-02-19
[[Anchor(Announcements)]]
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from Fedora Project.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 10's FUDCon ===
MaxSpevack announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"The next North American FUDCon will be in Boston, MA. It will be held
from June 19-21, in parallel with this year's Red Hat Summit."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00007…
=== LWN subscription? ===
JeffSpaleta announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"To support the 10th anniversary of LWN.net, the Fedora Project has
purchased 65 subscriptions to be given to Fedora contributors."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00010…
=== Fedora Amateur Radio SIG ===
BobJensen announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"I would like to announce a new Special Interest Group in the Fedora
Community, The Fedora Amateur Radio SIG or Fedora-Hams for short."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00009…
=== Fedora Education SIG ===
SebastianDziallas announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"I would like to encourage everybody, who is interested in education
to join us on fedora-education-list and to add his or her name to the
list in the wiki."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00008…
[[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]]
== 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
=== What a FOSDEM Day! ===
JoergSimon reports in his blog[1],
"the first FOSDEM Day is over and compared to last year, our booth is
much better located - so the people overrun our booth - no way to
count with how many people we talked - sometimes it was chaotic, could
not move."
[1] http://kitall.blogspot.com/2008/02/first-fosdem-day-is-over-and-compared.ht…
=== FOSDEM08 - Saturday ===
FrancescoUgolini reports in his blog[1],
"a lot of people visit us not only at the booth but at the conferences
that Fedora contributors held (with great results, see Jens speech
about SELinux), moreover people asked for DVDs (the live CDs ended
soon) and they wanted to try the two OLPCs that we had at the booth."
[1] http://ugolini.livejournal.com/1950.html
=== The FOSDEM Buzz ===
JeroenVanMeeuwen reports in his blog[1],
"Yesterday was an interesting day at FOSDEM. I've been working on
pyJigdo mostly -in order to get the proposed feature for Fedora 9
done, and while I was doing so I attended talks...I've taken some
pictures you can view at my Fedora Unity space. Announcements in all
the proper places coming up soon."
[1] http://blogs.fedoraunity.org/kanarip/2008/02/24/the-fosdem-buzz
=== LWN, Fedora and you ===
JefSpaleta reports in his blog[1],
"The Fedora Board has decided that the fairest way to distribute this
windfall of subscriptions is by holding an open lottery for all Fedora
contributors who have an active account in the Fedora Account System"
[1] http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/19142.html
=== Fedora 10's FUDCon ===
MaxSpevack reports in his blog[1],
"Look! We're actually planning ahead for the next North American
FUDCon, to be held in Boston MA, in conjunction with this year's Red
Hat Summit."
[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/46053.html
=== Fedora by Night ===
FrancescoCrippa reports in his blog[1],
"Yesterday night was a Fedora Night! "Fedora by Night" attracted a lot
of Linux enthusiasts from Lodi and near zones. Thanks to LOLUG for
help, availability and visibility."
[1] http://people.byte-code.com/fcrippa/2008/02/21/fedora-by-night-the-day-afte…
[[Anchor(Marketing)]]
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: JohnBabich
=== Dig the KDE4 Interview ===
JonathanRoberts announced [1] that the KDE4 interview [2] can now be "Dug".
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00278…
[2} http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_IS_a_KDE_distro
=== Fedora Studios Spin? ===
FrancescoUgolini proposed [1] that we "create a Fedora Spin with open
source movie / sound / image programmes". This would be an alternative
to prohibitively expensive commercial products.
MichaelBeckwith agreed [2], saying we "could probably include stuff
like video and sound editing in the art spin if it's not already
planned."
Juan M. Rodriguez Moreno reminded us [3] that "Peter Jackson (of Lord
of the Rings fame) used ...Fedora Core 2." Things could only have
gotten better.
GregDeKoenigsberg put forward [4] that "we should start by engaging
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano [and] Planet CCRMA."
NicuBuculei expressed [5] his skepticism: "However, the tools are not
ready yet: Kino can't open Ogg Theora, PiTiVi can't do anything
useful, Cinelerra makes full use of proprietary codecs and so on. Do
not forget the potential legal troubles around such a spin: it would
have to handle out of the box all the tasks using free codecs, which
may not be what the users expect (you would not be legally able to
master a DVD with it)."
RussellHarrison added [6] there "would need to be the same sort of
educational message Codina has in prominent locations all over the
DVD. Aside from the technical issues you pointed out which are much
more difficult to deal with."
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00280…
[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00281…
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00283…
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00284…
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00290…
[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00293…
=== Free Me Too ===
RahulSundaram pointed out [1] that "we have been discussing taking
Free Me to the next step. Free Me is a collection of open licensed
content bundled with a Live CD. Jonathan Roberts, I appreciate your
suggestions. Let's get started [2]. In particular, any hints on
finding some of the content under open codec formats or conversion
procedures would be appreciated. Additional content suggestions
...that... should be freely distributable and preferably have no use
restrictions."
JonathanRoberts enthused [3] "Wow, totally awesome that you're picking
this up now!! Conversion procedures I can definitely help with, though
you might need people to tweak it a little bit...ffmpeg2theora I think
is the best tool for the conversion of the video...Oh and another
point: part of my goals with free me was to make it workable without
even having to boot the live disc..." He followed up [4] with "you're
more than welcome to use any of the free me artwork".
Rahul asked [5] "How did you get the Google Videos converted? How
about all the other content not in theora or any open format?"
RussellHarrison volunteered [6] to help, but had some reservations:
"Is there any legal exposure if we use tools with potential patent
problems to convert content even if they aren't distributed on the
DVD? h.264 comes to mind as an example...Should all of the content on
the DVD be licensed under free licenses such as Creative Commons, or
is it acceptable for the [copyright] holder to release the content for
distribution with the DVD."
Rahul cautioned [7] "if you are in a region that enforce software
patents, you should consider the implications carefully... If you have
content in patent encumbered codecs, feel free to point them to me and
I will take care of the conversion. He added that he wants "openly
licensed content and not something specific to the DVD image I put
out. The ability to redistribute content as a criteria is not
negotiable. I am ok with some of the content having non-commercial
restrictions though I would prefer not."
Nicu promoted [8] the openclipart package [9], which Rahul added to
his wiki page [2].
Rahul stated [10] that "the goal of the live DVD is to promote Free
culture and Free software but not Fedora specifically."
RussellHarrison heartily agreed [11].
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00282…
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RahulSundaram/FreeMeToo
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00285…
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00286…
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00287…
[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00292…
[7] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00294…
[8] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00295…
[9] http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=5839
[10] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00299…
[11] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00326…
=== Fedora and the art of creating an inclusive community ===
Caroline Kazmierski announced [1] that PaulFrields was interviewed by
Matt Asay on his CNET blog, "The Open Road" [2].
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00303…
[2] http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9875189-16.html?tag=head
=== Fedora Store SIG Update ===
JeffreyTadlock updated [1] on "what has been happening with the Fedora
Store SIG. This past week I placed an order from cafepress.com, I
ordered a T-shirt and a coffee mug...The mug looked okay. The T-shirt
was of good quality material wise, but the printing left a lot to be
desired...I have posted pictures, comparing the cafepress.com shirt to
the screen printed shirt here [2]...Another item I could use help on
is with a mockup of the store web page [3]...If you have any pros and
cons to mention, a new distributor to consider - please add them to
the wiki by next Wednesday, February 27th."
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00309…
[2] http://jeffreyt.fedorapeople.org/storeSIG/
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Store/GeneralRequirements
=== Windows -> Fedora -> Windows ===
MarcWiriadisastra submitted [1] a link [2] to a strange article on a
school going from Windows to Fedora and back again. He provided this
bizarre quote: "The move ended up saving a lot of money in licensing
costs. Initially, the school used Red Hat Linux; later Fedora, Red
Hat's community distribution, was used. The money saved was used to
upgrade hardware at the school and also to provide for more PCs."
NicuBuculei opined [3]: "The reason is simple: "The reason for the
switch back to Microsoft operating systems? A lack of support from
some of the teachers, says Perkins."...But what I think was the final
nail in the coffin was: "but when all staff got laptops at the end of
2007, it spelt the end of Linux desktops at the school. The laptops
came with Windows and Office installed - this was not negotiable". He
continued [4] that "when users have a problem with Windows they blame
Microsoft and then give up, as "everybody uses it" and "this is the
way things work". But when the users have a problem with Linux they
blame the person who deployed Linux, "it was easier with Windows",
"this Linux thing is not like Windows and it sucks", "give me back my
trusted Windows"."
Luis Felipe Marzagao contributed [5] that "the main problem seems to
be the lack of the possibility to simply download programs from the
internet and install them", regardless of the danger.
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00311…
[2] http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16721/1090/1/0/
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00312…
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00320…
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00332…
=== Best way to announce things? ===
JonathanRoberts [1] queried: "I'd like some ideas from people. Fedora
does *loads* of cool stuff that isn't just development work, but
community enabling work...I think we need another mechanism for
letting people know about cool infrastructure and community enabling
stuff that goes on. Things [like] the new collaboration server;
fedorapeople.org; the open build tools; transifex; publican etc...I
want to make sure we're doing the best we can and getting the most
attention we can for all the *awesome* extra-development stuff that
goes on!"
MarcWiriadisastra recalled [2] "that there was discussion of a wiki
page that pointed to a whole heap of e-marketing links or something.
I'm not sure if that page has ever been created."
RahulSundaram recommended [3] "we should use [news.fedoraproject.org]
extensively and integrate it into the front page via a RSS feed. Other
major announcements can go to fedora-announce list. Things like
publican for example. We should probably drop mails to journalists
directly which we have not been doing yet."
Jonathan was more concerned about the other formats besides press
releases [4], which led Rahul to agree [5], remarking that "We should
be casual, highlight not only the work done but also the people doing
the work and let Red Hat do the official press releases."
KarstenWade contributed [6] that "You are asking about format, which
means...Style of writing [and] Tooling (file format).
For the style of writing, I agree with Rahul's suggestion of a casual
tone...For tooling, we have a very cool and very simple to use method
for writing 'press releases' that can be translated. Getting global
coverage is going to require translation...Some announcements might
need to be rewritten from scratch in other languages because of
idioms, etc.
Anyone feel like learning to use this press release tool, then writing
up how-to on the wiki?
The point would be to follow a rough process like this:
1. Collaborate on a list of what to highlight (ongoing)
2. Collaborate via the wiki to write up draft => ready to release
3. Copy and paste into a press-release shell
4. Finish conversion into press-release and keep these in a version
control system
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00314…
[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00314…
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00319…
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00322…
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00323…
[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00330…
=== Logo War: Red Hat Takes On DataPortability ===
Note: Most, if not all, of the following contributors are not lawyers.
RahulSundaram reported [1] the following [2]: "Data`Portability
Work`Group is a project founded in November 2007 to develop best
practices towards letting users move, share, and control their
identity, photos, videos and all other forms of personal data stored
in social networks and other web services. After months of positive
news, the group has had its first hiccup, a cease and desist letter
from Red`Hat over their use of the Fedora [logo]"
NicuBuculei saw [3] the similarities. JohnBabich contributed {4] a
mini-investigation, in which he concluded "this is a well-intentioned
group of men and women who just happened to pick a logo similar to the
Fedora logo. No malice or intentional confusion is intended, and some
in the group would be more than happy to adopt another logo.", to
which
Duvelle Jones agreed [5].
However, JeffSpaleta believes [6]: "Here's the basic problem..... US
trademark law demands ACTIVE policing of a trademark, for the mark to
remain protected. This is direct contrast with how copyright and
patent law works. If you don't actively police your trademark, then
it can lose its protected status...A cease and desist letter is the
legal mechanism that the US legal system will recognize in situations
where the infringing status is in dispute. If Red Hat doesn't use
mechanisms recognized by the US legal system (the system which
ultimately determines whether a trademark is still protected), then
the trademark on the Fedora logo is jeopardized...The ultimate goal
here is the continued protection of the Fedora logo as a registered
trademark. There is no malice in the C&D letter. The other logo is
similar."
GregDeKoenigsberg informed us [7] that he was "discussing this issue
with legal now, looking for a sensible compromise. I'll report back."
KarstenWade surmised [8]: "Maybe it's not possible or sensible to send
a 'nice letter'?...When you put the Fedora and Data Portability logos
side-by-side the differences are more apparent. But honestly, when I
first saw the Data Portability website, I thought, 'Wow, looks like
the Fedora logo.'
So, Red Hat is working *for* us in defending the mark. Dilution of
that mark means dilution of our work. It's directly related to why we
are so careful about keeping non-free and encumbered software out of
the distro, as well as the many other actions that make Fedora what it
is."
Tony Guntharp, who is a member of the Data`Portability Group,
appreciating Karsten's remarks, replied [9]: "The DP group (of which I
am a member) is an loosely formed community with a purpose very
similiar in vein to Open Source / Free Software...A C&D letter should
have been sent out as a last resort instead of being the first salvo.
By this being the first shot across the bow it only allows for
escalation to the court system. If the DP group had been approached
sooner by someone from within Red Hat then I think the issue would
have still been resolved in the same manner w/o Red Hat looking like
the bad guy."
Greg agreed [10], saying "You are obviously correct. Sometimes the
left hand acts without knowing what the right hand is doing. We're
working on an answer to the problem right now, preferably before it
hits Slashdot."
Finally, Tony informed us [11], "Well Chris Saad (the quasi-leader) of
DP is in SF until April 28th (he's in from Australia) if anyone from
Red Hat cares to meet up with him. And I'm intimately familiar with
the left hand/right hand issues."
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00333…
[2] http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/21/logo-war-red-hat-takes-on-dataportabil…
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00335…
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00336…
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00337…
[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00350…
[7] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00355…
[8] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00351…
[9] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00359…
[10] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00361…
[11] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00362…
=== Ubuntu Marketing ===
Note: This thread and related threads totaled 66 messages.
The original message by ValentTurkovic [1] highlighted Ubuntu Cola,
the UK's first Cola with Fairtrade Label [2].
It quickly moved onto the subject of Ubuntu's popularity (the linux
distribution, not the cola), closed multimedia drivers, how to inform
users of non-free drivers, etc.
There were important and serious discussions about what "freedom"
really is about, integrity, and what end users expect, and other
related topics too numerous to list here.
ClintSavage provided [3] the best one-liner: "Let me use a phrase from
my childhood and say 'if Ubuntu jumped off a cliff, would you?'",
which was considered to be the winner in the t-shirt slogan contest by
Karsten [4].
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00339…
[2] http://www.ubuntu-trading.com/
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00394…
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00406…
=== Fedora and alternative desktops ===
RahulSundaram noted [1] that the Distro`Watch Weekly [2] covered KDE4
and Xfce in Fedora, while the official KDE site [3] listed the "KDE 4
And Fedora Interview".
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00341…
[2] http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080218#news
[3] http://dot.kde.org/1203420709/
=== AMD Releases 3D Programming Documentation ===
RahulSundaram reports [1]: "Another win for Free software. The age old
myth about vendors unable to release 3D information for any number of
reasons just went out of the door... again.
"AMD has just published the first bits of open-source 3D programming
documentation for ATI GPUs. This 3D programming documentation covers
the R500 series and even goes back with information on the R300/400
series as well. The R600 3D programming guide will also be out soon"
[2]"
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg00413…
[2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_tcore_release&num=1
[[Anchor(Ambassadors)]]
== Ambassadors ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
Contributing Writer: JeffreyTadlock
=== Fedora By Night Event Report ===
FrancescoCrippa reported to the Ambassadors' mailing list on the
Fedora at Night event held on February 19th in Lodi, Italy.
Highlights of the event include a presentation on the community behind
Fedora, a brief overview on how Fedora is built and managed and
followed up with a question and answer period. Don't miss Francesco's
more detailed blog post and the pictures from the event he posted.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-February/msg00…
[2] http://people.byte-code.com/fcrippa/2008/02/21/fedora-by-night-the-day-afte…
[3] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fcrippa/sets/72157603949413659/
=== FOSDEM Reports ===
The reports [1-6] from FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels, Belgium are beginning
to roll in. Fedora is well represented at this conference with an
estimated twenty+ ambassadors in attendance to talk about Fedora!
MaxSpevack will be updating the FOSDEM Fedora Event page [7] with
links to new reports and pictures, so be sure to check that page for
updates that did not make it by the Fedora News deadline.
[1] http://kitall.blogspot.com/2008/02/first-fosdem-day-is-over-and-compared.ht…
[2] http://ugolini.livejournal.com/1700.html
[3] http://kitall.blogspot.com/2008/02/fosdem-arrival-arrived-1700-at-brussels.…
[4] http://blogs.fedoraunity.org/kanarip/2008/02/23/fosdem-2008-first-day
[5] http://fabaff.blogspot.com/2008/02/fosdem-2008-00.html
[6] http://blogs.fedoraunity.org/kanarip/2008/02/22/fosdem-2008-coming-up-soon
[7] http://fedoraunity.org/Members/kanarip/pictures/2008-fosdem
[[Anchor(Developments)]]
== 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: OisinFeeley
=== Evolution Of Mail Client Preferences ===
A long thread over the selection of ''evolution'' as the default MUA
in Fedora was started[1] by JensPetersen. After carefully donning a
figurative asbestos suit Jens noted that ''evolution'' was different
enough from the other GNOME applications that it was expensive to
maintain and that the release of the Mozilla Foundation's calendaring
application ''lightning'' and the stability of their MUA
''thunderbird'' suggested they could be chosen instead. MatthewBarnes
asked for elaboration of the assertion that "Evolution [is] basically
a different platform [to GNOME]". Jens replied[2], first with a
courteous thanks to Matthew for his maintenance work on ''evolution''
and then specified that he was referring to its "custom gtk widgets
and gtkhtml".
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01750.ht…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01765.ht…
Matthew, who had dug in for "another round of Evolution bashing",
acknowledged[3] these points and listed the specific steps he was
undertaking to "chip away at [...] the old cruft [and] technology that
fell out of favor years ago." The list includes a migration from
''GtkHTML'' (the rendering library) to ''WebKit/GTK+'', a move from
custom gtk widgets to modern GTK+ widgets, replacement of parts of the
''GNOME Applications Library'' and rewriting the message composer to
not use ''bonobo''. All this work is still in progress and may take
some time.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01792.ht…
JohanGudmundsson and MatejCepl thought[4] that a parallel install of
Evolution and Thunderbird along with a mail-migration script for
Thunderbird should be installed and then the flame-fest should be
concentrated on ''Tomboy'' and ''mono''.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01871.ht…
The issue of actual user preference was floated[5] by NicuBuculei when
he referenced Mugshot statistics which show a preference for
Thunderbird.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01769.ht…
MatejCepl did not believe that Jens original mail was not intended as
a flame and posted[6] a list of reasons to distrust ''thunderbird'',
including poor IMAP support, poor vfolder support, bad reply-to
defaults, a lack of regexes, the use of the working folder for message
storage, and finally a proven track record of crashing. Matej's
reluctant conclusion was that all email clients sucked but that he
would like to find a GUI MUA that sucked as little as ''mutt'' did in
the non-GUI space. Further discussion with KevinKofler seemed[7] to
suggest that ''KMail'' was a possible contender. It was even
revealed[8] to be gaining HTML support, despite "HTML mail [being] a
plague infecting the Internet." This latter opinion was disputed[9] by
"Gene" who pointed out a business use-case where a HTML table can be
filled out more easily than ASCII. AlanCox retorted[10] that "you have
no idea what the recipient receives if you do that. HTML isn't a
strict formatting specification." He went on to provide a
demonstration of how large GIFs, which in themselves take up little
space, may be turned into enormous RAM-munching bitmaps causing the
recipient's client to die.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01778.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01782.ht…
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01899.ht…
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01923.ht…
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01926.ht…
The banner of "All MUAs suck, it's just a question of which sucks less
for a given user/task" was raised again by JohnDennis. The most useful
attribute of ''Thunderbird'' for him was its lack of crashing.
TomasMraz suggested[11] that Evolution's crashing had stopped after
upgrading to Fedora 8, at least for his usage patterns. BennyAmorsen
thought[12] ''Evolution'' crashes were due to the Exchange Connector
as did TimothySelivanow.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01813.ht…
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01836.ht…
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01815.ht…
PeteZaitcev laid[14] the blame on HavocPennington for diligently
implementing the Open Source Architecture vision[14a] with Evolution
plus Epiphany and explained that its "main merit [...] is the
integration with calendaring and LDAP". He cautioned that Thunderbird
was subject to competing factions which might turn it into a bloated
monster and added that for his own personal use ''sylpheed'' was good
at not chewing patches. BryanClark wrote[15] an excellent overview of
the situation which suggests that Evolution's integration and Exchange
capabilities have entrenched it for now.
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01872.ht…
[14a] http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/gov/WHP0005US_FEA.pdf
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01877.ht…
As with all good flamebait there was a lot of anecdotal evidence in
the thread with some claiming[16] that Thunderbird was better than
Evolution for IMAP folders and yet others flatly contradicting[17]
this experience. It appears that there is a good deal of ground to be
made up to produce a fast, non-archive destroying, IMAP-aware mail
client.
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01752.ht…
[17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01756.ht…
=== Incompatible Unison Update ===
The bleeding-edge nature of Fedora came to the fore again when
StephenWarren asked[1] whether the decision to update ''unison'' in
Fedora 8 to a package which was not backwards compatible with older
versions was the right thing to do. JonathanUnderwood gave[2] his
opinion that it was correct given the "bleeding edge" nature of Fedora
and suggested that Stephen ask for a compatibility package or, better
still, made one. Stephen was not pleased[3] and argued that while he
expected breakage between major versions of the distro he did not
expect it within a stable version. He also thought that he might find
another distro if such decisions were actually the norm.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01809.ht…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01810.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01820.ht…
JefSpaleta thought[4] that Jonathan had handled the situation the
wrong way. In part this was based on the assumption that Jonathan had
closed the bug quickly with "NOTABUG", as suggested in the comments to
the entry. ChristopherAillon also agreed with Stephen that the wrong
decision had been made and reminded[5] the list that keeping users of
the distribution relatively happy unless there were very good
over-riding considerations was important.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01828.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01822.ht…
Jef requested[6] more information from Stephen as to the nature of the
incompatibility asking him to bear in mind the need to limit the
existence of compatibility packages. Responses from Stephen detailing
the exact systems that he was using led to a list which Jonathan
dismissed[7] as mostly irrelevant due to them being EOL'ed.
HansdeGoede thought that breaking a network protocol during a stable
release was a problem and also expressed[8] concern over Jonathan's
tone. Jonathan apologized[9] for any unintended tone and argued that
the bugs fixed by the update were showstoppers for cross-compatibility
and thus necessary.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01824.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01834.ht…
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01839.ht…
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01881.ht…
A lot of the commentary suggested that such changes were unacceptable.
AndrewFarris noted[10] that such changes were not uncommon with
upstream ''unison'' and ChristopherAillon suggested considering
''rsync'' as an alternative. Andrew explained[11] that ''unison'' did
not simply replicate changes from an authoritative master to a slave,
but kept both sides in sync with each other.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01864.ht…
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01866.ht…
As things stand there appears to be a compatibility package created by
Stephen awaiting[12] review, with quite a deal of discussion already
attached.
[12] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=433915
=== Three Simple Steps To Speed Up Booting / Shutdown ===
The slow booting of Fedora led ArjanvanderVen to undertake some
practical steps to speed things up. He confessed[1] to being "a tad
annoyed by why the initscript processing is (in my impatient
perception) slow" as each actual initscript is actually relatively
quick.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01495.ht…
The practical improvements broke down into six major types of change
affecting ''/etc/rc.d/rc'', ''/etc/init.d/functions'' and
''/etc/profile.d/lang.sh''. They include rewriting builtin
Bourne-shell inclusive-or tests for files ,e.g. {{{[ -f FOO -o -f BAR
]}}}, to two separate statements testing for each file. The point of
this is to reduce the un-needed disk-seeking and I/O of searching for
BAR in the cases where FOO exists. BehdadEsfahbod suggested[2] that
the BASH short-circuit test, later provided[2a] by AdamGoode as {{{ [[
-f FOO || -f BAR ]] }}}, should be used instead. Behdad had undertaken
a similar exercise to Arjan's and agreed that another of the
optimizations, namely to not change VGA fonts via initscripts, was
important. He extended it to "I'd go as far as saying that
unicode_start should only be called from /etc/profile, not other bash
invocations." BillNottingham agreed strongly[3], saying "Heck, it
should only be called from a udev rule on console initialization."
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01501.ht…
[2a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01522.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01610.ht…
Behdad had concentrated on ''rc.sysinit'' and was disturbed by a
script ''/sbin/start_udev'' which it called as it provided its own
internal, slower implementation of ''xargs'' instead of calling a real
xargs when available. Arjan felt[4] that ''udev'' was "so incredibly
slow that it's just outrageous" and referenced a comparison to a much
quicker boot with a non-Fedora distribution preloaded on his laptop.
HaraldHoyer suggested[5] that it would be useful to "add udevinfo or
udevdebug to the kernel command line" to check for some of what he
found to be the usual causes of a long startup: slow kernel module
loading; firmware loading failing; persistent storage labeling bugs.
OlaThoresen noted[6] that if LDAP is used for authentication and the
network is not up before udev starts then udev waits for a long
timeout. LubomirKundrak remembered[7] that there had been a thread
about a year ago in which someone recommended that modprobe
dependencies should be cached as udev spent most of its time waiting
for this information. In fact this work had been done by HaraldHoyer
himself as reported in FWN#103 "Udev Performance"[8].
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01520.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01586.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01624.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01615.ht…
[8] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue103#head-4ff62435e0646dccef282c64ec8…
=== When To Introduce Asterisk 1.6 ===
JeffreyOllie asked[1] what the general feeling was about waiting until
Fedora 10 to introduce the latest version of the VOIP server
''asterisk''. Right now packages of version 1.4 of ''asterisk'' are
available for Fedora 7 and Fedora 8 but the 1.6 version was reported
by Jeff to be in "late beta".
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01659.ht…
JefSpaleta wondered[2] why he could not package it after the Fedora 9
ISOs had been released, then drop it into the "updates-testing"
repository with appropriate fanfare to alert interested testers, and
finally push it into "updates-released" after making any necessary
changes. Jeff explained[3] that he wished to "avoid upgrading to a new
Asterisk major version in a stable Fedora release" with the reason
that Asterisk users tended to be "averse to upgrading" with some still
running on 2.4 kernels and Digium still supporting Asterisk-1.2. There
seemed to be some support for this position, but BennyAmorsen added[4]
the information that the support provided by Digium was for the
non-GPL'ed "Business Edition" and extended only to security fixes.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01662.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01668.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01703.ht…
The other side of the argument was put[5] by RichiPlana who stated his
preference, as an employee of an enterprise which ships production
systems based on the latest Fedora and Asterisk versions, for a
package of the beta to be available for testing "even if it doesn't go
stable before F10 is released". Richi later argued[6] that as Asterisk
itself was moving to a shorter release cycle more synchronized with
Fedora's and that this "beta3" seemed from their list traffic to be
implementing very conservative changes. The new management features
were something which Richi was especially interested in testing.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01705.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01663.ht…
The stability of the beta was raised[7] by KevinKofler as an important
factor in the decision. He argued that if the official release was
scheduled prior to the release of Fedora 9 then "you should definitely
upgrade to the beta now and get the release info F9 final." If,
however, it were to be released afterwards then a decision needed to
be made based upon the evaluation of the stability of the beta. Kevin
noted that the "beta" label itself meant wildly different things for
different projects.
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01682.ht…
On a related issue JohannGudmundsson asked[8] whether the latest
''ISC-DHCP'' (ver. 4) and ''freeradius'' could be packaged. He also
wondered if there were some way to see whether Fedora was shipping the
most recent software from a variety of projects. JohnDennis
answered[9] that he just needed to find time to get the latest
''freeradius 2'' done and that there was nothing blocking it.
FlorianlaRoche posted[10] a link to a handy distrowatch table which
may be slightly inaccurate but attempts to provide a tabular view of
package versions. KevinKofler reminded[11] Johann that DHCP-4 was
already in rawhide.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01670.ht…
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01671.ht…
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01672.ht…
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01683.ht…
=== SELinux Smolt Statistics ===
Seeking clarification on the figures reported by Smolt for SELinux
JamesMorris asked[1] whether the report that approximately half of
those surveyed (circa 331,000 registered hosts) had SELinux enabled
was accurate. James pointed out that as reports on SELinux had only
been collected from Fedora 8 onward the true percentage might be
closer to 74%.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01621.ht…
YaakovNemoy agreed[2] that more detailed reports were necessary, but
was off to FOSDEM and had to put it on a "TODO" list for urgent
attention. JamesMorris was[3] keener to get a quick correction up on
the web page and some clarification as to how the statistics were
calculated.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01622.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01634.ht…
A slightly fraught part of the thread was started[4] by ValentTurkovic
when he replied to James' original query with a partial quote which
emphasized the original statistic "If this arguments are true for
Fedora 8 than it looks like that more people dislike selinux than like
it, right?" and ignored the probable confusion which James had pointed
out. James responded[5] "Why did you delete the rest of the email,
which queried these numbers and suggested that the real figure for
enablement was much higher?" He added that off-list he had obtained
the raw figures for Fedora 8 systems (the only ones which actually are
set up to report whether SELinux is enabled or not) and "the
"Enabled=True" value is currently 94%." James qualified this with the
caution that there were several factors confounding any simple
interpretation. JohnDennis answered[6] that Valent had an "anti
SELinux agenda" as referenced by previous threads and Valent
countered[7] that this was a misunderstanding and that he was helping
by contributing bugs for selinux-policy.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01690.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01704.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01962.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01962.ht…
One of the possible confounding factors was raised by BennyAmorsen,
who asked "Does Enabled=True imply enforcing". JamesMorris answered[8]
that it did not and this was one of the extra pieces of information
which needed to be collected. He also expressed a wish that
information on other security features such as ''iptables'' be
collected.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01739.ht…
=== How To Get Mock To Include Testing Packages In Buildroot ===
NealBecker asked[1] how it was possible to build against a package
which was in ''testing''. He was specifically concerned with the
situation that his ''python-igraph'' package had a BuildRequires on
''igraph-devel'' and he wished to build against the latest
''igraph-devel-0.5'' which had just been pushed into testing.
IgnacioVazquezAbrams told him to "request a buildroot inclusion from
releng" and upon further questioning confirmed[2] that this meant
"send an email to releng."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01633.ht…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01647.ht…
A webpage listing the commands used by Koji administrators was
linked[3] by AlexLancaster and he suggested adding the "email rel-eng"
instructions for ordinary users there. JesseKeating seemed[4] to want
to keep that particular page as a reference for the Koji
administrators but requested "somebody please suggest a place where
[instructions on making this request by email] will be found and used
[on the wiki]."
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01675.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01676.ht…
"This is not a particularly intuitive mechanism at the moment. How can
we automate this better" asked[5] DenisLeroy. Jesse replied[6] with a
request for patches.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01637.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01638.ht…
=== Auto-rebuild Release Bump Errors ===
A report[1] by OrionPoplawski of an incorrect bump of the version of
his pre-release ''gdl'' package, as a result of the GCC-4.3
autorebuild (see this same FWN#121 "GCC 4.3 Mass Rebuild"), exposed a
problem in its naming. The ''gdl 0.9-0.pre6.fc9'' package bad been
bumped to ''0.9-1.pre6.fc9'' and Orion noted that it should have been
''0.9-0.pre6.fc9.1''. MichaelSchwendt corrected[2] the original
numbering to ''0.9-0.1.pre6%{?dist}''.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01657.ht…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01660.ht…
After JesseKeating agreed with Michael and pointed out that packages
which fail to follow the guidelines will be missed by the bumper
attention was drawn[3] to the jpp-based java packages by MattWringe.
Matt noted that they seemed to have all failed to update properly, yet
were following the JPackage naming guidelines. Michael asked[4]
whether the original BillNottingham / ElliotLee (sopwith) script in
cvs/fedora, used by the old FedoraExtras, was used as "if a different
and secret script is used, that's not helpful." Jesse responded[5]
that it was one from ''cvs/fedora/rebuild-scripts'' and asked for
details of failed jpp packages because the ones which he had examined
seemed fine. KevinKofler reported that they were bumped to
''m+1jpp.something'' instead of ''mjpp.n+1'' to which Michael
replied[6] that this was now a supported scheme in cvs. In discussion
with Kevin further details of the bumper were explained by Michael.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01957.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01968.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01969.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01985.ht…
=== GCC 4.3 Mass Rebuild ===
The announcement that a mass rebuild using ''GCC-4.3'' was made[1] on
18 February 2008 by JesseKeating. JoshBoyer sounded[2] happy that
blacklist requests (by the owners of packages which were known in
advance to fail to rebuild) would no longer be accepted.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01597.ht…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01601.ht…
JoshBoyer in response to DenisLeroy stated[3] that the algorithm was
to "rebuild all except blacklisted AND already rebuilt with gcc 4.3".
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01582.ht…
PERL packages were thought[4] by PaulHowarth to be a problem as he had
been waiting for an update to ''PERL 5.10'' in the buildroots before
he built his packages. Josh answered[5] that such packages would be
rebuilt twice: once now and then another time when the PERL update
landed. TomCallaway issued[6] a mea culpa for the lack of a PERL
update.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01584.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01590.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg01614.ht…
[[Anchor(Documentation)]]
== Documentation ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
Contributing Writer: JohnBabich
=== Generating PDFs with Publican ===
JaredSmith has been testing Publican with a few Fedora Project
documents. He stated [1] that he kept "getting errors from FOP when I
try to build PDFs." He later added [2] "I think I've made some pretty
good progress on tracking down this problem. To make a long short,
publican is assuming that we're using FOP 0.20, while what's in
rawhide is 0.94. This meant xsltproc was adding fox:destination
elements to the .fo file, instead of the new fo:bookmarks instead."
To work around this problem, he modified xsltproc parameters in the
Makefile. ...That got the .fo file generated so that FOP 0.94 would
handle it correctly, but then FOP died complaining that it couldn't
find Batik in the classpath...Ah, lo and behold, I was able to render
a PDF!"
He added that this "raised a few questions:
1) Do we want the toolchain to be able to detect the version of FOP
and adjust itself accordingly?
2) Do we want to expose other parameters to xsltproc? In my very
rudimentary home-grown toolchain, I create a custom XSLT stylesheet
that exposes a bunch of settings (paper.type, double.sided,
draft.mode, shade.verbatim, etc.) which imports the standard XSL
stylesheet. Would this be more manageable in the long run that
passing a bunch of stringparam arguments to xsltproc?
3) Makefile.templates currently tells FOP to use the fop configuration
file in $(COMMON_CONFIG)/fop/fop-0.20.5.xconf, but that doesn't come
as part of the publican package. Should we remove the reference (and
assume people have a valid FOP config file in /etc/fop.conf), or
expose this via a variable in the Makefile? (This isn't a big deal --
I just thought I'd mention it in passing while I was thinking about
it.)
4) Can somebody take a look at why fop isn't seeing batik in the
classpath? My Java skills are obviously too weak to fix this
problem."
JeffFearn, one of main developers of Publican, replied [3] that there
were differences introduced by using different versions of FOP and
that customization of brands at this stage is difficult. However,
there are ways to customize PDF output by making a new xsl files. It
is possible to add extra build targets, but it's a little tricky since
it involves modifyng Makefiles. Jeff later announced [4] "I came up
with a way that can support an arbitrary number of config files".
Jared responded [5] "I currently have FOP 0.94 working just fine with
Publican in Rawhide, with the exception of support for SVG graphics."
KarstenWade reminded [6] the team "IIRC, Batik originally had some
dependencies for graphics processing that couldn't be cleanly
included under IcedTea. It may not yet be able to process SVG?"
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00102.html
[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00103.html
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00104.html
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00119.html
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00121.html
[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00123.html
=== F9 Toolchain ===
KarstenWade writes [1]
While all this toolchain talk is in the air ...
We've got several major activities going on that are relying upon our
current-and-working toolchain:
* Release notes need to build properly by 16 March...
* Updates to existing guides (IG, SMG) by mid-March...
* New guides going into Beta in March (DUG, AG)
Beyond being confident the guides can build cleanly, which Jared has
demonstrated in the one case, we need to know that they can match
whatever MUST list we put
together. Some SHOULD items are OK, too.
For starters:
* Must be possible to go from Wiki to usable XML with similar
process/hassle as current pathway
* Must be able to pull book from CVS and build in Fedora 8 and Fedora
9 tests (Alpha, Beta, RC, Sulphur)
- follows the tradition of not requiring docs tools to work for Fedora N-1
* Should be able to build in Fedora 7
* Must produce PO files that are line-for-line identical to the one
produced in the last version
- this is to minimize re-translation or having to re-check already
translated strings on content that is already translated (IG,
Relnotes)
* Must process PO and POT so as to not put a burden on translation and
Transifex (line-for-line identical or close enough)
* Must be usable by Release Engineering in composing the build
* Must be hostable by Fedora Infrastructure for Docs, L10n, or
Rel``Eng build systems
* Must have a reliable upstream, should be relied upon for at least 12 months
* Must have a packager who affirms to maintain the package, should be
affirmed for at least 12 months
* Should build RPMs that match the RPM capability of /cvs/docs
- need to list these out
Anything else?
MarcWiriadisastra mentioned [2] that he "would love to be able to
transfer to xml as in know how to transfer to xml so I can actually
work on the DuG. It's at the stage were it is edit ready so the reason
why there hasn't been any discussion is because I have no idea of how
to proceed from now." Karsten said [3] he was waiting for the "CVS
module and bugzilla component." Marc asked where the style guide was
located, to which Karsten cheerfully replied.
JaredSmith responded [4] that "Just to be clear... I'm *not* pushing
for a change to a new toolchain before F9. I think it would be
awfully rash of us to do so at this point in the game. I also don't
want anybody to mistake my enthusiasm for publican as somehow knocking
the current tool chain. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know
the current tool chain very well. Additionally, I don't think we've
tested publican enough (as far as the translations go, especially) to
know whether or not it's a good fit for what we do. What I *am*
enthusiastic about is how quickly publican allows people to hit the
ground running, especially those who are new to DocBook and their tool
chains. If I had to prognosticate at this point, I'd say that in two
years' time, we'll have taken the best pieces of publican and the
current tool chain and welded them together."
Jared also asked [5] for feedback on his conversion of the Software
Management Guide using Publican.
Karsten concluded [6] that "clearly, the interest in publican and it's
(apparent) ease to get started with an XML book is a feature we've
been missing in the Fedora Docs toolchain. Honestly, though, we have
been pursuing the higher gain. Across open source projects, the wiki
is where the developers and other contributors do their community
documentation. When we focused exclusively on XML, we had very
interested or enabled contributors.
Some years back I spoke with the Mozilla Dev documentation folks, who
had then changed from DocBook XML to a fully wiki-based
system...Switching to the wiki, they saw 10x increase from developers,
even the ones who knew DocBook well enough. In addition, many new
contributors came in to help, which increased the editorial and
content group.
It's unclear to me how much these features of publican matter to
Fedora Docs. For example, the people who have dropped by #fedora-docs
looking for publican help seem to be working on their own content.
While maintaining tools that allow the creation of free content is a
part of the Docs charter, it's definitely a lower priority than
enabling Fedora contributors to create content for Fedora. Right now
that means helping to maintain the wiki:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/WikiGardening
Finally, he agreed with Jared that an open community development for
Publican from this point forward is definitely to be desired.
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00122.html
[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00124.html
[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00128.html
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00125.html
[5] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00126.html
[6] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00131.html
[[Anchor(Infrastructure)]]
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
Contributing Writer: HuzaifaSidhpurwala
=== Koji Bandaid ===
MikeMcGrath writes[1],
The Koji builders don't check back in automatically when they lose a
connection to the host. Mike put a script to fix it. The script could
be run as a cron job or as nagios event. The problem is that we don't
have currently, nagios take an action when an event occurs.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
=== news.fp.o ===
JonathanRoberts writes[3],
There is an open ticket [2] for news.fedoraproject.org site but
unfortunately it's not been
updated in the past 4 months. There was some discussion about what
news software to use and if wordpress will do the trick.
[2] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/178
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
=== Mailman List Policy for Fedora Hosted ===
JeffreyOllie writes[4],
Since we have most of the technical bits in place for Mailman for
Fedora Hosted. Now we just need to figure out a few policy items like
who can request a list etc.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
[[Anchor(Artwork)]]
== Artwork ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
Contributing Writer: NicuBuculei
=== Theming the distro: the new GDM ===
Theming the distro requires multiple graphics, not only a background
wallpaper, and with the fast changed in Fedora there are some areas
not fully documented. Such one is the new GDM (GNOME Display Manager),
and after some incertitude on the fedora-art list[1], NicuBuculei
takes the problem to the fedora-desktop-list[2], where he receive a
comprehensive answer about the status from WilliamJonMcCann: while the
feature was reverted in GNOME 2.22 due to time constraints, there is
enough time until the Fedora 9 release, and this feature[3] is still
on track for inclusion, another fine example of Fedora leading the
innovation.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-February/msg00175.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2008-February/msg00042.…
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewGdm
=== EeeDora Artwork ===
Among the many Fedora derivatives, EeeDora[1] is a customization of
the distribution for the very popular Eee PC. On the fedora-art
list[2] ValentTurkovic urges the team to take into consideration
that's laptop unusual screen size when creating the graphics for the
upcoming Fedora 9, to have a good experience for the users of such
hardware platforms.
[1] http://eeedora.rmbsanalytics.com/
( Editor's Note: the site was down at the time of editing. See
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/eeedora:installing )
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-February/msg00171.html
[[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]]
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
Contributing Writer: JoshBressers
=== CUPS flaw ===
A rather scary looking bug was noticed in CUPS last week:
CUPS "process_browse_data()" Double Free Vulnerability[1]
This is always one of the things that makes security and Open Source
quite the challenge, yet also something positive. This bug was
reported to the CUPS project in January, but nobody noticed until last
week that it was even there. In a closed source project, a bug such as
this would probably go unnoticed, and never be called a security
issue. The "many eyes" aspect of Open Source is what got this noticed,
and thanks to Secunia, the various interested vendors shipping a
vulnerable version of CUPS were able to apply the fix to keep their
users secure.
[1] http://secunia.com/advisories/28994/
=== Disk Encryption Isn't So Safe ===
New Research Result: Cold Boot Attacks on Disk Encryption[1]
This research paper is quite brilliant, while also being amazingly
simply when you really think about it. It's never been a secret that
RAM can hold its contents for an extended period of time. It's assumed
that it should be possible to inspect RAM under an electron microscope
and reveal the previous contents long after a machine has been powered
off. The scary thing about this paper is that simply quickly
rebooting a machine should make it quite possible to extract previous
RAM contents.
While I don't think it's worth building a bomb shelter in your
backyard over this, any paranoid tech traveler should be aware of this
paper.
[1] http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1257
[[Anchor(SecurityAdvisories)]]
== Security Advisories ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 8 Security Advisories ===
* pcre-7.3-3.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* moin-1.5.8-4.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
=== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ===
* moin-1.5.8-4.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
[[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]]
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various Projects and SIGs.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2008-02-19 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2008-02-19
=== Fedora Community Architecture Meeting 2008-02-18 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityArchitecture/Meetings/2008-02-18
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2008-02-20 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00120.html
=== Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2008-02-21 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
=== Fedora Bug Zappers Meeting 2008-02-20 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Agenda-2008-Feb-20
=== Fedora SIG EPEL Report Week 07/2008 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/Reports/Week07
=== Fedora SIG KDE Report Week 2008-02-19 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE/Meetings/2008-02-19
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
To support the 10th anniversary of LWN.net, the Fedora Project has
purchased 65 subscriptions to be given to Fedora contributors.
The Fedora Board has decided that the fairest way to distribute this
windfall of subscriptions is by holding an open lottery for all Fedora
contributors who have an active account in the Fedora Account System
(as of Feb 1st, 2008). I will be taking requests from all such
interested Fedora contributors for the next week. If you are
interested in making a request, here is what you need to do:
Send an email to: jspaleta(a)fedoraproject.org
Subject: LWN Subscription request
Please include the following:
* Your Fedora Account System username
* Your full name as it appears in the Fedora Account System
* Your LWN account name (you'll need to create an account with LWN
before sending in the request for a subscription)
Please have all requests in by March 1st, 2008.
-jef"The Man...agement"spaleta
The next North American FUDCon will be in Boston, MA. It will be held
from June 19-21, in parallel with this year's Red Hat Summit.
For information and to sign up:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConF10
Thanks,
Max
Hello Fedora,
I would like to announce a new Special Interest Group in the Fedora
Community, The Fedora Amateur Radio SIG or Fedora-Hams for short.
I wanted to start the SIG to get radio related software in to Fedora, as
it turns out there is a bunch of this type of software in every major
distro but Fedora.
We have been busy this past week submitting packages for review, most of
them have been accepted and are now in Fedora, more waiting for reviews
and more that still need packaging to be finished. On my
FedoraPeople.org page I have a list of the packages in fedora, in
review, in progress and dreams.
We have a wiki page, a mailing list hosted by FedoraUnity.org and an IRC
channel (#fedora-hams) on Freenode.net. Stop in an say 'Hi'
73,
Robert 'Bob' Jensen
KC0WYC
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BobJensenhttp://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIG/AmatuerRadiohttp://bjensen.fedorapeople.org/pkgs/hams/http://lists.fedoraunity.org/mailman/listinfo/fedora-hams
Hi everybody,
now, I am able to announce the establishment of an Education SIG. I have
created a wiki page, which is currently placed here [1].
Again, I would like to encourage everybody, who is interested in
education to join us on fedora-education-list and to add his or her name
to the list in the wiki.
In the near future, one topic might be, how to go on with educational
work (e.g. in connection with K12LTSP). But this is only one part, so
feel free to join and discuss.
Best Regards,
Sebastian Dziallas
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Education
Hello Friends,
I am pleased to announce the immediate release of a brand new and
sparkling, Fedora 8 Xfce Spin. Fedora Xfce Spin is a bootable Fedora
Live CD image available for x86 and x86_64 architecture. It can be
optionally installed to hard disk or converted into boot USB images and
is ideal for Xfce fans and for users running Fedora on relatively low
resource systems. As a additional bonus, this release rolls in updates
for Fedora 8 released till yesterday (2008/02/12).
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment available in Fedora. Designed
for productivity, it loads and executes applications fast, while
conserving system resources. More information at http://xfce.org
== Download ==
Torrent only download available at http://spins.fedoraproject.org/
== Feedback ==
We value your feedback highly. Send all your feedback and suggestions to
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
== Release Highlights ==
=== Xfce 4.4.2 ===
This release includes the latest Xfce release, 4.4.2 that integrates
many new features and bug fixes. More information is available
[http://www.xfce.org/about/news?id=13 here]. Along with the basic Xfce
desktop environment, Thunar file manager and a comprehensive set of
plugins and additional Xfce utilities like Xarchiver archive manager and
Orage calendar application is included. All available languages in
Fedora has also been integrated with this release.
=== Major Desktop Applications ===
This release includes a number of major desktop applications including:
* Firefox 2.0 Web browser
* Claws Mail
* Pidgin Instant Messenger
* Brasero CD/DVD Burner
* Tracker Desktop Search
* NetworkManager
* Totem With Browser Plugin
* Java With Browser Plugin
=== Office Software ===
* Abiword Word Processor
* Gnumeric Spreadsheet Application
* Evince PDF viewer
=== Accessories ===
* Geany Basic Integrated Development Environment(IDE)
* Galculator Scientific Calculator
* Gftp FTP Client
* Mirage Image Viewer
=== Command Line Utilities ===
Several small but useful command line utilities are included too! Major
highlights include:
* Mutt mail client
* Irssi Modular IRC Client
* Yum-utils: A collection of very useful yum utilities
* Powertop: Power Consumption Monitor For Laptop Users
== Release Notes ==
Release notes for Fedora is available for your reference at
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/
== Create Your Own Fedora! ==
The kickstart file used to create this spin is available at
http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/livecd-fedora-8-xfce.ks. If you
wish to create your own spin locally or customize this to suit your
needs, refer http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo.
---
Rahul Sundaram
= Fedora Weekly News Issue 119 =
Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 119 for the week of February 4th,
2008. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue119
In Announcements, we have "Announcing Fedora 9 Alpha", "Fedora 9 Alpha
Jigdo" and "Fedora 8 20080204 Re-Spin"
In Planet Fedora, we have "A word of thanks", "Happy 10th Birthday,
Open Source!", "Field report from GNUnify 2008", "SCALE 6x: I'm Here -
Saturday in Review", "SCALE 6x: cally four nya" and "Fedora
General-Purpose Posters Part 2"
To join or give us your feedback, please visit
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.
1. Announcements
1. Announcing Fedora 9 Alpha
2. Fedora 9 Alpha Jigdo
3. Fedora 8 20080204 Re-Spin
2. Planet Fedora
1. A word of thanks
2. Happy 10th Birthday, Open Source!
3. Field report from GNUnify 2008
4. SCALE 6x: I'm Here - Saturday in Review
5. SCALE 6x: cally four nya
6. Fedora General-Purpose Posters Part 2
3. Marketing
1. Store SIG Update - a.k.a. State of the SIG
2. Generic Fedora Poster Designs for Events
3. Fedora Project releases alpha version of Fedora 9
4. Fedora 9 Alpha Preview
5. Fedora 9 Alpha - digg it
4. Ambassadors
1. LinuxTag 2008 Preparations
2. Fedora EMEA Board Elections
5. Developments
1. Baracuda To Replace VNC ?
2. Sins Of Commission: Google Earth
3. Autodownloader vs. CodecBuddy
4. The Point Of Mock
5. Glade 2 And Glade 3 Co-existence
6. Dropping FUSE Group? Security Concerns
6. Advisory Board
1. Where's All The Fedora Spins?
2. Fedora Education Spin, SIG
7. Documentation
1. Meeting to Discuss Publican
2. Encryption and Privacy Guide Input
3. Single-sourced Summary
4. Works in Progress
8. Infrastructure
1. Moin 1.6
2. Torent tracker/primary seed software
3. Moin 2.0 (or as I call it, mediawiki)
9. Artwork
1. F9 Theme: Round 2 extension
2. Promotional graphics: banners and posters
10. Security Week
1. New Firefox
2. How Does SELinux Work?
11. Security Advisories
1. Fedora 8 Security Advisories
2. Fedora 7 Security Advisories
12. Events and Meetings
1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2008-02-06
2. Fedora Community Architecture Meeting 2008-02-04
3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2008-02-05
4. Fedora Localization/Translation Meeting 2008-02-05
5. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2008-02-04
6. Fedora Quality Assurance Meeting 2008-02-06
7. Fedora Bug Zappers Meeting 2008-02-06
8. Fedora SIG EPEL Report Week 06/2008
9. Fedora SIG KDE Report Week 06/2008
13. Ask Fedora
1. Bluetooth And Fedora: Followup
2. Prayer Time: Followup
[[Anchor(Announcements)]]
== Announcements ==
In this section, we cover announcements from Fedora Project.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Announcing Fedora 9 Alpha ===
JesseKeating announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"The Alpha release provides the first opportunity for the wider
community to become involved with the testing of Rawhide: representing
a sanitised snapshot of Fedora's development branch, which sees rapid
changes and will become the next major release, it should boot on the
majority of systems, providing both an opportunity to get a look at
what new features will be included in the next release and also an
opportunity to provide feedback and bug reports to help ensure that the
next release is as good as possible."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00001…
=== Fedora 9 Alpha Jigdo ===
JeroenVanMeeuwen announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"Fedora Unity announces the Fedora 9 Alpha release is now also
available via Jigdo. Jigdo saves you a lot of bandwidth and time if
you already have the data (maybe a local mirror or previously released
media), and has been proposed as a feature for Fedora 9."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00002…
=== Fedora 8 20080204 Re-Spin ===
BenWilliams announces in fedora-announce-list[1],
"The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the release of new ISO
Re-Spins (DVD and CD Sets) of Fedora 8. These Re-Spin ISOs are based
on the officially released Fedora 8 installation media and include all
updates released as of February 4,2008. The ISO images are available
for i386 and x86_64 architectures via jigdo starting Thursday,
February 7, 2008. We have included CD Image sets for those in the
Fedora community that do not have DVD drives or burners available."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-February/msg00003…
[[Anchor(PlanetFedora)]]
== 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
=== A word of thanks ===
MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1],
"I would like to give some public thanks to JeffreyTadlock for the
work that he has done with the Store SIG. I started the Store SIG a
few months ago when I had some extra time, and as an attempt to bring
some sanity to the problems of distributing swag globally, both for
individuals and events."
[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/44818.html
=== Happy 10th Birthday, Open Source! ===
JohnBabich points out in his blog[1],
"Bruce Perens published the Open Source Definition on 9 February,
1998. He commemorates the event in ''State of Open Source Message: A
New Decade For Open Source''. This is a great article and should be
read in its entirety by anyone who appreciates Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS)."
[1] http://jmbuser.livejournal.com/9080.html
=== Field report from GNUnify 2008 ===
SankarshanMukhopadhyay points out in his blog[1],
"As promised earlier, here's a quick round-up of the event.
I spent the entire two days on 8th and 9th (of February, 2008) at
GNUnify 2008. I did not have any specific talks to attend and went
more to find out for myself about all the good stuff that I have heard
till date about this event. Sayamindu had come down (he had a talk on
OLPC) and so on Day 1 of the event we started a bit late and gate
crashed into Brian Behlendorf's talk related to 10 things about Open
Source. A fairly straight forward talk introducing Open Source to the
hall full of students it also had the old dogs indulging in some back
seat fun."
[1] http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2008/02/10/field-report-from-gnunify-2…
=== SCALE 6x: I'm Here - Saturday in Review ===
ClintSavage reports in his blog[1],
"Just left Jono Bacon's presentation on ''The future of the Linux
Desktop''. He's quite an awesome presenter. Afterward, I went down to
the exhibit floor and got to say hi to TomCallaway and actually met
ThomasChung from the Fedora Project. Both of these guys have such
exuberance and joy, I love being part of the fedora project."
[1] http://fedora-tutorials.com/2008/02/10/scale-6x-im-here-saturday-in-review/
=== SCALE 6x: cally four nya ===
TomCallaway reports in his blog[1],
"Here I am, in Los Angeles, at SCALE 6x. I've never been to SCALE
before, but I'm really impressed. Its this mix of extinct old school
Linux conferences like ALS and LinuxExpo, trade shows like Comdex, and
smart tech conferences like OSCON. Amazingly, they're pulling it off
really well. There are just a lot of smart people and a lot of curious
people, and a really vibrant feeling to it that can't help but get you
excited about it. I'm not sure if the fact that it is in LA Is helping
the effect, or merely making it more unique. In the last two days,
I've met more people than I could possibly remember, and observed some
of the ''behind-the-scene'' workings of the open source community that
I've always been aware of, but never invited to participate in."
[1] http://spot.livejournal.com/288127.html
=== Fedora General-Purpose Posters Part 2 ===
MairinDuffy points out in her blog[1],
"Thanks to everybody who helped me out with the poster design here in
my blog and in fedora-marketing-list. I think this cut is pretty good
so if you are willing to translate the poster into another language or
if you would simply like to have it printed up, it's ready now."
[1] http://mihmo.livejournal.com/52993.html
[[Anchor(Marketing)]]
== Marketing ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Store SIG Update - a.k.a. State of the SIG ===
JeffreyTadlock reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"It is time for a Fedora Store SIG update! To bring people up to
speed, the Fedora Store SIG was founded by Max Spevack as a means to
solve two major issues - provide an easy way for Fedora users and
contributors to obtain Fedora merchandise and help direct Fedora
Ambassadors to vendors that are near them who can help fill bulk
orders for events they attend. More details can be found on the
Fedora SIG page."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg0021…
=== Generic Fedora Poster Designs for Events ===
MairinDuffy reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"I've updated the posters using the color suggestions from JohnAdams
and the text [:PaulWFrields: PaulFrields] gave me in my blog (with one
minor mod) and some layout suggestions from RobinNorwood in IRC (the
original design had the infinity sign flattened, it's readjusted to
resemble its position in the logo and some of the sizing of the logo
elements is changed.)"
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg0020…
=== Fedora Project releases alpha version of Fedora 9 ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"The GNOME programs in the alpha version of Fedora 9 are derived from
the 2.21 development branch from which GNOME 2.22 should be emerging
in mid March. The browser will be a preview version of Firefox 3, the
core rendering elements of which are in a separate XULRunner package.
Preview versions of other applications such as OpenOffice 2.4 or
X-Server 1.5 are also used. The development team have also improved
the installation program so that existing ext2, ext3 and NTFS
partitions can now be reduced in size. In addition, it is now possible
to create encrypted Linux partitions directly during installation."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg0021…
=== Fedora 9 Alpha Preview ===
RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Among the features being worked on are encrypted file-system support,
updating the KDE spin to KDE 4.0, PackageKit integration, and
switching to upstart initialization. In this article, we are taking a
brief look at Fedora 9 Alpha and the features planned for Fedora 9."
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg0006…
=== Fedora 9 Alpha - digg it ===
JonathanRoberts reports in fedora-marketing-list[1],
"Now that the Alpha is out and the release notes[2] are no longer a
draft, how about we try and get it a bit of attention... If you find
the information in the article useful, then why not drop by digg[3]
and give it a vote :)"
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2008-February/msg0005…
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/9/Alpha/ReleaseNotes
[3] http://digg.com/linux_unix/Fedora_9_Sulphur_Alpha_Released
[[Anchor(Ambassadors)]]
== Ambassadors ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
Contributing Writer: JeffreyTadlock
=== LinuxTag 2008 Preparations ===
MaxSpevack posted to the Ambassadors list [1] asking for Ambassadors
attending LinuxTag 2008, May 28th to the 31st, to add your name to the
LinuxTag Rooms sign-up [2]. This is only for Ambassadors attending
LinuxTag and the entire bill may not be compensated.
Also posted to the Ambassadors list [3] was a call for participation
and preliminary look at what is lined up for LinuxTag by Gerold
Kassube. Highlights at LinuxTag are to inlude a troubleshooting
contest, a mini-FUDcon, Fedora on a Mac, X-Box, OLPC, Eee-PC, a Fedora
9 showroom, meet the developer and more.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-February/msg00…
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/LinuxTag/LinuxTag2008/Rooms
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-February/msg00…
=== Fedora EMEA Board Elections ===
FrancescoUgolini posted [1] an announcement of the first Fedora EMEA
board elections. Nominations are being accepted February 9th through
February 21st, with the election being held at FOSDEM 2008 on February
23rd. Additional information and the nomination page are available on
the wiki [2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-February/msg00…
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/EMEA/BoardElections
[[Anchor(Developments)]]
== 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: OisinFeeley
=== Baracuda To Replace VNC ? ===
A query as to the status of the replacement of ''vnc'' by ''baracuda''
(note the single "r") in Fedora 9 was posted[1] by MikeC. Mike was
concerned that there was no mention of either in the feature list and
especially wanted to preserve the ability to load a vnc module in
Xorg.conf so that the screen could be viewed remotely even without a
user logging in via the display manager.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00254.ht…
Several replies focused on the client end of the equation and ignored
the server part. DanielBerrange pointed out[2] that for GNOME the
''vinagre'' package is superior to the old RealVNC ''vncviewer'' as it
can handle ''gnome-keyring'', ''avahi'' discovery and bookmarking of
connections. KevinKofler and BenjaminKreuter responded[3] that on the
KDE desktop the same functionality is provided by ''Krfb''. Benjamin
hoped that ''vncviewer'' was going to be maintained in the
repositories as there were scripts which depended on it. AdamTkac
responded to DanielBerrange that the focus of ''baracuda'' was to
produce a standalone Xvnc server with a libvnc.so module built against
Xorg 1.5 and that the client was subsidiary.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00259.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00266.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00337.ht…
Mike pointed out[5] that a user needed to be logged in before ''krfb''
could be run and that his use case involved remote logins.
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00274.ht…
AdamTkac, responding[6] directly to the original mail, gave an update
on ''baracuda'', explaining that it was a fork forced by the need to
have an Xorg-1.5 based vncserver and that the original upstream
(RealVNC) were not maintaining the source. This is probably because
they also sell an "enterprise" edition. The current Xvnc has thus
accumulated a significant number of patches which Adam ,as Fedora
maintainer, judged unacceptable. Seemingly other projects had made
the same determination and once Adam announced[7] the Fedora fork the
TightVNC project expressed[8] interest in merging his work and it
seems this is going ahead. Mike greeted this good news with thanks to
Adam for his work.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00334.ht…
[7] http://www.realvnc.com/pipermail/vnc-list/2008-February/058598.html
[8] http://www.realvnc.com/pipermail/vnc-list/2008-February/058619.html
=== Sins Of Commission: Google Earth ===
A plea for the packaging of Google Earth[1] was made by
DouglasMcClendon. He explained that he was short of time but thought
it ought to be easy for someone to whip up a ''kickstart'' ''%post''
scriptlet to install Google Earth. A quick response from
ChristopherBrown declined to attempt to package non-Free software:
"When [G]oogle actually release something open source other than
obscure OCR software that sucks anyway I'll be more than happy to work
a bit harder on stuff like that." Christopher's comment became the
focal point of the thread which echoed long-standing unease with
Google Earth's non-Free binaries, its reliance upon further non-Free
video-card drivers and its restrictive licensing terms on its data[2].
Douglas clarified[3] that what he was interested in was copying
Debian's approach which is to use a properly licensed script which
grabs the non-Free code, turns it into an rpm and then installs it.
[1] http://earth.google.com/
[2] http://lwn.net/Articles/211153/
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00367.ht…
Christopher made it clear[4] that he was aware that what Douglas was
requesting might not be so different from the ''autodownload''
scriptlets on the Fedora Games DVD which pull non-Free game data and
asked how far down the slippery slope it was proposed to travel. He
described[5] the method as a circumvention of Fedora policy.
AndrewFarris agreed[6] that the package should not be in the Fedora
repositories but did wish that someone would package it in some other
repository. He also disagreed that Google Earth and the
''autodownload'' scripts were the same as in the former case the
actual program code is unavailable whereas in the latter the code is
available and all that is missing is some data. Douglas largely
agreed, suggested[7] the Livna repository as a good place and wished
that someone would port NASA's ''worldwind''[8].
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00368.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00371.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00374.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00378.ht…
[8] http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/index.html
ToshioKuratomi summed up[9] the situation concisely and noted that
HansdeGoede 's script was "controversial". TomCallaway's opinion
was[10] that the distinction between data and code was a fine, but
important one and OlivierGalibert thinned it even further when he
asked[11] "How much of this data is code for a virtual machine?".
Further exploration led ChristopherAillon to state that the games
supplied are supposed to have enough data to be somewhat useful
without the restricted data and KevinKofler to state[12] that in
practice this was not the case. Kevin listed several possible problems
in this regard and suggested that anyone objecting should take it up
with FESCo.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00373.ht…
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00393.ht…
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00394.ht…
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00423.ht…
The situation, as described, was thought by JesseKeating to be
unacceptable and Toshio responded[13] that if FESCo were going to
revisit the issue then it would be wise and fair to ensure that Hans
were available during the discussion as he was shouldering the burden
of any work and needed to understand the requirements. Responding to a
request from TomCallaway for specifics, KevinKofler ran a quick
{{{repoquery --whatrequires autodownloader}}} and listed[14] five
games which have licenses which restrict the distribution of their
data and are useless without it. AlanCox did not think the situation
was so clear cut and posited[15] that a better test was to ask
"whether it is possible to produce new free data sets for [such
tools]." He later expanded[16] upon this with examples and with the
correction that the important condition was "practicality" rather than
"possibility."
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00471.ht…
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00481.ht…
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00519.ht…
[16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00623.ht…
=== Autodownloader vs. CodecBuddy ===
A thread to specifically discuss the ethical and practical problems
posed by the use of ''autodownloader'' (see this FWN#119 "Sins Of
Commission: Google Earth") was opened[1] by HansdeGoede. Hans
explained that his own guideline for the use of autodownloader was
that it was "only for content [...] for Free engines." He thought that
while CodecBuddy (also known as Codeina[2]) was included in the
distribution it was hypocritical to worry about autodownloader. He
emphasized that Codeina downloads closed-source code and also offers
the user the option to purchase said code, effectively advertising
closed-source.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00476.ht…
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/Codeina
A longish sub-thread started[3] by JakubRusinek worked over the
exhausted topic of whether or not Codeina/CodecBuddy can do anything
further to facilitate the installation of possibly patent-encumbered
codecs. There was nothing particularly new to see here, with the
situation remaining as it has since the last opinion from Red Hat
"legal" which implies that the current web page can obliquely explain
the problem but needs to beware of contributory infringement.
RahulSundaram supplied[4] a link to the relevant post. Unless the
interpretation of software as both machine and copyrightable work (see
AlanCox's post[5]) in the U.S.A. were to be miraculously overthrown
then such discussion appears moot, as do comparisons to the non-US
based Canonical.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00480.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00540.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00523.ht…
A bizarrely formatted post made by TrondDanielsen suggested[6] that
the pursuit of the Online Desktop[7] was another example of the
hypocrisy and grey areas to which Hans had alluded. MatejCepl
reacted[8] harshly, rebutting Trond's assertion that there was a
partnership with Google, or that the purpose was to integrate Flickr
and Google with the rest of the desktop. Trond's civil,
self-deprecating response explained[9] that "The purpose of the
argument was that Fedora already depend on proprietary services and
software which makes the argument against the autodownloader invalid"
but HorstvonBrand undermined[10] the validity of the argument and
explained that while a daily beating with the cluestick may be
beneficial to recipients it is tiring for the administrator.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00492.ht…
[7] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureOnlineDesktop
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00545.ht…
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00558.ht…
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00570.ht…
There were several voices raised in favor of removing
Codeina/CodecBuddy. Among them were Dexter[11] and KevinKofler[12].
Kevin added that web browsers should be prevented from offering to
install the proprietary flash plugins as there was a Yum repository
facilitating cleaner installs. JefSpaleta grew tired[13] of the
strained comparisons between different pieces of software. ChrisAdams
thought that picking on Adobe's Flash (especially when they provide
such a repository) would prevent him from being able to use Fedora in
his job. He pointed out that ''swfdec'' and other free software Flash
players cannot support MP3 audio until possibly 2017. BrianPepple
pointed[14] out that the gstreamer plugin was available, just not
included in Fedora due to legal reasons and so the thread came full
circle to the issue of licensing. Rahul provided links and
wondered[15] if this conversation had to occur every few weeks.
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00479.ht…
[12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00544.ht…
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00588.ht…
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00648.ht…
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00673.ht…
=== The Point Of Mock ===
An interesting short thread was started[1] by KellyMiller
(lightsolphoenix). Kelly sought advice on how to write the spec file
for a KDE3 package destined for both Fedora 8 and rawhide now that the
package names have changed. IgnacioVazquezAbrams suggested[2] using a
''%{dist}'' tag and JarodWilson added[3] that BuildRequires did not
need to be versioned to catch devel packages less than version 3.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00286.ht…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00287.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00290.ht…
As a subsidiary issue Kelly mentioned[4] that there seemed to be
problems with the ability of ''mock'' to build x86_64 packages. Jarod
and Jesse both wondered whether he was on an x86 machine and it seemed
that he was. Kelly mused[5] "I was under the impression that the
whole point of using Mock was to handle that situation". Jesse
responded[6] "No, the whole point of mock is to create clean chroots
each time you want to build. The x86_64 platforms ability to run i386
code is a side effect." KevinKofler observed[7] that running ''qemu''
allowed (at the expense of a massive speed penalty) the building of
x86_64 code on an i386 platform.
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00297.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00329.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00331.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00347.ht…
=== Glade 2 And Glade 3 Co-existence ===
DebarshiRay (rishi) drew attention[1] to the dependency of the latest
''anjuta'' on ''glade3''[2] and requested that the replacement of
''glade2'' by ''glade3'' be considered. Debarshi thought this would
affect the Developer Live spin and the regular GNOME DVD spin.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00308.ht…
[2] Glade is a RAD tool to develop GTK GUIs: http://glade.gnome.org/
MatthiasClasen asked[3] whether ''glade3'' could handle all the files
produced by ''glade2''. TimWaugh confirmed[4] that although this
seemed to work he had seen problems with the converse, where files
touched or produced by ''glade3'' were not rendered correctly by
''glade2''.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00309.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00326.ht…
The suggestion by Debarshi that it might be prudent to split Anjuta up
or drop it entirely was thought[5] by Matthias not to be necessary as
the two glade versions might be able to co-exist. JeremyKatz was happy
that there was plenty of space on the DVD for both versions[6].
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00311.ht…
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00320.ht…
=== Dropping FUSE Group? Security Concerns ===
As the upcoming GNOME VFS will use FUSE as a backend PeterLemenkov
proposed[1] to drop the Fuse group as otherwise all users would need
to be added to this group. He asked for objections to be made known.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00237.ht…
Initial concern was expressed by WarrenTogami on the foot of the
affect this might have on KDE users. He also wondered how upgrades
would be affected. ThorstenLeemhuis asked[3] whether a security audit
had been conducted as he had suggested some time ago. KarelZak
reported[4] that MiklosSzeredi's work on a non-root-privileged mount
(which could be used by FUSE) was making its way into the --mm kernel
tree. He also made some interesting observations on the Fedora
Project package process. MattDomsch suggested[5] a Koji equivalent of
''rpmlint'' to search for suid problems.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00239.ht…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00240.ht…
[4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00278.ht…
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00442.ht…
AlexanderLarsson argued[6] that Thorsten's security worries were only
tangentially related to FUSE itself and had more to do with
inappropriate use of setuid. He added that SELinux policy for
''fusermount'' would be a possibly useful enhancement. Alex also
provided[7] the information that it was actually ''GVFS'', a
replacement to ''GNOME VFS'' which was under discussion and explained
its workings.
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00306.ht…
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00296.ht…
KevinKofler called[8] the FUSE group "plugdev reloaded" and outlined
the problem of having to add users manually.
[8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00382.ht…
Further questioning by Warren as to the implications of the change for
users of non-GNOME desktops drew[9] a reply from Alexander to the
effect that it was an orthogonal issue and Kevin provided some backing
on this point with the comparison of KIO functionality.
[9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00387.ht…
An excellent summary was made[10] by Alexander in which he pointed out
that FUSE provides desired features that GNOME and other software are
currently using and that Fedora's security fears will lead to either
"punching users in the face" by shipping a setup which they need to
correct manually or else just not shipping the software. SteveGrubb
replied[11] that the Common Criteria[12] evaluations were for specific
mounting mechanisms and that this new, parallel method might
necessitate Steve doing a lot of extra, unplanned work. A meaty,
information-filled series of posts followed. Alexander described[13],
in another excellent post, the benefits of FUSE, Steve pointed[14] to
a potential problem with SELinux auditing and wondered whether FUSE
was duplicating some pre-existing functionality in sharing files over
SSH, but without the benefit of auditing mechanisms. Alexander's last
mail[15] (as of publication date) was a detailed apparent rebuttal of
Steve's concerns which emphasized the role of FUSE in exposing
non-root users to filesystems which were otherwise awkward to access.
[10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00386.ht…
[11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00402.ht…
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Criteria
[13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00447.ht…
[14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00452.ht…
[15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-February/msg00457.ht…
[[Anchor(AdvisoryBoard)]]
== Advisory Board ==
In this section, we cover discussion in Fedora Advisory Board.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board
Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel
=== Where's All The Fedora Spins? ===
MikeMcGrath has asked on the fedora-advisory-board list where are all
of the Fedora re-spins?[1] To date there is just Fedora Games, Fedora
Developer, and Fedora Electronic Lab editions. JeffSpaleta had
responded saying that a number of localized editions are being worked
on, and an Xfce spin is being worked on but was facing technical
struggles that has been fixed recently. Jeff also highlighted that a
education spin has been proposed recently[2]. RahulSundaram had also
commented that Fedora Lite, Security Spin, and Fedora Art Studio are
also on the road-map.[3]
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2008-February/msg0004…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2008-February/msg0004…
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2008-February/msg0004…
=== Fedora Education Spin, SIG ===
AxelThimm had asked about establishing a SIG (Special Interest Group)
for those interested in bringing Fedora to schools[1]. Announced just
four days later, however, was a Fedora Education spin as well as
intending to form a Fedora Education SIG[2].
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2008-February/msg0002…
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2008-February/msg0006…
[[Anchor(Documentation)]]
== Documentation ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
Contributing Writer: JohnBabich
=== Meeting to Discuss Publican ===
PaulFrields asked [1]:
"Can Fedora Documentation folks be available next Wednesday evening
[13 February] after hours (EST) for an ad hoc meeting about the new RH
Docs team's "publican" documentation tools?
You'll especially want to attend if:
* You're on the [Fedora Docs] steering committee
* You do (or intend to) work on the Release Notes or other formal
documentation"
A time is being set for the meeting, keeping in mind that the Red Hat
Docs team is in Brisbane, Australia in the UTC+10 time zone.
Interested people should respond via the Fedora Docs mailing list by
Tuesday, 12 February, at the latest.
Note that "publican" does not refer to a tax collector or a pub owner.
Rather, Publican is a completely unencumbered FOSS tool chain for
producing documentation for open-source, as well as commercial,
software projects. Publican is composed of common files and scripts
for building documentation using the Doc``Book XML format.
[1]http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00051.ht…
=== Encryption and Privacy Guide Input ===
After he finished making updates to the Encryption and Privacy Guide
(EPG)[1] and requested input, EricChristensen responded [2] to
KarstenWade's remarks asking for more Fedora-specific content.
"Here is what I propose...
In order to provide a comprehensive guide that covers privacy and
encryption that is available to Fedora I think we should cover in
depth the Fedora-specific information while providing a summary and
alternate paths for getting information for items that are more
Linux-specific."
There is already non-Fedora-specific information in our Docs (like a
guide for using GPG ...[3]...) that could be rolled into the EPG as a
summary. This would allow a guide that would be encompassing while not
rewriting the book on everything security."
KarstenWade replied [4]:
"I don't see a problem with this idea. You understand what the catch
is and avoid it with the summary approach...One way we could help the
users is to identify the background they may want to skip and make it
easy for them to learn how to skip it."
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/CryptoGuide
[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00035.html
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg
[4] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00060.html
=== Single-sourced Summary ===
JonathanRoberts announced [1]: "We're going to try something new for
the various release notes / summaries / overviews and see how we go.
The plan...looks like this:
Create a wiki page...
Flesh out that page with sections for:
a) Press Release style summary
b) Detailed Overview covering all features on / Releases / # /
Feature List either alphabetically or by coolness...
c) Technical Summary - brief but aimed at tech journalists
d) Detailed Technical Summary - detailed and aimed at geeks, similar
to release notes content now.
...
The idea is that by developing all this in one location we won't
duplicate any work - we can see what is done and what's not done."
[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00050.html
=== Works in Progress ===
* Desktop User Guide (DUG)
* Administration Guide (AG)
The goal is to include both of the above guides in the official Fedora
9 release. They appear to be on track for inclusion in the March beta.
These, as well as other draft versions of documents, can be found in
the draft docs section of the wiki [1]. After joining the Docs Project
[2], feel free to work on any of these documents or create your own
Fedora-related doc.
[1] http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Join
[[Anchor(Infrastructure)]]
== Infrastructure ==
In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure
Contributing Writer: HuzaifaSidhpurwala
This section covers discussions on the fedora-infrastructure-list
between 4th Feb 2008 to 10th Feb 2008.
=== Moin 1.6 ===
MikeMcGrath reports [1]
Moin 1.6 was successfully installed and migrated for testing. This is
purely a test instance
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
=== Torent tracker/primary seed software ===
SethVidal reports [2]
We are setting up a new torrent tracker and are debating which tracker
software to use. The primary softwares which are being considered are
bittorrent, ctorrent and rtorrent.
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
=== Moin 2.0 (or as I call it, mediawiki) ===
MikeMcGrath reports [3]
Mike upgraded Moin 1.5.8 to mediawiki at
https://publictest1.fedoraproject.org/wiki/index.php/FedoraMain. There
is still some work to be done specially on the theme. However,
MediaWiki requires MySQL database so it's a bit complex than Moin.
Later in the thread there is some discussion about comparing both the
wikis.
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-February/ms…
[[Anchor(Artwork)]]
== Artwork ==
In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
Contributing Writer: NicuBuculei
=== F9 Theme: Round 2 extension ===
After a short debate on the mailing list [1]. the Art Team decided,
for various reasons, to extend the Round 2 for the Fedora 9 with one
week, so the new deadline is February 12. Some artists already took
advantage to this extension and updated their work [2], expect some
cool graphics for the next week,
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-February/msg00016.html
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F9Themes#Submissions
=== Promotional graphics: banners and posters ===
Part of the Art Team work is dedicated to produce good looking
marketing graphics. For the Alpha release the team has designed a
couple of website banners and it was a good opportunity to create a
banner archive [1] holding all the website banners created so far for
easy accessibility. In related art/marketing news, MairinDuffy
published a pack of general purpose posters [2], which were acclaimed
by the community.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/PromoBanners
[2] http://mihmo.livejournal.com/52591.html
[[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]]
== Security Week ==
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.
Contributing Writer: JoshBressers
=== New Firefox ===
This week Mozilla released a new version[1] of Firefox.
As usual it fixes some rather dangerous flaws.
[1] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html#firefox…
=== How Does SELinux Work? ===
I ran across this article[1] this week. it's not too shabby
explaining how SELinux works. It's a decent read for anyone
interested in this sort of thing.
[1] http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/s-selinux/?n-s-381
[[Anchor(SecurityAdvisories)]]
== Security Advisories ==
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora 8 Security Advisories ===
* perl-Tk-804.028-3.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* kernel-2.6.23.14-115.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* tk-8.4.17-2.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* gnumeric-1.6.3-14.fc8 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
=== Fedora 7 Security Advisories ===
* openldap-2.3.34-6.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* gnumeric-1.6.3-14.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* tk-8.4.13-7.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
* perl-Tk-804.028-3.fc7 -
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-February/msg00…
[[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]]
== Events and Meetings ==
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from
various Projects and SIGs.
Contributing Writer: ThomasChung
=== Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2008-02-06 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2008-02-06
=== Fedora Community Architecture Meeting 2008-02-04 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityArchitecture/Meetings/2008-02-04
=== Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2008-02-05 ===
* http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-February/msg00044.html
=== Fedora Localization/Translation Meeting 2008-02-05 ===
* https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2008-February/msg00009.ht…
=== Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2008-02-04 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/Meetings/2008-feb-04
=== Fedora Quality Assurance Meeting 2008-02-06 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20080206
=== Fedora Bug Zappers Meeting 2008-02-06 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2008-Feb-06
=== Fedora SIG EPEL Report Week 06/2008 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/Reports/Week06
=== Fedora SIG KDE Report Week 06/2008 ===
* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE/Meetings/2008-02-05
[[Anchor(AskFedora)]]
== Ask Fedora ==
In this section, we answer general questions from Fedora community.
Send your questions to askfedora AT fedoraproject.org and Fedora News
Team will bring you answers from the Fedora Developers and
Contributors to selected number of questions every week as part of our
weekly news report. Please indicate if you do not wish your name
and/or email address to be published.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AskFedora
Contributing Writer: RahulSundaram
=== Bluetooth And Fedora: Followup ===
In response to the question[1], BastienNocera, one of the bluetooth
maintainers in Fedora added a followup:
"Refer http://www.holtmann.org/linux/bluetooth/toshiba.html and the
more recent module at http://0bits.com/toshbt/
Explains why the device isn't enabled by default, the latter link is
something that should work in recent versions of Fedora (the former
will
only work if ACPI is disabled in the kernel)."
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue117#head-61b401e99bb6abb77fd77434241…
=== Prayer Time: Followup ===
In response to the question[1] on prayer time software in Fedora,
MohdIzharFirdaus, a Fedora developer has submitted[2] a few related
packages for review in Fedora and they should be available in Fedora
repository shortly. Thanks to him for being so responsive to the needs
of users.
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue117#head-61b401e99bb6abb77fd77434241…
[2] http://blog.kagesenshi.org/2008/02/itl-minbar-in-fedora.html
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the release of new ISO Re-Spins (DVD and CD Sets) of Fedora 8. These Re-Spin ISOs are based on the officially released Fedora 8 installation media and include all updates released as of February 4,2008. The ISO images are available for i386 and x86_64 architectures via jigdo starting Thursday, February 7, 2008.
We have included CD Image sets for those in the Fedora community that do not have DVD drives or burners available.
During the Testing phase some of our testers had problems with installing via VNC while others did not have any problems at all.
Please report your results in our bug tracker. http://bugs.fedoraunity.org/spin-bugs/10/
We would like to give a special thanks to the following for testing this respin in 2 days
Harley-D Dana Hoffman Jr
zcat Jason Farrell
Iwolf Jeffrey Tadlock
Southern_Gentleman Ben Williams
kanarip Jeroen van Meeuwen
Fedora Unity has taken up the Re-Spin task to provide the community with the chance to install Fedora with recent updates already included. These updates might otherwise comprise more than 1.33GiB of downloads for a full install. This is a community project, for and by the community. You can contribute to the community by joining our test process.
A full list of bugs, packages and changelogs that have been updated in this Re-Spin can be reviewed on http://spins.fedoraunity.org/changelogs/20080204/
If you are interested in helping with the testing or mirroring efforts, please contact the Fedora Unity team. Contact information is available at http://fedoraunity.org/ or the #fedora-unity channel on the Freenode IRC Network (irc.freenode.net)
Go to http://spins.fedoraunity.org/spins to get the bits!
To report bugs in the Re-Spins please use http://bugs.fedoraunity.org/
Ben Williams