news October 2007

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Re: Congrats!
by Thomas Chung 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

On 10/29/07, Morgan Read <morgan(a)read.org.nz> wrote: > I've just got round to browsing FWN105 - "SAMBA: The GPLv3 License Dance > Begins" > > Awesome summation, really awesome! It's head splitting just reading > your work, how you managed the posts I don't know. > > Regards, > Morgan Thank you Morgan, The credit should really go to our contributing writers :) Regards, -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 107
by Thomas Chung 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 107 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 107 for the week of October 22nd. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue107 In PlanetFedora, we have "Fedora 8 - Blocker bugs status", "Fedora 8 ALSA kernel needs Testing", "Scary Haloween with Werewolves", and "Projeto Fedora?" To join or give us your feedback, please visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join. 1. Announcements 2. Planet Fedora 1. Fedora 8 - Blocker bugs status 2. Fedora 8 ALSA kernel needs Testing 3. Scary Haloween with Werewolves 4. Projeto Fedora? 3. Marketing 1. Fedora, Transifex and upstream L10N 2. Red Hat Magazine | GIMP 2.4 preview 3. Fedora 8 renews tradition of innovations 4. Developments 1. Crypto Consolidation 2. Fedora 8 Blocker Bugs 3. Laptop Harddrive Wear And Tear 4. BIG FAT WARNING: X Breaking In Rawhide 5. Fluendo Codecs Violate SELinux Policies 6. SUIDs Gone Wild 7. ALSA 1.0.15 Update Test Kernels 8. RPM Packages Not Signed? 9. KDE Compiz Switching Snazziness 10. Rules On Packaging Vestigial Libraries 5. Advisory Board 1. Content On start.fedoraproject.org 2. New FUDCon Proposal 6. Translation 1. Release Notes Work (Now and Future) 2. Translation of fedoraproject.org 7. Infrastructure 1. News site CMS 2. Koji Personal Repos 8. Security Week 1. Why are so many browser flaws rated as critical? 2. Virtualization is less secure 9. Advisories and Updates 1. Fedora 7 Security Advisories 2. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories 10. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD 2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD 3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD 4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-10-25 5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Report 2007-10-28 6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-10-25 7. Fedora KDE-SIG Meeting 2007-10-23 8. Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-MM-DD 9. Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD 10. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD 11. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-10-22 [[Anchor(Announcements)]] == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from Fedora Project. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list Contributing Writer: ThomasChung No Official Announcement was made for this week. [[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 === Fedora 8 - Blocker bugs status === RahulSundaram points out in his blog[1], "As we get ready for a new release of Fedora, the things we worry about most are the blocker bugs. A couple of QA meetings back, I suggested to Will Woods to post status reports of the blocker bugs every week or alternative week to get some eyes on the important bugs that can block a release and delay it and he has been doing those now and then." [1] http://rahulsundaram.livejournal.com/16263.html === Fedora 8 ALSA kernel needs Testing === WarrenTogami points out in his blog[1], "We are seriously considering using this newer upstream ALSA in F8. But given the tight schedule we need testing to be sure it doesn't horribly break anyone. Reportedly it makes sound behave MUCH better on newer laptops, like ICH8 Intel hardware. Test!" [1] http://wtogami.livejournal.com/19782.html === Scary Haloween with Werewolves === NicuBuculei points out in his blog[1], "I planned to show this cartoon out only next, in time for Halloween, but as it was unveiled already in another place, here is it: halloween." [1] http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2007/10/scary-haloween-with-werewolves.html === Projeto Fedora? === MikeMcGrath points out in his blog[1], "Thats right, some of our volunteers have been hard at work (ivazquez and ricky in particular). These guys with the help of some others have gotten our new website in a bit better shape." "More translations are on the way, if you're a translator, help translate and proof what's there! We had initially scheduled it for Fedora 9 but the work is done already so F8 it is!" [1] http://mmcgrath.livejournal.com/10595.html [[Anchor(Marketing)]] == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora, Transifex and upstream L10N === JonathanRoberts reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Free software is used all around the world, and as such it needs to be translated to all kinds of different locales. Fedora has a very active translation community, and they decided it was time that some better tools existed for contributing translations and integrating with upstream. To find out more about this, I talked with DimitrisGlezos, discussing the new Transifex project, what it was like to work on a Google Summer of Code Project, and much more..." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00358… === Red Hat Magazine | GIMP 2.4 preview === NicuBuculei reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "This is a preview of the new GIMP 2.4 which will come with Fedora 8 and is (IMO) important for the general desktop user. Even if it is not a major release feature, I tried to make a tie and talk a bit about F8 too." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00335… === Fedora 8 renews tradition of innovations === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "This release makes it obvious that the Fedora community prides itself on innovation. If nothing else, the public documentation of each change on the project wiki should make the perspective clear. If, despite being marked on the wiki as complete, some of these innovations seem flawed or limited, that seems only inevitable -- with so many efforts at finding a new direction, some are bound to fail, or to be less successful than others, especially in their first release. Fedora deserves appreciation for trying. At the introductory stage, that matters more, perhaps, than complete success." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00318… [[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 === Crypto Consolidation === (For some bizarre reason we neglected to cover this important issue when it was first announced by SteveGrubb, despite being aware of the thread. Apologies.) BernardoInnocenti suggested[1] that it would be a worthwhile goal to choose one of the multiple implementations of SSL carried by Fedora as a default. In seeking criteria to make this decision Bernardo mentioned that examination of the dependencies of other packages indicated that OpenSSL, NSS and GNU-TLS were equally popular within Fedora and provided a link to a GNU-TLS benchmark which suggested its superiority. PádraigBrady responded[2] with a link to SteveGrubb's post from August 2007 which introduced[3] the Fedora Crypto Consolidation Project. Steve's post indicated that Red Hat had settled on using NSS[4] as it is a certified (FIPS-140-2[5]) library performing all the cryptographic functions within itself, meaning that any applications linking to it which also follow system security policies are de facto certified by FIPS-140-2 also. Steve pointed out that a single toolkit would reduce the maintenance burden and make it easier for applications to gain new cryptographic technologies. He asked for help from maintainers in enabling NSS for their applications and feeding their changes back upstream. The wider impact of centralizing cryptographic services in terms of simplifying user interaction is outlined[0] on the wiki. [0] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraCryptoConsolidation [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01681.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01684.html [3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-August/msg01594.html [4] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/nss/overview.html [5] http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/index.html As Bernardo had compared this effort to the effort made for spellcheckers and had wished as a minimum to make PKI management easier, RichardJones was reminded[6] of his earlier efforts (see FWN#87 "Fedora Standards For Contents Of /etc/pki"[7]) to standardize the contents of ''/etc/pki''. Richard speculated that there were probably many more implementations as he knew of at least one more in OCaml. He recounted that the choice of GNU-TLS for ''libvirt''[8] had been determined due to its clean, well-documented API and also expressed a preference for GNU-TLS's ''certtool'' for certificate management. Richard was skeptical, however, that Bernardo could achieve his goal because "[r]ewriting code to use a different API is a lot of make-work that no one wants to do, and doesn't contribute much benefit to anyone." [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01697.html [7] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue87#head-bf4f4916307b150b787075e393de… [8] Libvirt provides a stable interface layer to KVM, QEMU, Xen etc. http://libvirt.org/intro.html There was agreement on the cleanliness of GNU-TLS's API, the ease-of-use of ''certtool'' (both in comparison to OpenSSL) expressed by several developers, including AndrewBartlett[9] (of SAMBA) and DanielBerrange[10]. Daniel also shared Richard's skepticism about the tractability of the problem despite its advantages "Re-writing applications to switch from one impl to another is seriously non-trivial. There is no way in the world you'd want to carry such patches in the Fedora packages because they'd be a huge maintenance time sink whenever a new upstream release came out. So getting any port accepted by the upstream application author has to be the number 1 priority." Dan also introduced the problem of OpenSSL's regular ABI breakage as a likely reason why more packages would choose GNU-TLS over it. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01801.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01704.html SteveGrubb clarified[11] that the aim of the Fedora Crypto Consolidation Project was not, as RichardJones thought, to get everyone to rewrite their code to use a different API immediately but rather to introduce a "--with-nss" option to packages to make a future transition possible. An openssl compatible API has been developed to that end. [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01735.html ThomasSteenhold advocated[12] a laissez-faire approach which recognized that projects were free to choose whichever implementation they preferred. He worried that compatibility layers and Fedora-specific patches introduced complexity and bugs, but conceded that perhaps using a preferred implementation when there was choice could be useful. Steve agreed[13] with Thomas that it wasn't the Fedora Project's job to interfere with another project's choice and emphasized that the goal was to add the option of being able to choose to link against NSS as another option. He restated the objectives as "We want to help upstream projects add choice. We want to find out what the rough spots are for NSS and improve its documentation and API so that we can use it everywhere." JeremyKatz still thought[14] that this was going to be tough. [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01789.html [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01851.html [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01868.html Some ruffled feathers were in evidence when JohnDennis asked[15] why, if SteveGrubb's avowal of not wanting to decide anyone's preference were true, a "slew" of bugs had been opened by PeterVrabec. John noted that he had seen no consensus that maintenance effort should be spent this way. SethVidal added[16] that many of them were also wrong, such as those opened against YUM instead of Python. JesseKeating consequently wondered[17] if it was proposed to remove python's ability to create sha1sum hashes. SimoSorce responded[18] "[j]ust make it easy to compile with NSS or use your own if NSS is not available." DanielBerrange agreed[19] with Seth that many of the bugs were wrong and asked that before bugs were filed that the application in question should be checked to make sure it is actually using the crypto libraries which were being suggested for replacement. Initially TomasMraz argued[20] that he had done this, but later conceded[21] that there were errors in the process. [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01869.html [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01874.html [17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01876.html [18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02027.html [19] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01883.html [20] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01885.html [21] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01889.html After ThomasMraz responded to JohnDennis reiteration of a request for information as to whether consensus had been sought on spending developer time on this, ChristopherAillon suggested[22] that FESCo should be consider the issue. [22] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01897.html The problem of NSS not providing all desirable algorithms was raised by SimoSorce (SAMBA maintainer) and RobertRelyea responded[23] by asking which were the missing algorithms. He conjectured that MD4 might be one of them, as it was used for Microsoft's NTLM authentication mechanism. He noted that the plan was to provide a library to support NTLM. The SAMBA maintainers weren't overly enthusiastic and AndrewBartlett wondered what was going to be done about ''rsync''. [23] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01912.html The importance of being able to add new cryptographic functions quickly and uniformly was highlighted when AlanCox raised[24] the probability that the SHA-1 family of hash functions would not be of use in the near future and BrunoWolff[25] and others provided information confirming this. Although PaulWouters was skeptical[26] the SHA-2 family would be proof against current attacks on SHA-1 (and also pointed out that IPSec was not affected due to using HMACs) EnricoScholz[27] thought that probably there was a safe ten year buffer gained by transitioning to SHA-2 hashes. [24] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02033.html [25] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02267.html [26] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02355.html [27] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02370.html === Fedora 8 Blocker Bugs === A list of fourteen critical bugs which must be fixed if the release of Fedora 8 is to happen on schedule ("blockers") was posted[1] by WillWoods on October 26th. Will was optimistic that the release would proceed on schedule but highlighted the bugs for which help in testing is requested. The detailed list contains details of the status of the bugs. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02326.html There was very focused feedback to this email with some confirmations[2] of fixes, but also several reports[3][4] that despite huge improvements NetworkManager may still be in need of some changes. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02337.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02335.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02333.html Will noted that the very latest patches can be obtained from Koji before they hit rawhide and said "Most of those bugs already have fixes pending, and none of the rest are hair-on-fire critical bugs, so I think we're in good shape. If you can help test the stuff I mentioned above, or you have found some huge problem that we've missed, please let us know." === Laptop Harddrive Wear And Tear === PádraigBrady drew attention[1] to a bug entry posted on Ubuntu's "Launchpad" (a proprietary bug-tracking/ERM tool) which saw users reporting that their laptop hard-drives were being subjected to unnecessary load cycles due to an ACPI script. A post[2] on PaulLuon's journal identified the issue as being due to the "load/unload" technology introduced in the mid-1990s in order to reduce the effects of stiction between heads and platters. The side-effect of this attempt to reduce damage is that the load/unload mechanism wears out after three hundred thousand cycles. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02249.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02249.html BillNottingham posted[3] that Fedora took the values set as defaults by the BIOS. On Launchpad MatthewGarrett posted[4] the same information as regards Ubuntu. AlanCox stated[5] that Windows took the same strategy. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02260.html [4] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi-support/+bug/59695/comments/… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02329.html Some practical investigations were initiated[6] by WarrenTogami, who suggested power-cycling and then running ''hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep "Advanced power management''. JesseKeating, ThorstenLeemhuis and ChuckEbbert[7] all reported an unhelpful "unknown setting", possibly due to their drives being in AHCI mode. Alan reiterated[8] "[t]he settings we use are those set by the firmware or the preboot environment [and] we don't force them and its not our business to do so as far as I can see." [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02280.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02280.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02308.html === BIG FAT WARNING: X Breaking In Rawhide === A warning[1] from AdamJackson flagged a month of pain post Fedora 8 release due to serious upstream changes to Xorg. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02191.html DarrellPfeifer and RoddClarkson announced[2] that they were happy to test and that this would be made easier if Adam could provide backup/back-out options or hints. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02224.html DaveAirlie was drawn out by DavidNielsen to explain[3] that the two main projects were to "composite by default" and to provide a smooth graphical boot transitioning from GRUB to GDM login with only a single mode set. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02223.html RichardHally also suggested[4] that a fall back option of the "old stuff" would be useful for rawhide testers. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02231.html === Fluendo Codecs Violate SELinux Policies === A request[1] from ValentTurkovic for help in installing the "fluendo codec mega pack" (after he had apparently followed the instructions) saw a simple response[2] from JesseKeating in the form of an email which was blank but for Jesse's customary signature: "Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours?" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02067.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02071.html A longer, repetitive thread[3] followed in which Valent avowed that he could not localize the problem to the vendor or to "OSS bits" such as CodecBuddy and Jesse repeating that if the proprietary software did not work then Valent needed to follow up with his vendor. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02113.html A detailed list of default actions to take was suggested[4] by BastienNocera, including how to check if the codecs are installed ''gst-inspect-0.10 | grep flu'', and where to file a bug with Fluendo. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02083.html After Valent posted the output of gst-inspect a problem was noticed[5] by FernandoHerrera who suggested that an SELinux adjustment to allow a relocatable shared library would allow the codecs to work. Fernando suggested ''chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /home/fedora8test3l/.gstreamer-0.10/plugins/*.so'' (as an aside DanWalsh's LiveJournal talks[6] about this type of problem and its security implications, borrowing/referencing UlrichDrepper's explanations). [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02186.html [6] http://danwalsh.livejournal.com/2006/05/11/ Upon RahulSundaram's suggestion that Fluendo should fix their code, or that Valent could seek special dispensation from the SELinux team by filing a bug report Valent reported back[7] with Fluendo's response which seems to implicate Intel's "IPP". [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02346.html === SUIDs Gone Wild === The issue of ''suid'' applications needing some oversight or tracking was raised[1] by ThorstenLeemhuis. Discussion centered on the possibility of adding some functionality into rpmlint. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02238.html === ALSA 1.0.15 Update Test Kernels === The possibility of the latest audio drivers in Fedora 8 was dangled[1] in front of @fedora-devel subscribers by ChuckEbbert who was fishing for testers. Those replying were happy with the results. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02204.html === RPM Packages Not Signed? === A perplexed YonasAbraham wondered why his rawhide system was reporting that about sixteen packages were unsigned. WillWoods responded[2] that rawhide packages were never signed, and it turned out that the problem was that Yonas' system had been switched from updating from "development" to "fedora" and "updates". [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02220.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02225.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02226.html === KDE Compiz Switching Snazziness === The problem of being able to switch between the window managers ''kwin'' and ''compiz'' was mooted[1] by SebastianVahl. Sebastian had prepared a switching script which used ''compiz-manager'' and wondered if it could be included in ''compiz-kde'' and ''compiz-manager'' for Fedora 8. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02207.html === Rules On Packaging Vestigial Libraries === A request[1] from HansdeGoede that he be allowed to retire two external library packages and subsume them into the only application which depended on them turned into a substantial thread. The issue seemed to be that the upstream code was using internal versions of these libraries with bugfixes because their upstreams had been dead for years. ToshioKuratomi argued[2] that Hans should only do this once he'd established that upstream for the "Advanced Strategic Command" game (asc) would not take over this responsibility. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01723.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01740.html Hans was a bit irritated to find himself apparently channeling RalfCorsepius when he said "I'm totally fed up with having discussions like this with the bureaucratic powers that control Fedora (woa I feel like I'm Ralf now) either the powers that be give me permission to use SDLmm and paragui as included and maintained within upstream asc release, or I'll just orphan all 3 of them. I refuse to become upstream for 2 libraries backporting fixes from asc each release just because some people want to follow the rules as if they are something holy. Orphaning asc would be a shame as its a great and quite popular game, but if that is want the powers that be want, then that is what they will get." [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01972.html A mild response[4] from Toshio robbed the thread of all its drama, and he pointed out that he was responding to a specific request for comments by providing some alternatives and not forcing anyone to do anything. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02109.html [[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 === Content On start.fedoraproject.org === On the fedora-advisory-board list, JesseKeating asked[1] whether there should be content at the Fedora Project Start page[2]. It turns out that SethVidal is currently working on content for this page along with the fedora-websites-list. More content should be up on this page shortly. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-October/msg00014… [2] http://start.fedoraproject.org/ === New FUDCon Proposal === GregDeKoenigsberg, the Fedora Community Development Manager, and MaxSpevack have laid out the schedule for future FUDCons[1]. The next proposed FUDCon is from January 11 to the 13th at the Red Hat headquarters. After that, there will be another FUDCon in June during the Red Hat Summit. Greg and Max propose that future FUDCons be held during Red Hat Summits (all over the world) and that there will always be a FUDCon in December and June. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-October/msg00016… [[Anchor(Translation)]] == Translation == This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor === Release Notes Work (Now and Future) === All the dedicated folks working on the release notes for Fedora 8 will likely have noticed a change in structure in CVS, PaulFrields this week created some new branches.[1] The translators still need to work with the F-8 branch, as a side benefit they can also add their translations to the -devel branch so that the latest translations are available for when the team starts on F9 release notes. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-October/msg00075.html === Translation of fedoraproject.org === The websites team this week enabled translating on the static pages of fedoraproject.org. BartCouvreur mentioned in this post[1] some additional thoughts. There is some workflow details to be worked out but for those looking to go to work on the pages, the POT file can be retrieved from here[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-October/msg00077.html [2] http://git.fedoraproject.org/?p=hosted/fedora-web.git;a=tree;f=fedoraprojec… [[Anchor(Infrastructure)]] == Infrastructure == In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor === News site CMS === MikeMcGrath started a thread[1] in regards to a new website and how to best implement it. After much discussion it seems to be still up in the air which combination of software the team will use (php and python based). Anyone that has anything to add feel free to comment! [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… === Koji Personal Repos === JesseKeating introduced this piece[1] about adding a personal repository capability to koji for easier experimentation with packages. This is a great idea, there are some infrastructure concerns mainly making sure enough storage space is available but look for this to be implemented in the future, as always comments/suggestions are always welcome. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… [[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]] == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. Contributing Writer: JoshBressers === Why are so many browser flaws rated as critical? === To many people on the outside world, it's sometimes non obvious why such a big deal is made about the web browser. The story below highlights that an ad server was broken into and used to distribute malware. * http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&art… People usually think that if they're at a trusted site, such as their bank, a news site, or even some search engines., they are safe and they can let their guard down. The network of webservers have become very pervasive, and the line between sites continues to blur. As various sites start opening up public APIs, this line will eventually vanish completely. The web seems to be evolving into one giant squishy ball of putty, rather than lots of little ones. This in turn is creating an environment more dangerous for its users, with no clear fix in sight. === Virtualization is less secure === I ran across this posting to an OpenBSD mailing list the other day: * http://kerneltrap.org/OpenBSD/Virtualization_Security Talk of security virtualization reminds me of the old saying about debugging by Brian Kernighan ''Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.'' This is hard problem. I doubt the solution lies in writing golden code. It's more likely that technologies like SELinux are going to be far more effective than expecting everyone to write bug free software. [[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]] == Advisories and Updates == In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora 7 Security Advisories === * seamonkey-1.1.5-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… * drupal-5.3-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * tempest-0-0.4.20070929.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * rss-glx-0.8.1.p-15.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * xscreensaver-5.03-12.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * libpng10-1.0.29-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * firefox-2.0.0.8-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * libpng-1.2.22-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * blam-1.8.3-7.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… * epiphany-extensions-2.18.3-4 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg003… === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories === * None reported [[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]] == Events and Meetings == In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects. Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-10-25 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02325.html === Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Report 2007-10-28 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-October/msg00046.html === Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-10-25 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… === Fedora KDE-SIG Meeting 2007-10-23 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01936.html === Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-10-22 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg02049.html -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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Fedora Advisory Board ready for editing
by Michael Larabel 28 Oct '07

28 Oct '07

Fedora Advisory Board is ready for editing this week. There really isn't anything to report on with Fedora Fonts List this week (mostly BugZilla messages and nothing too relevant to the Fedora community at large). Best, Michael Larabel

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Translation and Infrastructure Beats
by Jason 28 Oct '07

28 Oct '07

Both beats are ready for editors. -Jason

2 1

Development beat ready for editing
by Oisin Feeley 28 Oct '07

28 Oct '07

Please see: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/Developments#preview You'll notice that I'm adopting a slightly different approach where I've only covered one topic in depth and am giving more skeleton coverage to the others. This is necessary due to time constraints. If anyone feels that they'd like to help out with fleshing out this coverage or changing it in some way then I'm all ears. Best wishes, Oisin Feeley

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news.fedoraproject.org (revisited)
by Bart Couvreur 24 Oct '07

24 Oct '07

Hi news-peoples Short intro: I'm Bart Couvreur (mostly known as couf), working in docs, l10n, Belgian ambassador and some more. I've recently read an infrastructure-ticket about news.fp.o and I'm willing to set this stuff up and get it rocking. I've been chatting a bit with Rahul & Mike McGrath about this, and we've concluded to use Drupal[1] for the site. I do have some questions for you guys: * First off (not a real feature issue): anyone around here doing some packaging and willing to package some Drupal modules (I'm also trying to get to the drupal-package maintainer and see if he wants to) * Do we need to define a certain workflow, e.g.: anyone can submit a story, a mail gets sent to this list and editors can jump on the text and publish it * What about comments to a story? * The option to push to digg, slashdot, ... * A calendar with Fedora events (releases, representations at shows) * Anything else you'd like? Note: I'm not gonna make the site to overloaded (KISS); so a lot of "we'd like to have feature X" will probably not happen Thanks, and looking forward to work with y'all Bart [1] http://drupal.org -- Bart <couf(a)fedoraproject.org> <couf(a)skynet.be> key fingerprint: 6AAB 544D 3432 D013 776D 3602 ADB6 6B2A D93F 0F93

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KDE-SIG-Meetings in "Events and meetings" of FWN?
by Sebastian Vahl 23 Oct '07

23 Oct '07

Hi. I'm a member of the KDE-SIG [1] and also writing the weekly KDE-SIG reports [2] and meeting summaries [3]. I would like to add the weekly KDE-SIG-Meetings [4] to the Fedora Weekly News. [5] The wiki page is protected so I assume I have to become a beat writer to update this page every week. If someone could exlain to me how to do this, he would be welcome. Sebastian [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01936.html [3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE/Meetings/2007-10-23 [4] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE/Meetings [5] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/EventsMeetings

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 106
by Thomas Chung 22 Oct '07

22 Oct '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 106 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 106 for the week of October 15th. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue106 In AskFedora we have "Mobile Phone Internet Dialer" and "Just Thanks." To join or give us your feedback, please visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join. 1. Announcements 2. Ask Fedora 1. Mobile Phone Internet Dialer 2. "Just" Thanks 3. Planet Fedora 1. What Fedora 8 feature am I excited about today? 2. Codec Buddy in Fedora 8 3. Frozen for Fedora 8. Brace for impact! 4. Marketing 1. Distrowatch on Fedora Artwork 2. Ohio Linux Fest Follow up 3. The Linux Foundation's desktop Linux survey 5. Developments 1. Rawhide Now Friendly To Babies 2. Ensuring SELinux Contexts Track Changed Executable Locations 3. SELinux Wipes Smile Off GDM Facegreeter 4. Proprietary GoogleEarth Craps Out 5. Provides Or Obsoletes? 6. Deploying Noarch Builds To Specific Arches 7. Bootable USB Stick Containing LiveCD ISO (PPC) 8. Opinions Canvassed On Firefox Interaction With Compiz 9. Mock Rebuild Status 10. Two Mass Branches 6. Advisory Board 1. Fedora Board Recap 7. Fonts 1. Developing Open Fonts 8. Translation 1. Release Note Deadline 9. Infrastructure 1. Moin 10. Security Week 1. Firefox Security Update 11. Advisories and Updates 1. Fedora 7 Security Advisories 2. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories 12. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-10-16 2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD 3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-10-12 4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-10-18 5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-10-21 6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-10-18 7. Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-10-16 8. Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD 9. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD 10. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-MM-DD [[Anchor(Announcements)]] == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from Fedora Project. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list Contributing Writer: ThomasChung No Official Announcement was made for this week. [[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 === Mobile Phone Internet Dialer === ''Balaji Kumar <kkc_balaji AT rediffmail.com> : I am C.Balaji, A Fedora user and promoter(chosen by myself to be) for past 3 years. i am in remote area of India. so i can have internet access only through gsm phones gprs modem.the connection provider was from airtel. almost 35 friends of mine were having internet access only with this type of connection but i cant connect to internet without windows through my mobile. i found an application called gprs easy connect for linux which support many phones. I believe without internet linux will be boring. also it must provide every way to connect to internet. so if you add that 6 mb program as default for fedora that would be more interesting so that more than 1000 people in my own town will have access to internet in linux platform. Since I am being a open source promoter i can assure them with most useful tool to connect to the Internet. '' Taking a quick look at this software, it is under the GPL license which is acceptable for Fedora and I have added it to the wishlist[1]. It is however too late for us to evaluating this software and go through the process of integrating and testing it in time for Fedora 8 but we can look into this before the subsequent release. Note that, due to space constraints, only the main software packages is available in the Live images. The rest of the software will be available in the Fedora online software repository. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WishList. === "Just" Thanks === ''Don Smith <dmsmith AT tru.eastlink.ca> : I just wanted to say thank you to all the developers that work on Fedora. I recently installed Fedora 7 on my Toshiba laptop that came with Vista pre-installed. I'm NOT a Vista fan. I'm am totally impressed with Fedora 7 and feel it is miles ahead of Vista. Fedora 7 is excellent!. Thanks for the great work folks! '' [[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 Fedora 8 feature am I excited about today? === Jesse Keating points out in his blog[1], "Working wireless out of the box. Intel 4965 firmware is in, works well, and NetworkManager rewrite leaves me with some pretty damn good software to manage it." [1] http://jkeating.livejournal.com/46990.html === Codec Buddy in Fedora 8 === RahulSundaram points out in his blog[1] "Codec Buddy (Codeina) is the wrapper in Fedora 8 which helps educate the users on the advantage of open formats or optionally install multimedia codecs when you click on any multimedia content that is not supported by Fedora out of the box. To know more about how codec buddy works and see some screenshots, take a look at the codeina page[2]." [1] http://rahulsundaram.livejournal.com/14852.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/Codeina === Frozen for Fedora 8. Brace for impact! === WillWoods points out in his blog[1] "Hoorj. So, yeah, we are definitely frozen for F8. Now comes the time when I spend every day staring at the blocker list and poking the bugs there (and the people responsible for them) and trying to make them die. The bugs, not the people." [1] http://qa-rockstar.livejournal.com/4951.html [[Anchor(Marketing)]] == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Distrowatch on Fedora Artwork === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1] "The Fedora project has been on the forefront of these initiatives, which resulted in some of the most eye-catching desktop art and themes available in any distribution. How do they do it? Learn more in this interview with Fedora art team lead Máirín Duffy" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00258… === Ohio Linux Fest Follow up === KarlieRobinson reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Sorry it's been so long getting it published. It's been a really crazy couple of weeks around here. Todd's article[2] about the Fest." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00252… [2] http://on-disk.com/cms/index.php?wiki=ohio_linux_fest_2007 === The Linux Foundation's desktop Linux survey === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "The survey[2] will take only few minutes of your time, and your feedback is essential in helping us to focus our development efforts and accelerate the global adoption of Linux desktops and clients. For example, past surveys highlighted the need to address printing and wireless issues, so we set up focused workgroups and conferences to help developers and vendors work out common solutions to these requirements." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg00234… [2] http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/2007ClientSurvey [[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 === Rawhide Now Friendly To Babies === A proposal[0] to change the way in which the release cycle is managed was posted[1] as an RFC by JesseKeating. The intent of the proposal was to shorten the amount of time during which developers are unable to share code due to "freezes" of the always-current development CVS (known as "rawhide"). A freeze is the temporary removal of the ability of contributors to check-in newly built packages. This is necessary to obtain a stable aggregation of packages as a release. The proposal would see the renaming of "Test1 - Test3, Final" as "Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate, Final" with no rawhide freeze for "Alpha". [0] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JesseKeating/DevelopmentChangesProposal [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01206.html Substantial early feedback from HansdeGoede and ThorstenLeemhuis welcomed the discussion but challenged many of the assumptions. Hans declared[2] himself in favor of the current model of early mass branching but avoiding adding the extra overhead of contributors having to ask release-engineering to pull specific builds from this branch into the release. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01210.html Jesse responded to Hans objections from the perspective of development ceasing for a release once the request candidate (RC) is being composed and that from that point development work should be in preparing material for the updates-testing repository for that release, or if there were a compelling reason then release-engineering would upon request move the update from the branch into the RC. Hans thanked Jesse for this explanation but returned[3] to his central objection that maintainers were the people with the expertise (rather than release-engineering) to decide whether their package should enter the RC, or stay in the branch. He also argued that there were only two exit points from Jesse's proposed algorithm: the release branch; or the devel branch. Hans on his part split the decision into three parts: benign simple fixes (release branch); non-disruptive updates (updates-testing); next development cycle. Hans rhetorically wondered "Isn't our new slogan "freedom is a feature", then I say no to a small club making the decisions, thats an autocracy. I say power to the people (power to the maintainers)." [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01237.html Hans' objection to the bottleneck was answered by MikeMcGrath with a request for suggestions of who could make the decision about whether the build would go down any of these paths. Hans argued again for leaving the decision in the hands of the actual maintainer and when NicolasMailhot expressed[4] the opinion that "[the maintainer will always put his package before the distro as a whole" suggested that he might start looking for another community. Nicolas thought[5] that it was just a description of human behavior and pointed to the Linux kernel development model. MikeMcGrath[6] and JefSpaleta[7] also tried to defend the necessity of a single release-engineering team co-ordinating the changes. Jef drew the analogy of writers and editors to attempt to point out that conflicting priorities do not equate to ill-will, malice or disregard. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01249.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01259.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01260.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01262.html Separately JesseKeating responded[8] that there was evidence that broken trees would result if release-engineering were not there to check that individual maintainers' decisions were sane for the whole tree. Jesse also acknowledged that while there were many excellent maintainers capable of these decisions there were many that only had the time to do a blanket "build for new upstream release". He argued that there were three exit points and added that he would be happy to see more people added to the release-engineering team. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01242.html Hans made a detailed reply[9] in which he argued for the greater trusting of maintainers, with several examples from his own expertise. He suggested that if there automated checks for the disappearance of Provides: for packages and consequent tagging of the package requiring the maintainer to explain the problem or fix it before it can be pushed. Hans also objected to Jesse's use of the phrase "joe random builder". A response[10] from JesseKeating detailed the constraints under which the build process and release-engineering is working, apologized for any offense taken by the phrase, and emphasized that a knowledge of, and facility with, package building did not necessarily translate into appreciating the details of the release process. Jesse agreed that while Hans' hypothetical automated checking was a good idea he simply "lacked the bandwidth" to do anything more than he was doing right now. MikeMcGrath suggested[11] that Hans produce a proposal. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01253.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01256.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01261.html ThorstenLeemhuis was also appreciative[12] of Jesse's effort to address this problem and raised some fresh issues. Thorsten argued for more frequent test releases, while acknowledging the potential impact on mirrors. He also commented that there was a lack of users testing rawhide because of the perception that "rawhide eats babies." Thorsten sketched out a potential release schedule which would lead to more stable rawhide in the five weeks before a release. He also suggested better documentation of ways in which testers can smoothly transition from rawhide to a stable release. While Jesse was doubtful[13] that mirrors would be willing or able to cope with rapid cycling of test releases he agreed that getting test-releases out earlier was necessary, but should be achieved by ensuring that the tree was more stable. A detailed discussion of potential release problems followed. [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01235.html [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01236.html The issue of being able to upgrade was addressed when RahulSundaram pointed to the wiki page about updating from one release to another and Thorsten added[14] information about running the YumShell in rawhide. [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01296.html === Ensuring SELinux Contexts Track Changed Executable Locations === On October 13th DanielWalsh posted[1] a heads-up to maintainers to the effect that if the location of an executable had changed then they needed to ensure that the SELinux context was correctly reset. Failure to do this could result in a security vulnerability. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01008.html ArjanvandeVen wished[2] that the build system could notice this sort of thing and send warning emails to which JesseKeating responded[3] with a "patches accepted" link. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01009.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01010.html A suggestion[4] was made by KarelZak that it would be better to maintain a default SELinux label in a similar manner to file attributes, e.g. ''%attr(4755,root,root) %selinux(foo_t) /bin/foo''. LubomirKundrak agreed[5] that this was "more elegant and maintainable than restorecon in scriptlets". [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01157.html [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01183.html Skepticism was expressed[6] by TomasMraz about the ability to update file_contexts to prevent loss on the next filesystem relabel and Karel responded[7] with the suggestion of using more policies and using a label database. GianlucaSforna and ChristopherBrown both suggested[8] that having non-experts (w.r.t. SELinux) muck about with contexts in spec files would not scale well and introduced unwanted complexity. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01184.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01186.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01207.html === SELinux Wipes Smile Off GDM Facegreeter === LouisGarcia asked[1] why GDM[2] did not display a picture when he apparently had followed the correct steps of placing it in the About Me "capplet" and had a ''.face'' file in his ~. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg00957.html [2] http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/ A first stab at the problem was taken[3] by BastienNocera when he suggested checking the permissions of the ''.face'' and home directory. DavidZeuthen pointed out that this shouldn't be a problem because the master GDM process runs as root and pipes the faces to the GDM greeter, but KostasGeorgiou added[4] a twist when he pointed out that the home could be mounted over the network and that root would thus not necessarily have access. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01133.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01133.html When Louis added[5] the information that he was seeing an AVC denial ''SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/gdm-binary (xdm_t) "read" to (home_root_t)'' he was asked by LubomirKundrak whether he was logged-in as root. Lubomir also requested the location of the picture and asked if he had tried to run ''restorecon'' (to reset the security context[6]). [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01136.html [6] See DanielWalsh's excellent article http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/08/21/a-step-by-step-guide-to-building-a… Louis clarified that he was not "running as root" and listed the extended attributes of the ''.face'' file. DanielWalsh suspected[7] that the file was not in the usual home directory because it had a context of ''home_root_t'' instead of ''user_home_t''. Further investigation showed that Louis whole home directory needed[8] to have the file contexts restored with ''restorecon -R -v /home''. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01141.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01159.html === Proprietary GoogleEarth Craps Out === A query was posted[1] by ThomasBaker as to whether anyone had run GoogleEarth successfully on Fedora 8. He observed that it hung randomly without passing the server login. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01148.html Initial suspicion[2] focused on the hardware but LubomirKundrak pointed[3] out that hangs occurred for both ''fglrx'' (ATI's closed-source driver) and Intel's driver. He suggested the alternative explanation of it being a "pile of proprietary crap", a suggestion that was not challenged. BenjaminLewis acknowledged[4] that his own kind provision of an ''strace'' was possibly not of too much use as both ''fglrx'' and ''GoogleEarth'' were proprietary, but noted that the instability seemed to parallel the introduction of the star-viewing features. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01153.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01156.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01163.html DaveAirlie was torn between blaming ''glibc'' or bits of ''X11'' and asked[5] if anyone could narrow down when it last worked. He then went ahead and pulled in the latest Fedora 7 glibc into a directory on his Fedora 8 box and ran[6] the GoogleEarth binary against this older library with ''LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:/home/airlied/test/lib /home/airlied/test/lib//ld-2.6.so ./googleearth-bin'', thus confirming that the problem appeared to be in ''glibc''. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01165.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01167.html A response from JakubJelinek identified[7] a bug in GoogleEarth and also one in ''glibc'' itself. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01353.html DouglasMcClendon raised[8] the question of who was working on providing an alternative by packaging NASA's ''worldwind'' and also wondering if ''KMarble'' could run on GNOME. KevinKofler answered[9] that it should run if Qt4 was installed but cautioned that "It doesn't have all that fancy 3D stuff though". [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01175.html [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01176.html === Provides Or Obsoletes? === SteveDickson asked[1] for help in using ''Provides:'' and ''Obsoletes:'' in a specfile to resolve file conflicts on a common configuration file. The problem arose in the specific context of renaming ''libgssapi-0.11-2.fc8'' to ''libgssglue-0.1-2.fc8''. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01215.html Because Steve had provided an extract from his specfile and also a cut-and-paste of the error from the command line he quickly received multiple answers helpfully pointing out[2] that his error consisted in trying to install (using ''yum -ihv <packagename>.rpm'') instead of upgrading (using ''yum -Uhv <packagename>.rpm''). DanielBerrange pointed out that the install would attempt to proceed in parallel resulting in a clash on files. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01217.html Steve confirmed[3] to JosVos that this was indeed the problem. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01222.html MichaelSchwendt was sharp-eyed enough to notice[4] that the NVR[5] of the package was not sufficient because the presence of a %dist tag would throw out the comparison. LubomirKundrak expressed[6] strong agreement and requested that ''Obsoletes:'' tags should _never_ contain "<=". JosVos suggested[7] that just comparing the Versions and leaving out the Release would be a minimal improvement. In an aside Jos also wondered why ''gaim'' had been obsoleted by ''pidgin'' using ''gaim < 999:1'' instead of simply obsoleting gaim. MichaelSchwendt replied[8] that versioned obsoletes kept the door open for re-introducing a package with the name. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01226.html [5] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/drafts/rpm-guide-en/ch09s03.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01227.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01230.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01245.html Closing off the thread, SteveDickson thanked[9] everyone for their help and posted his now fixed specfile. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01234.html === Deploying Noarch Builds To Specific Arches === A report of a problem in building a package dependent on IcedTea(an unencumbered hybrid of Sun's OpenJDK[1] and GNU Classpath) was posted[2] by DeepakBhole. Deepak noted[3] that Koji allowed "Noarch" to be chosen and attempted to build the package for x86, x86_64 and also ppc. The problem was that IcedTea itself only exists for x86 and x86_64, resulting a failed build on ppc. [1] http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01327.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01430.html AndrewHaley's immediate interest was in finding out why the failure was happening, and a short exchange[4] with AnthonyGreen explored whether using ecj[5] would allow the building of IcedTea on ppc, but the conclusion was to simply avoid the problem: "Just don't BuildRequire icedtea and all is good." [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01339.html [5] http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2007-01/msg00157.html The recommendation offered[6] by JesseKeating was to use "ExclusiveArch: i386 x86_64" in the spec and to comment this. Deepak objected[7] that this would fail to produce packages for the ppc architecture which could run on it in interpreted mode. AndrewHaley referenced[8] an IRC discussion in which Deepak had explained the problem as a disjunction between Fedora policy (allowing building noarch with IcedTea and shipping all archs) and what the buildsystem allows. He suggested that the policy be adjusted to fit the buildsystem capabilities. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01332.html [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01335.html [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01337.html A slightly separate issue was raised[9] by CaolanMcNamara when he showed that IcedTea generated by default bytecode which was targeted to a later version than 'gij' can handle. AndrewHaley responded[10] that it was essential that all packages built with IcedTea use ''-target 1.5'' and this needed to be Fedora policy. JasonTibbitts asked[11] for someone to write packaging guidelines concerning Java. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01336.html [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01338.html [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01363.html The situation was re-assessed by JesseKeating who summed up[12] with the information that it was not possible to build all packages with IcedTea at present. Instead everything could and should be built with 'gcj'. These packages then have the possibility to run using either IcedTea(on selected architectures) or 'gcj'. [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01341.html === Bootable USB Stick Containing LiveCD ISO (PPC) === The ability to automagically set up a USB stick (containing the contents of the LiveCD ISO) as a boot device was announced[1] by JarodWilson. He cautioned that it currently only worked on PPC Macintoshes and required some manual repartitioning and specification within Open Firmware. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01382.html RalfErtzinger suggested[2] that hard coding the device name into the script was a bad idea and Jarod agreed[3] and changed this detail. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01406.html [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01414.html The script is available[4] for testing and Jarod subsequently reported[5] booting a MacMini successfully with it. [4] http://people.redhat.com/jwilson/misc/livecd-iso-to-disk.ppc [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01416.html === Opinions Canvassed On Firefox Interaction With Compiz === The recent acquisition of improved notifications by Firefox had led[1] JesseKeating to become irritated at the automatic rotation of the compiz desktop to the cube face containing the Firefox window whenever an URL was clicked. Jesse modestly admitted to being "strange at times" and wondered whether other users agreed with him that it would be nicer not to do this. Instead he suggested that a pulsing Firefox icon should appear on each face and only when it was clicked would the face containing Firefox be rotated into view. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01382.html The bug number was requested by ChuckAnderson and supplied[2] by EmmanuelSeyman. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01482.html Although RalfErtzinger was not using ''compiz'' he had recently noticed[3] behavior which also irritated him: the foregrounding of Firefox whenever he clicked a link in another application. JohnDennis agreed[4] and wanted this behavior off by default. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01480.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01485.html DavidZeuthen added[5] that when using Metacity workspaces would be ruined by Firefox jumping into them, but noted the existence of a patch and Jesse answered[8] that he had built Metacity with the patch and it would be in Fedora 8. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01483.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01484.html A further post from KevinKofler wondered what would happen with KWin and RoddClarkson opened[7] a new can of worms by suggesting that behaviors should be consistent across desktop managers. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01577.html === Mock Rebuild Status === MattDomsch's regular posting of the results of rebuilding Fedora in Mock (for x86_64) contained[1] a list of 199 packages which had failed to build. Matt thanked Spot (TomCallaway) for fixing approximately one hundred and fifty PERL packages. He also pointed out that the version of Mock[2] in which the builds had been done was MichaelBrown's pre-release of version 0.8. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01516.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Projects/Mock PanuMatilainen spotted[3] a fairly simple problem a missing "Requires" which had caused one of his packages to fail and IgnacioVazquezAbrams was puzzled[4] as to why one of his packages which used an "ExclusiveArch: i386" was showing up in the list. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01520.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01521.html === Two Mass Branches === On Thursday October 18th JesseKeating announced[1] the first mass branch for Fedora 8 (see discussion in this same FWN#106 "Rawhide Now Friendly To Babies".) He stated that CVS commits would be disabled until he announced their re-opening. The next day an announcement of the re-opening of CVS carried[2] the additional information that the operation had stalled due to a failure to request all the branches from PackageDB. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01465.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01471.html Later the same day (Friday 19th) Jesse announced[3] that he was ready for another go and that CVS was again going to be disabled during the procedure. On Saturday 20th Jesse followed up[4] with the information that all was going well, albeit a little slowly. He noted that this was the first trial of using PackageDB completely for branching and that some areas had been identified as likely candidates for speeding things up. Meanwhile Jesse unreasonably snatched a few hours of the weekend to do some housework. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01515.html [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01541.html A suggestion[5] was made that the CVS error message[6] during this period should be changed to something a bit more informative. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01533.html [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01529.html [[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 === Fedora Board Recap === JohnPoelstra has recapped their recent Fedora Board meeting[1]. Discussed at this meeting were licensing concerns for SPEC files, the Google start page in Fedora 8, and the future of PowerPC support. Red Hat Legal had chimed in on the SPEC file licensing and has stated these files needed to build RPMs should be as open and licensed just like everything else. The SPEC files should be licensed the same as the package itself or in "something extremely permissive". The Google start page is progressing, but no agreement has yet been signed. The PowerPC ISOs for Fedora 8 will be released in the same fashion as previous Fedora releases, but for future releases, the PowerPC support will be dependent upon the Fedora PPC developer community. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-October/msg00001… [[Anchor(Fonts)]] == Fonts == In this section, we cover discussion in Fedora Fonts. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-fonts-list Contributing Writer: MichaelLarabel === Developing Open Fonts === After the creation of the fedora-fonts-list[1], AnneWilson has asked how to start creating a new free font based upon her favorite closed-source font[2]. This question was answered by checking out some resources such as the Open Font Library Wiki[3] and Font Forge Tutorial[4]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-fonts-list/2007-October/msg00000.html [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-fonts-list/2007-October/msg00035.html [3] http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki/Knowledge_Resources [4] http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/editexample.html [[Anchor(Translation)]] == Translation == This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor === Release Note Deadline === Well, it's here. The deadline for translation of the Fedora Core 8 release notes is 22-Oct-2007 at 2359. Translations at or greater than 90% complete will be included, there will also be a zero-day build for those that are close but are still working. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-October/msg00068.html [[Anchor(Infrastructure)]] == Infrastructure == In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure Contributing Writer: JasonMatthewTaylor === Moin === So after much discussion[1] this week about what to do about Moin (the wiki software) as its performance has been somewhat lacking the infrastructure team came up with a temporary fix. MikeMcGrath and MattDomsch came up with a patch[2] that backgrounds the email notification so the wiki isn't waiting on the email, it just saves and then the email subsystem takes care of its end. While this is a temporary fix (until ToshioKuratomi completes a database backend) it seems to be doing the trick. Thanks guys from all the wiki users! [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… [[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]] == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. Contributing Writer: JoshBressers === Firefox Security Update === This week was consumed with the Firefox security update. A security update of Firefox will result in the release of Firefox, Seamonkey, and Thunderbird. This is of course a great deal of work for all the involved parties. Those programs are rather complex and much can go wrong along the way. On the plus side though, we have gotten rather good at dealing with these updates in RHEL and Fedora. All the interesting bits can be found here: * http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html [[Anchor(AdvisoriesUpdates)]] == Advisories and Updates == In this section, we cover Security Advisories and Package Updates from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora 7 Security Advisories === * tk-8.4.13-6.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… * openssl-0.9.8b-15.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories === * openssh-4.3p2-25.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… * util-linux-2.13-0.49.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… * hplip-1.7.4a-3.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… * openssl-0.9.8b-15.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-October/msg002… [[Anchor(EventsMeetings)]] == Events and Meetings == In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects. Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-10-16 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-October/msg00002… === Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-10-12 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-October/msg00101.html === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-10-18 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01464.html === Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-10-21 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-October/msg00022.html === Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-10-18 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-October/msg… === Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-10-16 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-October/msg00050.html === Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

1 0

infrastructure and translation
by Jason 21 Oct '07

21 Oct '07

Both beats are ready for editors. -Jason

2 1

Fonts & Advisory - Ready
by Michael Larabel 21 Oct '07

21 Oct '07

Both should be ready for editing. Michael

2 1

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