news November 2007

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Re: Fedora-news-list Digest, Vol 9, Issue 8
by Md. Atiqur Rahman 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

I'm using Linux as my hobby for many days, but I'm not advanced such to build a package of my own. Could you please what the is to get skills enough to kde or gnome development programming. I need a guideline to contribute in Linux. Please help me.

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The Daily Package is Back!
by Thomas Chung 26 Nov '07

26 Nov '07

Hi Chris, Just saw your blog[1] Welcome back! As always, your spot is available at. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/DailyPackage Cheers! [1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/152-The-Daily-Packag… -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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The week of Thanksgiving
by Thomas Chung 19 Nov '07

19 Nov '07

Team, To celebrate Thanksgiving Day, Fedora News Team will take the next week off. Have a Great Holiday everyone! Regards, -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 110
by Thomas Chung 19 Nov '07

19 Nov '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 110 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 110 for the week of November 12th. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue110 In Announcements, we have "Fedora Unity releases Fedora 8 Everything Spin". In AskFedora, we have "GIMP 2.4.1 and Fedora 7", "Automatic Security Updates". In PlanetFedora, we have "Seam running under IcedTea on Fedora 8", "Fedora 8 on a MacBook (intel)", "Custom Kernel documentation updated" and "First Torrent Movie". To celebrate Thanksgiving Day[1], Fedora News Team will take the next week off. Have a Safe Holiday! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving To join or give us your feedback, please visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join. 1. Announcements 1. Fedora Unity releases Fedora 8 Everything Spin 2. Ask Fedora 1. GIMP 2.4.1 and Fedora 7 2. Automatic Security Updates 3. Planet Fedora 1. Seam running under IcedTea on Fedora 8 2. Fedora 8 on a MacBook (intel) 3. Custom Kernel documentation updated 4. First Torrent Movie 4. Marketing 1. cio.com: The Fedora OS: Free, Stable and Customizable 2. redhatmagazine.com: Tour of GNOME Online Desktop 3. linuxtoday.com: Spinning a New Kind of Distro 4. coffeedaze.com: Fedora/Linux for Noobs 5. arstechnica.com: Fedora 8 sees strong adoption in first week 6. distrowatch.com: Distrowatch reviews Fedora 8 7. softpedia.com: Installing Fedora 8 Werewolf 5. Developments 1. As Review Request Queue Lengthens Tempers Shorten 2. NetworkManager Making Fedora 8 Hostile To Sysadmins ? 3. Minimal Requires: Codename "Masochist" 4. Gecko-libs Now Provided By Xulrunner-devel 5. Autoloading Of Kmods In Udev Area 6. /tftpboot Versus /var/tftp Or Somewhere Else 7. Buildserver Kernel Release (PPC64) 8. Extension Buddy For Fedora 9 ? 9. PulseAudio CPU Usage 10. Old Libtool Problems Reported By Check-rpaths 6. Artwork 1. Naming of Fedora 9? 2. Fedora 9 Theming? 3. Rounded Corners Patch for Nodoka 4. Spring and Autumn On Your Desktop 5. Infinity 24 for KDE 7. Security Week 1. Samba 2. AppArmor's Security Goals 3. Hushmail not so hush 8. Advisories and Updates 1. Fedora 8 Security Advisories 2. Fedora 7 Security Advisories 3. Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories 9. Events and Meetings 1. Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD 2. Fedora Ambassadors Meeting 2007-MM-DD 3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (Log) 2007-MM-DD 4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-11-15 5. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-11-15 6. Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-MM-DD 7. Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD 8. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD 9. Fedora Quality Assurance Meeting 2007-11-14 10. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-11-12 11. Fedora SIG EPEL Meeting Week 45 12. Fedora SIG KDE Meeting Week 46 13. Fedora SIG Store Meeting 2007-11-14 [[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 Unity releases Fedora 8 Everything Spin === JeroenVanMeeuwen announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the release of new spin[2], the Everything Spin. Included in this spin are all the packages available at the time Fedora 8 was released." "This spin also includes 3 DVD images for each architecture, as well as 2 DVD Dual Layer images for those who are able to use them." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00013… [2] http://spins.fedoraunity.org/ [[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: NilsPhilippsen, RahulSundaram === GIMP 2.4.1 and Fedora 7 === ''Hasson Ofer <hassonofer AT gmail.com> : Will you make official gimp 2.4.1 package to fedora 7 ?'' I've requested the push: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F7/pending/gimp-2.4.1-1.fc7 These are the update notes as of now: This update is a major version change. Please test thoroughly. Don't flag it as working unless you have done really extensive testing! I don't want to push this to stable too soon. For new features and other changes, please read the release notes of GIMP 2.4 on the web: http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.4.html GIMP 2.4 is supposed to be compatible to older GIMP 2.x versions as far as plug-ins are concerned. It also uses the TinyScheme interpreter now for Script-Fu scripts which is a bit less forgiving about certain programming errors. If you use custom Script-Fu scripts, you might have to fix them to work in GIMP 2.4. Read the Script-Fu Migration Guide on the web for further information: http://www.gimp.org/docs/script-fu-update.html -- NilsPhilippsen === Automatic Security Updates === ''Jenni and Adri <jattas AT supernerd.com.au> : I am a new user of Fedora and notice the regular updates. Some of them are huge. I have a 1 Gb monthly down and upload allowance and after that my ISP slows the speed of my internet service down. I used to let the updates download regardless, but I discovered that the size was that large that I nearly lost all capacity in the first 5 or 6 days of the month. My question is: Is it possible to indicate the size of the automatic down loads so that I know how large the down loads are, so that I can do these down loads when it is the end of the service month?'' While the software updater (Pup) does not show the size of the updates, there are two nifty yum plugins that can save you the hassle of keeping track of package sizes. The first is a plugin called '''yum-security''' that shows only the security updates and the second is a plugin called '''yum-presto''' [1] that downloads only the binary diff's on software updates instead of a full new package and can save you quite a lot of bandwidth and time. Use a combination of both and you don't have to worry about running out of bandwidth. [1] http://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/presto [[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 === Seam running under IcedTea on Fedora 8 === KarstenWade points out in his blog[1] "Best thing about his adventure? Pete ran a "highly unscientific test" and found out that IcedTea outperformed other JDKs" [1] http://iquaid.org/2007/11/18/seam-running-under-icedtea-on-fedora-8/ === Fedora 8 on a MacBook (intel) === KonstantinRyabitsev points out in his blog[1] "It works quite well, including brightness buttons and the "fn" key. I upgraded from Fedora 7, so I can't comment on whether the installation has improved -- perhaps I'll try it again later." === Custom Kernel documentation updated === SamFolkWilliams points out in his blog[1], "As several people have noticed, there were quite a few changes to the kernel spec file with the release of Fedora 8. The custom kernel document has now been updated to reflect these changes." [1] http://samfw.blogspot.com/2007/11/custom-kernel-documentation-updated.html [1] http://mricon.livejournal.com/386456.html === First Torrent Movie === JefSpaleta points out in his blog[1], "As promised, I've started making animations of some of the torrent activity for the Fedora 8 torrents. And instead of using youtube, I'm now uploading the final videos to archive.org so you can get access to the original theora files." [1] http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/15989.html [[Anchor(Marketing)]] == Marketing == In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: ThomasChung === cio.com: The Fedora OS: Free, Stable and Customizable === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "The Fedora Project builds a world-class Linux operating system, consisting of entirely free (meaning both zero-cost and full source code available) software, that is used by companies, organizations and individuals worldwide." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-November/msg0024… === redhatmagazine.com: Tour of GNOME Online Desktop === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Here's a tour of the pre-alpha demo release of GNOME Online Desktop included in Fedora 8. Learn more about what it does and how you can get involved in the project." [1] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/11/13/tour-of-gnome-online-desktop/ === linuxtoday.com: Spinning a New Kind of Distro === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "While talking with Fedora Project Leader MaxSpevack yesterday, I increasingly got the sense that Fedora is positioning itself for something bigger. The key, I believe, is the spin management technology that was implemented in Fedora 7 and has now come to maturity in Fedora 8." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-November/msg0019… === coffeedaze.com: Fedora/Linux for Noobs === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "While Fedora may not be the best starting point for someone with minimal computer knowledge, it is one of the most cutting edge flavors of Linux and has some amazing support" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-November/msg0016… === arstechnica.com: Fedora 8 sees strong adoption in first week === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "The latest version of Fedora—codenamed Werewolf—was released last week. According to statistics released this morning by Red Hat, Fedora 8 has been already been installed over 54,000 times in only four days." [1] http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/11/12/fedora-8-sees-strong-a… === distrowatch.com: Distrowatch reviews Fedora 8 === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Overall, I truly believe that Fedora 8 is by far the best Fedora release to date (and I've tried every one of them). From the look and feel of the system, to the out-of-the-box configuration during installation, I couldn't be happier with a cutting edge release." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-November/msg0013… === softpedia.com: Installing Fedora 8 Werewolf === RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1], "Fedora 8 (codename Werewolf) was released yesterday and it's the most breathtaking version of the Fedora operating system. Not only does this release bring an installable LiveCD for both i686 and x86_64 architectures, but it also comes with exclusive KDE and GNOME LiveCDs." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-November/msg0013… [[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 === As Review Request Queue Lengthens Tempers Shorten === NealBecker wondered[1] if he had done something wrong resulting in no one responding to his package review request. MamoruTasaka asked[2] for patience as there were about 270 unassigned review requests. JasonTibbitts thought[3] that the number was closer to 830 due to merge reviews and counselled "if the people who are submitting the packages don't do some reviews themselves, or we don't magically acquire several more review nuts then it's just going to be a long wait for every package in the queue." ThorstenLeemhuis topped[4] this with an estimate of 1108 open reviews and re-opened the discussion of how the governance of the Fedora Project is working. He cited an older email he had written which asserted that the levels of disgruntlement due to bureaucracy was rising. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01059.ht… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01063.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01107.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01125.ht… ChristopherAillon agreed[5] with Thorsten, thanked him for his well-written email and suggested a webapp which would automate the testing of basic review tasks might ease some of the backlog. Thorsten agreed[6] with Christopher that accumulating guidelines would lead to a bogging down of the review process and suggested[6] that they be split into essential base knowledge "this you must know" and written reference material to provide "guidance in a specific area". Thorsten was unsure if a webapp was necessary and noted packagers (perhaps little-known) ability to do scratch builds in Koji (see also this same FWN#110 "Buildserver Kernel Release (PPC64)" for JesseKeating's suggested commandline to do this.) ToshioKuratomi took up[7] Thorsten's suggestion to organize and split the review guidelines. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01126.ht… [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01150.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01158.ht… The numbers cited by Thorsten were questioned[8] by PatriceDumas, who suggested that the processing of new packages was a more important metric than the merged packages. Patrice was unhappy with the lagging of wiki documentation and the lack of new sponsors. Thorsten disagreed, suggesting that it would take until Fedora 12 at the current rate to get the merged packages reviewed. He also suggested[9] that experienced packagers should have direct CVS commit access to enable them to quickly fix up obvious specfile errors without having to go through the current process to clear such actions with the package owners. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01129.ht… [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01157.ht… HansdeGoede agreed[10] with Thorsten that in the pre-merge days he had felt more control over what FESCo did and added that now "certain groups within Fedora (*cough* release engineering *cough*) are indepent islands, not that these groups are not doing great work, but they don't seem controlled in any democratic way." He announced his intention to join the Fedora Packaging Committee (FPC). JoshBoyer asked whether he could identify and provide solutions to specific problems and Hans replied[11] briefly and finished with a statement of his belief that there was little point in such a discussion. JesseKeating described[12] himself as feeling "blindsided" by this and listed the places where changes had been discussed and required ratification by voting. Hans reiterated some of what he had already said and Thorsten provided[12] some specific links which contrasted feedback received with actual changes in the wiki (and hence policy). [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01130.ht… [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01145.ht… [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01155.ht… [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01165.ht… A detailed email from JesseKeating responded[14] to Thorsten specifically with details of which bits of feedback had been incorporated, responded more generally to what Jesse characterized as "the crux of Hans' complaint [being] that there is [a] freeze at all" and explained Jesse's motivation as trying to have a slow-down of changes introduced to the release tree while still also providing places for builds to be tested. Hans disagreed[15] and stated his complaint as the absence of a fast, non-human way of getting packages past the penultimate freeze. MatthiasClasen could not agree[16] with Hans that the process was unwarranted, nor could Jesse, who further argued[17] that a build is supposed to have been tested before it is requested. [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01174.ht… [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01176.ht… [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01187.ht… [17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01193.ht… A response from RalfCorsepius to Thorsten about the role of the FPC argued[18] that FPC had solved most of the problems apart from exotic corner cases and had thus lost its importance. Ralf also listed the use of ACLs and general policies as contributory causes to robbing FPC of the ability to enforce its decisions on packagers, whom Ralf argued were ignoring them. Thorsten responded[19] with an explanation of his desire to do away with the current committee-bound lethargy and replace it with a meritocracy in which anyone can announce plans and implement them if there are no strenuous objections. He also remembered some problems he had raised earlier on @fedora-packaging. A detailed response from TomCallaway raised[20] the spectre of revert-wars on an open wiki and noted that the documented process was hardly ever followed to propose new guidelines. [18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01229.ht… [19] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01281.ht… [20] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01411.ht… TO BE CONTINUED... === NetworkManager Making Fedora 8 Hostile To Sysadmins ? === High blood pressure was experienced[1] by OlivierGalibert when he used the Desktop LiveCD to attempt an install of Fedora 8 to a machine with a static IP address. Olivier traced the problem back to Fedora Core 3 (providing a bugzilla entry to back this up) noting that NetworkManager ignores interface settings entered into anaconda and wipes out /etc/resolv.conf if DHCP is not used. To Olivier the problems had deepened with Fedora 8 as it seemed harder to actually remove NetworkManager. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01259.ht… One of the primary complaints raised by Olivier was addressed[2] by BastienNocera when he contradicted Olivier's assertion that ''chkconfig'' could not be used to disable NetworkManager. Bastien also thought that using the LiveCD to install servers was not its intended use case. JefSpaleta followed[3] up on the latter point with the information that the DVD image does not suffer from the problem of static routes entered into anaconda ignored. Jef also reminded the list that no one had argued that the use case of the LiveCD should be designed differently during the test cycle. While Jef thought that it was possibly a useful idea to produce an alternate LiveCD using the legacy stack instead of NetworkManager he suggested that due to the expected improvements in NetworkManager this point would be obviated by the time of Fedora 9. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01263.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01318.ht… In a slight aside, the issue of the cyclic dependency of ''ldap'' and ''NetworkManager'' services upon each other dependencies was addressed when KellyMiller described the problem and RalfEtzinger supplied a useful ''ldap.conf'' stanza to ignore local users: ''nss_initgroups_ignoreusers root,ldap,named,avahi,haldaemon,dbus''. ColinWalters agreed[4] that this should become the default option. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01467.ht… LesMikesell had heard that it was no longer possible to do an NFS install with the DVD iso image, but ToddZullinger confirmed[5] that it still worked and added that if one wanted to download one single copy and install several machines from the image then there were multiple ways to accomplish the task using ''kickstart'', ''pxeboot'', ''cobbler'' and combinations of them. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01300.ht… Another part of Olivier's list of problems was sorted out[6] by JefSpaleta when he countered the suggestion that it was impossible to turn NetworkManager off without removing its rpm. Jef described himself as "sort of confused" by these statements and queried whether Olivier could not simply query the status of NetworkManager using ''/sbin/service NetworkManager status'' and its default runlevels with ''/sbin/chkconfig --list NetworkManager''. He suggested simply turning off NetworkManager using its initscript and turning on the legacy network and suggested that using mac addressing with dhcp worked well in large laboratory environments. Olivier's blood pressure dropped a little when he realized[7] that he must have been mistaken about it not being possible to turn off NetworkManager using the usual tools. He reiterated the point that options set in the installer should not be ignored and partially destroyed and suggested that at the least a dialog box should inform sysadmin performing the install that this was the case. JeremyKatz agreed[8] that "this sucks" and explained that changes to make NetworkManager better in this regard had not made it into Fedora 8 due to the need to freeze development for translations. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01270.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01291.ht… [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01292.ht… Subsidiary interesting discussions during the thread mainly focused on the use of dhcp servers to provide a central point of administration, with contributions from AlexanderBoström[9], "Jima" and NicolasMailhot[10] in favor and LesMikesell[11] and OlivierGalibert as slight skeptics. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01374.ht… [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01305.ht… [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01299.ht… Another of Olivier's objections was explored when JohnPoelstra concurred[12] that removal of NetworkManager should not also remove several other packages as dependencies including ''pidgin'' and ''liferea''. JesseKeating responded[13] that this was because those packages used NetworkManager-glib in order to be able to "do the right thing" in response to network changes. ChristopherStone suggested[14] splitting out this functionality into a sub-package and argued that such splitting in general would make Fedora more useful as a base distribution. BillNottingham thought[15] on the contrary that this was a lot of work for a circa 100KB library dependency. [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01275.ht… [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01277.ht… [14] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01283.ht… [15] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01290.ht… RichiPlana, DanWilliams and MatthiasClasen investigated[16] the possibility of splittling ''libnm-util.so'' off into a sub-package so that the aforementioned ''NetworkManager-glib'' could also be an independent package. [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01348.ht… === Minimal Requires: Codename "Masochist" === A quest to discover the minimal packages to install for a user using a chroot led PatriceDumas to ask[1] some searching questions about the dependency chains for the mandatory minimal packages. When JesseKeating asked why he did not just use the core comps group with {{{yum --install-root=/path/to/chroot groupinstall 'Core'}}} Patrice clarified[2] that this was possibly too large and he wanted a more fine-grained ability to select the most minimal set of packages. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01076.ht… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01088.ht… TomCallaway proposed[3] that Patrice could carry out a test using a chroot to determine the smallest set of packages that could provide a working network, shell and text editor and suggested that this new comps group could be codenamed "masochist". When JeremyKatz thought that this description was exactly what the Core group in comps was intended to be, TomCallaway suggested[4] that perhaps Patrice meant to use "absurd replacements" such as ''tinylibc'', ''minit'' and ''nash'', but Patrice disavowed[5] this notion and honed[6] his question down to whether a non-bootable, chrooted minimal install would be a good idea. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01090.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01093.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01095.ht… [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01098.ht… Later Patrice went[7] ahead with some tests and shared the information that it seemed that a rather long list of packages were installed even when he tried to pair things down. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01182.ht… === Gecko-libs Now Provided By Xulrunner-devel === An important change for applications which depend on ''gecko-libs'' was announced[1] by MartinStransky. The ''firefox-devel'' packages will no longer exist and instead are replaced by ''xulrunner-devel'' which provides ''gecko-libs''. Martin explained that Firefox would henceforth be shipped as a pure XUL application running on Xulrunner[2]. Martin requested maintainers of packages which built against gecko-libs or firefox-devel to test rebuilds against xulrunner and to contact him or Chris. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01072.ht… [2] http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner One of the first to respond[3] was AlexLancaster who was trying to rebuild Miro[4] (the excellent internet TV video player) and failing due to ''gtkmozembed-xulrunner'' being missing. When Martin provided an updated xulrunner package (1.9-0.alpha9.5.fc9) things appeared[5] to progress a little further. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01074.ht… [4] http://www.getmiro.com/ [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01376.ht… Attempts to rebuild ''kazekhase'' by MamoruTasaka also failed[6], apparently due to a required header being removed from upstream. ChristopherAillon suggested using one of Mozilla's search tools to find files associated used in their software. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01080.ht… The bigger picture was considered[7] by DennisJacobfeuerborn when he asked whether the separation of Firefox from Xulrunner would see the Fedora Project moving in an opposite direction to upstream Mozilla. Dennis wondered whether an eventual fork would be necessary and included a link[8] to a blog entry from BenjaminSmedbergs which discussed the problems of the shared Gecko Runtime Environment[9] on Microsoft Windows(TM). ChristopherAillon pointed out that the very link which Dennis supplied contained a point which confirmed that GNU/Linux distributions would be shipping Firefox3 as a XULRunner application. JefSpaleta added[10] that he was confident that the Fedora Project had a good roadmap for Firefox, but that he was more concerned with all the other applications depending on gecko-lib. He hoped that their maintainers were taking active steps to ensure that the transition to XULRunner had been adequately communicated to their various upstreams so that the maintainers themselves did not have to patch like crazy. ChristopherAillon was sanguine[11] that most would be using ''gtkmozembed'' and thus not be affected by the ''xulrunner'' changes. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01138.ht… [8] http://benjamin.smedbergs.us/blog/2007-05-15/xulrunner-what-we-are-doing/ [9] Benjamin's blog explains that the GRE per se never really shipped on GNU/Linux and that it was essentially a precursor of XULRunner http://benjamin.smedbergs.us/blog/2005-10-31/using-the-gre/ [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01230.ht… [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01243.ht… === Autoloading Of Kmods In Udev Area === The splitting out of various I2C[1] tools from the ''lm_sensors'' package led HansdeGoede to observe[2] that the OpenSUSE specfile, upon which he was basing his work, was creating character devices on the fly. Hans was also adding an alias into ''/etc/modprobe.conf.dist'' which caused the i2c-dev kernel module to be automagically loaded. He wondered if this was the correct approach to the problem and asked if someone could explain how ''loop.ko'' worked as it solved the same problem. [1] http://www.esacademy.com/faq/i2c/ [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01027.ht… BillNottingham answered[3] that the ''udev'' rule ''/etc/udev/makedev.d/50-udev.nodes'' created the loop device and requested further details of the modules behind the i2c device. MattDomsch linked[4] to the kernel list to show that his work on DMI-based module autoloading might make it possible to do something similar to what he had done for the ''dcdbas'' module. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01029.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01031.ht… After further discussion between Hans and Bill which centered around the question of which approach would be fastest and use less memory Hans decided[5] to go with the approach of using a device node and kmod. He also noted that the loop module seemed to be autoloaded and promised[6] to file a bugzilla entry. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01036.ht… [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01041.ht… === /tftpboot Versus /var/tftp Or Somewhere Else === ChuckAnderson requested[1] that the current location of the TFTP "root" be changed from ''/tftpboot'' for a variety of reasons. He requested that at the very least SELinux policy be changed to allow ''/var/tftp'' as an alternate location. An especially strong objection made by him was that the root of the filesystem on many servers would be set as read-only. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00937.ht… A response from DennisGilmore argued[2] among other things that the majority use case was to net boot machines and that this was read-only and commonly recognizable as a default. Dennis thought that someone smart enough to undertake one of Chuck's other listed use cases involving writing log data or crash dumps was probably competent to change the default location too. JonMasters agreed with Dennis and when Chuck appeared to discount his experience responded[3] by emphasizing that he had built embedded devices for a living. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00938.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01220.ht… After PatriceDumas cited the FHS WarrenTogami suggested[4] copying Edubuntu's use of ''/var/lib/ftp'' and changing the SELinux policy to allow the use of both the current legacy setting and this new one. MichaelStahnke suggested using ''/srv'' but LubomirKundrak remembered[6] an earlier thread (see FWN#103 "RFC: /var Or /srv"[7]) which he summed up as concluding "to not let anything in distro touch /srv, it's meant to be used only by user for his custom services." RichiPlana also suggested using ''/srv'' to which AlanCox responded[8] "/srv is not available to distribution vendors" and advocated sticking to the thirty year old tradition of using ''/tftpboot''. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00945.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01066.ht… [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01066.ht… [7] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue103#head-c1a0d4ef312061b439df55ebebc… [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00986.ht… JesseKeating was skeptical about Alan's argument that the tradition was something which should be adhered to and pointed out that to be consistent would have meant keeping executables in ''/etc'', similar to Solaris. Alan defended his position on the grounds that there were advantages to making that change, but none had been advanced for breaking tftpboot. RichiPlana came back[9] with a list of advantages mostly clustered around a simple, logical organization. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00995.ht… After StephenSmoogen inquired what the proper RFC procedure would be for making such changes to the FHS there was a brief kerfuffle when JonathanMasters misunderstood[10] Stephen to be announcing his intention to create a ''/srv/fedora'' directory to make everything Fedora-specific. [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01221.ht… === Buildserver Kernel Release (PPC64) === A failed attempt to build ''eclipse-subclipse'' for ppc64 led RobertMarcano to ask[1] whether the buildservers were running the latest Fedora 8 kernel. ToshioKuratomi responded[2] that they were in fact running Fedora Core 6 and were scheduled to be upgraded to RHEL5 in three weeks time. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00820.ht… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00847.ht… DennisGilmore informed Robert that a kernel update had been built by DavidWoodhouse which should fix the bug which Robert had referenced. Unfortunately Robert replied[3] that he now got an error on x86_64. JesseKeating suggested[4] doing a scratch build using ''koji build --scratch dist-f9 --arch-override ppc64 foo.src.rpm'' When Robert had to report that while this new trick worked the error was the same on ppc64 Jesse wondered[5] if the problem was that the opening of GUI was being attempted on the builder machine which lacks Xorg. Unfortunately this did not appear[6] to be the problem. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01265.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01267.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01280.ht… [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01289.ht… === Extension Buddy For Fedora 9 ? === "MarkG85" kicked off[1] the discussion of an "Extension Buddy" which would be somewhat analogous to CodecBuddy in that it would sort out whether a file could be played by some application based on its extension, or could suggest a possible application which could do so. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00774.ht… RalfErtzinger suggested that a bugzilla entry should be opened for the specific example given of "Audacious" failing to handle files with the ''.m3u'' extension. "MarkG85" was not pleased with this, but DavidTimms agreed with Ralf that filing such bugs is the best way to ensure progress and improvement. David also outlined[2] a detailed workflow or use case in order to understand the problem better. An alternate vision was detailed[3] by RichiPlana. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00794.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01023.ht… The existing ''/etc/mime.types'' and ''/etc/mailcap'' were suggested[4] as a useful base by BrunoWolff. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00877.ht… BastienNocera liked the idea and redirected[5] attention to an earlier discussion on @fedora-desktop which had considered the same problem. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00983.ht… === PulseAudio CPU Usage === Although he was enjoying PulseAudio questions about its CPU usage were posed[1] by AhmedKamal. Ahmed was also disturbed that it appeared in the process list with the name "exe"! [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01442.ht… A quick response[2] from LennartPoettering (the main developer of PulseAudio) informed that the "exe" naming issue had been fixed and pointed the finger of blame at Macromedia Flash for not closing playback streams until the browser window is closed. Ahmed's experiments in closing the browser confirmed that CPU usage by PulseAudio dropped[3] to 0%, but that starting up any other sound application saw it climb again due to the sampling issues outlined in Lennart's post. Lennart followed up with the suggestion that Ahmed could use ''pacmd'' followed by ''list-sinks'' to confirm that his card was fixed to 48KHz and that resampling would have to be done by either PulseAudio or whichever applications he was using, so it may as well be by PulseAudio. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01449.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01452.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01466.ht… In response to CallumLerwick some further details about the "Speex" resampler were posted[5] by Lennart. [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01480.ht… === Old Libtool Problems Reported By Check-rpaths === JohnDennis found[1] that one of his packages failed to build on x86_64 because the ''check-rpaths'' script complained that there was an RPATH in the .so of a loadable module produced by the package. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01350.ht… A suggestion[2] from RayStrode that the package might include a buggy, older version of ''libtool'' was confirmed[3] by HansdeGoede. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01356.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01369.ht… [[Anchor(Artwork)]] == Artwork == In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork Contributing Writer: TimothyRoberts === Naming of Fedora 9? === Now that Fedora 8 "Werewolf" has finally been released into the wild, the gauntlet has been thrown. What shall we name the next Fedora release? JakubRusinek has started this lengthy debate on fedora-arts-list[1], with numerous people throwing in their two cents. What are you waiting for? Send in your own idea. It could become the next big thing. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00073.html === Fedora 9 Theming? === MichaelBeckwith has brought to our attention that Fedora 9 theme ideas need to start rolling in[1]. He emphasis ideas that revolve around the idea of "Freedom". So let your creative side come forth and spawn something truly beautiful for the next release. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00106.html === Rounded Corners Patch for Nodoka === CharlesBrej has released[1] a patch to the Nodoka GTK theme, slightly altering it to change any square corners to rounded ones. A small change, but well appreciated by many people. This patch can be found here[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00093.html [2] http://www.mediafire.com/?1nybuai1d5c === Spring and Autumn On Your Desktop === StevenGarrity has proposed a new idea for the Fedora Desktop: Seasonal theming[1]. The beauty of spring and autumn manifested into pixels, wouldn't that be a sight to behold? He states that we could, 'adopt a "spring' visual theme for the odd-numbered releases that fall in the spring, and a 'fall' visual theme for the even-numbered releases that fall in the, well, fall." What are you waiting for? Go outside and get inspired before the fall(Or spring, if you're in the southern hemisphere) ends, and winter(Or summer) sets in. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00099.html === Infinity 24 for KDE === LaithJuwaidah has released[1] a small script to the community, that changes the wallpaper on a KDE desktop every hour, to different versions of the "Infinity" wallpaper. The script utilizes KDE's advanced desktop options, so all you GNOME users seem to be out of luck for the moment. The script can be found here[2]. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00122.html [2] http://ljuwaida.fedorapeople.org/Artwork/Infinity/KDE/Wallpaper [[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]] == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. Contributing Writer: JoshBressers === Samba === Last week saw the release of a new version of Samba, with two security fixes: http://samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2007-4572.html http://samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2007-5398.html Both of these issues sound pretty bad, but only CVE-2007-5398 is truly scary. CVE-2007-4572 initially looked rather bad, but after a thorough analysis it was determined that under normal use the flaw shouldn't even crash the Samba server. A detailed analysis of this flaw can be found here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=294631#c3 === AppArmor's Security Goals === I'm no fan of AppArmor, but aside from that there is a most interesting read regarding it on Kernel Trap. Those of you interested in such a thing might find it useful: http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/AppArmors_Security_Goals === Hushmail not so hush === It seems that Hushmail is willing to share the PGP keys of its clients with law enforcement: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/65213,hushmail-turns-out-to-be-anything-but.a… While this probably isn't terribly surprising (most companies are willing to work with law enforcement). It is an opportunity to point out that unless you have complete control over your encryption key, you should assume that someone else has it. This includes things like storing keys on NFS home directories or using public computers with your private key. Keeping a private key protected properly is very difficult, and everyone has to compromise perfect security for reality at some point. It should be completely obvious though, that trusting someone else, especially a corporation, with your private key is most unwise. [[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 8 Security Advisories === * openvrml-0.16.6-8.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * perl-5.8.8-31.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * link-grammar-4.2.5-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * tomboy-0.8.1-3.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * chmsee-1.0.0-1.26.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysqli-1.4.1-3.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysql-1.4.1-3.fc8.1 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * php-pear-MDB2-2.4.1-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * thunderbird-2.0.0.9-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * samba-3.0.27-0.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * emacs-22.1-8.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * tomcat5-5.5.25-1jpp.1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… === Fedora 7 Security Advisories === * kdegraphics-3.5.8-7.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kde-i18n-3.5.8-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdeutils-3.5.8-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdebindings-3.5.8-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdewebdev-3.5.8-3.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdenetwork-3.5.8-6.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdeadmin-3.5.8-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdegames-3.5.8-3.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdeaccessibility-3.5.8-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdelibs-3.5.8-7.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdepim-3.5.8-5.svn20071013.ent.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdetoys-3.5.8-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdevelop-3.5.0-4.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdeartwork-3.5.8-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdesdk-3.5.8-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdeedu-3.5.8-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdemultimedia-3.5.8-8.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdeaddons-3.5.8-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdebase-3.5.8-3.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * arts-1.5.8-4.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * perl-5.8.8-26.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * openvrml-0.16.6-6.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * link-grammar-4.2.5-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysql-1.4.1-3.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysqli-1.4.1-3.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * php-pear-MDB2-2.4.1-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * samba-3.0.27-0.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * thunderbird-2.0.0.9-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * emacs-22.1-5.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * tomcat5-5.5.25-1jpp.1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories === * mono-1.1.17.1-5.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cups-1.2.12-6.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * openldap-2.3.30-3.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… [[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 (Log) 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-11-15 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01517.ht… === Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-11-15 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-November/ms… === 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 Quality Assurance Meeting 2007-11-14 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2007-November/msg00784.html === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-11-12 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00954.ht… === Fedora SIG EPEL Meeting Week 45 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2007-November/msg00059.html === Fedora SIG KDE Meeting Week 46 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg01042.ht… === Fedora SIG Store Meeting 2007-11-14 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Store/Meetings/2007-11-14 -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

1 0

trans and infra beats
by Jason 18 Nov '07

18 Nov '07

Pretty quiet week on both fronts, nothing to report beat wise. -Jason

2 1

@fedora-devel beat ready
by Oisin Feeley 17 Nov '07

17 Nov '07

Hi all, The FWN Development Beat is ready for editing here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats/Developments#preview A couple of points to consider this issue: 1. The first topic I cut short due to the extremely lengthy nature of the discussion and my tiredness. I'll pick up where I left off next week if that's acceptable to everyone. Otherwise anyone should please feel free to jump in and edit and add (as always applies!). 2. In the story "Minimal Requires: Codename "Masochist"" I used pre-formatted text (three curly braces) in order to have JesseKeating's suggested commandline appear in italics and also include single-quotes. I initially tried to use emphasized text around this commandline, but could not figure out how to escape the single-quotes. Any suggestions? Have a good weekend, Oisin Feeley

2 1

Off shore Respins of F8
by Leslie S Satenstein 12 Nov '07

12 Nov '07

Since F8 is put together in the USA, Red Hat is legally obligated to not include licensed "multi-media codecs". However, in some jurisdictions, this illegality disappears. Therefore, if some enterprising individules living in one of those jurisdictions could make two respins based on the Nov 8th release DVDs, we in North America would be most appreciative. (One DVD for 32bit, the other for 64bit). UBUNTU, being produced in Africa, is a distribution using the supposedly illegal respins. UBUNTU asks if you wish to break the law of your country by installing those codecs for you, and does so, assuming you reply yes to the question. Precedence has been set. Go for it Fedora. Leslie

2 1

New Header for FWN
by Thomas Chung 12 Nov '07

12 Nov '07

Thanks to Nicu Buculei with Fedora Art Team, we now have very nice Header for our Fedora Weekly News! http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/ Cheers! -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

3 2

-infra and -trans beats
by Jason 12 Nov '07

12 Nov '07

So apparently my email didn't go through as I got a bounce/delayed notice. There wasn't anything reportable for the week but just so you know I didn't forget :D Have a good week everyone! -Jason

2 1

Fedora Weekly News Issue 109
by Thomas Chung 12 Nov '07

12 Nov '07

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 109 = Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 109 for the week of November 5th. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue109 In Announcements, we have "Announcing the release of Fedora 8 (Werewolf)", "Fedora Unity releases Fedora 8 CD Sets", "rpm.livna.org repositories for Fedora 8 (Werewolf) now available", "ATrpms for Fedora 8; EOL for Fedora Core 6" and "Unofficial Fedora FAQ Updated for Fedora 8!" In Planet Fedora, we have "Lesser-Known Fedora Contributors", "Part 1-6, Report: LTSP Hackfest 2007", "motd-File for your machine", "Fedora Electronic Lab 8 - Stable release", "Fedora Unity Spin Report", "Fedora 8 Games Spin - Feedback Requested", "Fedora Media Labels Howto", and "I am a Broken Record" To join or give us your feedback, please visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join. 1. Announcements 1. Announcing the release of Fedora 8 (Werewolf) 2. Fedora Unity releases Fedora 8 CD Sets 3. rpm.livna.org repositories for Fedora 8 (Werewolf) now available 4. ATrpms for Fedora 8; EOL for Fedora Core 6 5. Unofficial Fedora FAQ Updated for Fedora 8! 2. Ask Fedora 1. KDE 4 3. Planet Fedora 1. Lesser-Known Fedora Contributors, Part 1-6 2. Report: LTSP Hackfest 2007 3. motd-File for your machine 4. Fedora Electronic Lab 8 - Stable release 5. Fedora Unity Spin Report 6. Fedora 8 Games Spin - Feedback Requested 7. Fedora Media Labels Howto 8. I am a Broken Record 4. Developments 1. Codec Buddy Misleading? 2. Java Plugin Not Working In Fedora 8 3. Deltarpms For Fedora 7 To Fedora 8 Upgrade 4. OpenID Support In Fedora 9? 5. When Will CVS Be Replaced By A Modern SCM? 6. Smolt And Software Information 7. Bogus Permissions 8. Rpmbuild: Unset CFLAGS? 9. Fedora 9 Brainstorming 10. Services Should Not Start By Default 5. Advisory Board 1. Fedora Legal Updates 2. Improving The Fedora Development Process 6. Documentation 1. Wiki Collaboration 2. What Writing Tools Do You Use? 3. Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (FDSCo) Meeting 4. Administration Guide Work 5. The KDE-SIG needs (your) help 6. POT/PO Update for Release Notes 7. Artwork 1. Nodoka Window Decorations for KDE 2. Arts in Brazil 3. CD Box Draft 4. Hardcoded Icons 5. Fedora 8 Features in PDF 8. Security Week 1. Fedora 8 released 2. pcre 9. Advisories and Updates 1. Fedora 8 Security Advisories 2. Fedora 7 Security Advisories 3. 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 (Log) 2007-MM-DD 4. Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD 5. Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Report Week 44 6. Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-11-08 7. Fedora Localization Meeting 2007-MM-DD 8. Fedora Marketing Meeting 2007-MM-DD 9. Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD 10. Fedora Quality Assurance Meeting 2007-11-07 11. Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-11-05 12. Fedora SIG KDE Meeting 2007-11-06 [[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 the release of Fedora 8 (Werewolf) === JesseKeating announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "(To the tune of Michael Jackson's "Thriller") It's close to midnight and something cool is coming through the "tubes" It's looking real tight, a distro for the experts and the n00bs With Live CDs* so you can try it out before installing Or DVDs so you can have the packages you choose No way to lose" "'Cause it's Fedora, Fedora 8 We'd love to have you join us and together we'll be great Using Fedora, Fedora 8 Just click the link and rescue your computer's future today" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00006… === Fedora Unity releases Fedora 8 CD Sets === JeroenVanMeeuwen announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the release of new CD Spins of Fedora 8. These CD ISOs are based on the Fedora 8 DVD.iso. The ISO images are available for i386 and x86_64 architectures via jigdo starting Thursday, November 8th, 2007. 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/2007-November/msg00008… === rpm.livna.org repositories for Fedora 8 (Werewolf) now available === ThorstenLeemhuis announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "On behalf of the Livna ( http://rpm.livna.org ) contributers I'd like to announce the availability of the Livna package repository for Fedora 8 (Werewolf). The Livna repository hosts software as RPM packages which cannot be shipped in the official Fedora repository for various reasons and supports the i386, x86_64 and ppc architectures." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00004… === ATrpms for Fedora 8; EOL for Fedora Core 6 === AxelThimm announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "ATrpms is officially launching Fedora 8 support for i386, x86_64 and ppc. http://ATrpms.net/dist/f8/" "FC6 support will be EOL'd once the Fedora Project drops support for it (e.g. on December 7, 2007)." [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00005… === Unofficial Fedora FAQ Updated for Fedora 8! === MaxKanatAlexander announces in fedora-announce-list[1], "Hello! Right along with the release of Fedora 8, we're ready with the Fedora 8 version of the Unofficial Fedora FAQ! http://www.fedorafaq.org/" [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00011… [[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: RexDieter === KDE 4 === "Robert Myers <mystinar AT comcast.net>: When KDE 4 is released next month, will packages for it be added to the Fedora 8 repositories?" Robert, here's the cliff's notes answer: KDE4 development platform is already in Fedora 8. For details: * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats/Devel/KDE4DevelopmentPlatform * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats/Desktop When KDE 4.0 is released, we are strongly considering including KDE4 editions of kdeedu, kdegames as well, but the final decision hasn't been made. The rest of KDE4 is Fedora 9 territory: * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureKDE4 which is currently a bit out of date, but we'll be working on that once Fedora 8 is out the door. [[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 === Lesser-Known Fedora Contributors, Part 1-6 === MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1-6], "I must say, I have always been very impressed with our Brazilian Fedora community. They have created their own website, and they have always been very good about getting a lot of value out of the relatively small amount of money that we are able to send their way. In particular, I would like to thank RodrigoPadula and DavidBarzilay." "Most of Jon's (JonathanRoberts).contributions come as a writer -- he is particularly active in the Fedora News and the Fedora Documentation communities. In the Fedora 8 cycle, he has done a few things that have been tremendously helpful to me directly. The first is his work on the Fedora 8 Release Summary. The release summary is basically the Fedora community's "press release", written by a group of volunteers and meant to be a reasonably brief overview of "what is cool in the new distribution". "Ricky (RickyZhou) has had a lot to do with the entire look-and feel of the non-wiki section of fedoraproject.org. Right now, I hear, he is debugging the way fedoraproject.org renders when viewed with Internet Explorer 6, which actually tells you pretty much everything you need to know about his desire to see a Job Done Well." "Allison Mc``Grath (wife of MikeMcGrath) has made a tremendous contribution to the Fedora Project by being kind-hearted and understanding to her husband of less than one week when the Fedora 8 release fell directly in between their wedding and their honeymoon." "In the Fedora 8 timeframe, Chitlesh (ChitleshGoorah) is the man behind the Fedora Electronics Lab, one of the new custom spins that is being released with Fedora 8. Not only did he have the initial vision for the Fedora Electronics Lab, but he also maintains many of the packages that differentiate that spin from the more generic version of Fedora." "Gerold (GeroldKassube) has been the organizer for Fedora's presence at LinuxTag in 2006, 2007, and 2008. It is probably the biggest Linux show in Europe. Even more important, from a community point of view, Gerold has organized a series of Fedora Ambassador Days, which have gathered together 10-15 folks from all over Europe, and planned out their Fedora Ambassador strategy for the coming year." [1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/33893.html [2] http://spevack.livejournal.com/34215.html [3] http://spevack.livejournal.com/34370.html [4] http://spevack.livejournal.com/34700.html [5] http://spevack.livejournal.com/35162.html [6] http://spevack.livejournal.com/35470.html === Report: LTSP Hackfest 2007 === WarrenTogami points out in his blog[1], "LTSP is Linux Terminal Server Project, a collection of tools and scripts to enable Linux desktops to networks of thin clients. Through K12LTSP, literally thousands of schools and hundreds of thousands of students worldwide have been exposed to Red Hat and Fedora Linux over the past 6+ years. This report is on my trip to the latest LTSP hackfest, where I am working toward integration of LTSP directly into the Fedora Project." [1] http://wtogami.livejournal.com/20047.html === motd-File for your machine === FabianAffolter points out in his blog[1], "After the establishing of a connection to a machine over ssh there is the possibility to display a message. sshd is looking in the file named /etc/motd for the data. The limitations are that there should not be more than 80 digits a line." [1] http://fabaff.blogspot.com/2007/11/motd-file-for-your-machine.html === Fedora Electronic Lab 8 - Stable release === ChitleshGoorah points out his blog[1], "Last Thursday, 8th November 2007, the very first Fedora Electronic Lab LiveCD was released officially. This LiveCD is based on Fedora 8 KDE along with almost all electronic design tools." [1] http://clunixchit.blogspot.com/2007/11/fedora-electronic-lab-8-stable-relea… === Fedora Unity Spin Report === JeroenVanMeeuwen points out in his blog[1], "Our Fedora 8 CD Set jigdo has been downloaded over 350 times, while our latest Re-Spin has been downloaded almost 300 times." [1] http://kanarip.blogspot.com/2007/11/fedora-unity-spin-report.html === Fedora 8 Games Spin - Feedback Requested === RahulSundaram points out in his blog[1], "One of the custom spins of Fedora that didn't get much attention because of the late addition is the Fedora 8 Games spin. This custom version of Fedora 8 from the games special interest group in Fedora includes tons of free and open source Linux games in a installable Live DVD. Download it and check it out. More information is available at the game spin wiki page. Any feedback is most welcome." [1] http://rahulsundaram.livejournal.com/17475.html === Fedora Media Labels Howto === MairinDuffy points out in her blog[1], "so it seems some folks had some trouble with the labels I posted before - it's not easy to work with the SVGs without some Inkscape knowledge since the way I did them they aren't perfectly sized (there is some padding around them.)" [1] http://mihmo.livejournal.com/49341.html === I am a Broken Record === JefSpaleta pionts out in his blog[1] "Most people would consider the outage a big problem, but it sort of provided an interesting 'event' in the life of my f8 release animation. See while the outage was happening and the infrastructure team was shuffling around resources, so people didn't notice the disruption for too long, the logs I rely on to track f8 clients were seeing dead air. You can see exactly when the outage occurs in the theora video and exactly when the normal mirrorlist logging functionality is restored." [1] http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/15512.html [[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 === Codec Buddy Misleading? === An EU-based user (MarkG85) of Fedora 8 wondered[1] why CodecBuddy[2] was prompting him to pay to download codecs which he judged to be legally obtainable without payment within his legal jurisdiction. His suggestion was that GeoIP[3] functionality should be integrated with CodecBuddy in order to customize the prompts so that EU users were not misled into paying. MarkG85 also suggested that Red Hat should provide an EU-located server in order to circumvent the legal problems. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00536.ht… [2] See JonathanRoberts' interview with BastienNocera and ThomasVanderStichele for an overview of the functionality provided by CodecBuddy and some of the background to its inclusion in Fedora 8 including Fluendo's granting of a free (beer) mp3 codec. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolocation_software As the topic of the provision of legally dubious software (especially codecs for popular media types) has been discussed extensively and repeatedly in the past on several Fedora maillists and in more public forums there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm expressed by several people. MichaelWiktowy got straight to the point when he suggested[3a] that a search of @fedora-devel's archives and the use of ''rpm -Uvh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm'' would solve any problems. [3a] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00537.ht… The recent advice from Red Hat's legal counsel was alluded to by Mark and JeffSpaleta followed up[4] with an explanation that any distributed material could not contain even links to such software, but that the Fedora Project's web pages could. Jef suggested that it would be ideal if users of third-party repositories were willing to help upstream ''codeina''[5] development implement hooks to additional "vendors" (presumably including non-commercial repositories in locations not affected by bizarre "intellectual property" rules). [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00538.ht… [5] Codeina is a synonym for CodecBuddy, see: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/Codeina A certain amount of questioning about why things have to be done this way led to further suggestions[6] that anyone still interested should search the archives ("contributory infringement" being a useful phrase in this regard). "MarkG85" and others explored some hypothetical situations including wondering[7] why SourceForge is able to host ''gstreamer-plugins-bad'' but in the end these all rested on an imperfect understanding of US and EU law. AlanCox answered[8] the latter specific question with the information that US law (presumably Section 230 of the CDA[9]) provided protection to those merely hosting content. DavidNielsen summed things up well when he asked[10] in exasperation "Do you think we enjoy keeping media support from our users when we have perfectly good implementations available under OSI approved licenses? If there was a legal way to make this work, we would be doing it." [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00540.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00654.ht… [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00660.ht… [9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act#Section_230 [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00621.ht… As an interesting aside RahulSundaram provided[11] a link to a map depicting the geographical concentrations of contributors to Fedora's CVS repositories. Rahul added that from a legal perspective this was irrelevant as Red Hat is based in the USA and takes on the liability for the Fedora Project. KevinKofler and Rahul discussed[12] the possibility of a non-US-based "Fedora Foundation". [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00646.ht… [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00649.ht… === Java Plugin Not Working In Fedora 8 === The problem of getting the Java plugin working properly with Firefox cropped up again (see FWN#108 "IcedTea Plugin On x86_64"[1]) when ValentTurkovic posted[2] that despite having used ''yum install java-plugin'' Firefox still did not appear to work on a test site. [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue108#head-b6b24cabe831968ccc3a972977d… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00559.ht… There were several helpful responses, including one from HansdeGoede who repeated[3] the advice offered by BillNottingham in the previous[1] thread to run ''mozilla-plugin-config -i -f'' as root in order to set up ''nspluginwrapper'' to search the correct paths for plugins. Hans added that this should be document and fixed and MartinStransky reported[4] the happy news that the latest build (at that stage[5] 0.9.91.5) fixed this problem. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00583.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00586.ht… [5] http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=21875 MikeHarris (ex-Red Hat XFree86 maintainer) popped in to report that he was having no Java problems requiring manual intervention on an x86_64 installation of Fedora 8 although he had noticed that many other people had. He surmised[6] that problems were due to upgrading from a previous version (as opposed to a fresh install of the OS) or else the presence of a Sun/IBM/Other Java installation. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00567.ht… Valent replied that this was a fresh Fedora 8 LiveCD and after Hans repeated his advice Valent reported[7] that everything was now fine but wondered why it was not all "automagic". BillNottingham posted[8] that an update would be forthcoming to make it so. [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00585.ht… [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00597.ht… === Deltarpms For Fedora 7 To Fedora 8 Upgrade === The availability of deltarpms (see FWN#97 "Presto-digitation"[1]) to ease upgrading from Fedora 7 to Fedora 8 using yum was advertised[2] by JonathanDieter. JonathanUnderwood hoped that they would be for both x86_64 and i386 architectures, but JonathanDieter had to regretfully say[3] that they x86_64 deltarpms would not be ready for some days (probably by Sunday 11th Nov). [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue97#head-e50aaa8581b2a6606447223a3958… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00462.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00468.ht… A little later JonathanDieter advised that the Fedora 7 to Fedora 8 deltarpms would take a little more time to prepare, but that he had good news in the form of deltarpms for Fedora 8 updates. He also drew attention to a small change, which was that ''deltaurl='' should no longer be used and instead ''baseurl=http://lesloueizeh.com/f8/i386/updates'' should be inserted into ''etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo''. This change is due[5] to a desire to reduce the code complexity and result in Jonathan hosting the repository until the Fedora Project is able to change Koji and Bodhi to build and publish the deltarpms. This work is apparently under way[6][7]. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00500.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00545.ht… [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00547.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00497.ht… On Friday Jonathan announced[8] that the deltarpms for upgrades from Fedora 7 to Fedora 8 were ready (a little quicker than he promised!). He provided a link to the YumUpgradeFaq and repeated the caution that it was necessary to edit ''/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo'' as described above. He provided a very compelling 84% bandwidth reduction example for a whole repository upgrade. [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00544.ht… === OpenID Support In Fedora 9? === An interesting discussion ensued when NealBecker posted[1] a link to an article on LWN which discussed the advances made in the 2.0 release of the OpenID implementation of a "Single Sign On" (SSO) system. Neal asked whether it could be integrated into Fedora 9. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00427.ht… RichiPlana was interested and thought[2] it could work well with the GNOME Online desktop, but wondered how UIDs could be mapped to OpenIDs. He sought advice on which libraries he should use for PKI, string processing and networking in order to implement a PAM module for Fedora. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00471.ht… A cooler assessment came from SimoSorce who listed[3] the problem of UIDs in networked environments, emphasizing their local, non-network-aware nature. Simo suggested two possible solutions: one, making UIDs 128bit (effectively transforming them into UUIDs); or 2) make UIDs local only by a mapping facility in vfs which can translate each UID across networks. Simo had hard words to say about NIS and LDAP, characterizing their syncing of UIDs as "just *bad* hacks." [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00478.ht… Although these problems were recognized by ColinWalters he suggested[4] the third option of using situation-specific logic and not trying to generalize the problem and solve it for all possible cases. AlanCox re-framed[5] the discussion in terms of the usefulness of LDAP or NIS being able to locally answer the "who owns this?" as opposed to the "can I ...?" questions. He suggested that the problems of remote filesystems being attached to local systems had been solved by AFS (which was designed for distributed computing and uses Kerberos to manage authentication) and that NFSv4 had the correct framework. [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00479.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00481.ht… Simo was not convinced that ID mapping problems had been solved and wondered[6] what key management (which Alan had mentioned was integrated into the kernel) brought to the table. Further discussion centered[7][8] around the overlap between the authentication and user identity domains. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00490.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00504.ht… [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00511.ht… === When Will CVS Be Replaced By A Modern SCM? === A _very_ long thread was initiated[1] by AdamTkac when he asked whether there were plans to replace CVS with a more modern SCM/VCS[0] such as Mercurial/Hg, SVN or Git. JeffreyOllie suggested that a search of the archives would answer most questions as this had been discussed many times before. He pointed out that there is no consensus on which alternative to choose and that Koji and Plague would both need work done on them in order to support whatever is chosen. DanWilliams thought[2] that Plague should be able to support Git and/or Subversion. [0] SCM and VCS are used interchangeably in this discussion, standing for Software Configuration Management and Version Control System respectively. DVCS stands for Distributed VCS. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_configuration_management [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00453.ht… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00388.ht… JoshBoyer asked[3] for any specific workflows which could be only be obtained with a new VCS. One suggestion from TomasJanousek was[4] that it was difficult to obtain a patchset from an arbitrary old history of the specfile, but LesMikesell suggested running ''viewvc'' (which used to be ''cvsweb'') on the repository and VilleSkyttä provided an URL which allowed the viewing of all branches through the browser interface, all of which made ChristopherAillon happy[5]. [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00384.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00395.ht… [5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00485.ht… Adam provided some specific problems with his workflow[6] including the problem of easily moving a source tree under development and more. He admitted that they were solvable with CVS but he felt there were probably better ways of doing this with other systems. JesseKeating pressed for specifics and when Adam suggested that local repositories, branches and commits were desirable an interesting question was asked[7] by AndrewBartlett. Andrew pointed out that while distributed VCSs were attractive to the SAMBA Team their use of a centralized build farm (similar to Koji) only worked with the centralized model enforced by CVS. Jesse replied[8] to Adam that while he loved the idea of distributed SCMs he thought that the workflow which Adam described would result in an increased burden on most maintainers. [6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00422.ht… [7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00433.ht… [8] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00437.ht… The problem of server outages (earlier mentioned by Adam) was expanded on when LubomirKundrak advocated[9] retaining the current system and pointed out that other services/servers had outages. MatejCepl's response[10] pointing out that with a distributed VCS the users can just commit locally and keep working led to skepticism from RalfCorsepius followed by an explanation[11] from SimoSorce. JoshBoyer and CaseyDahlin pointed[12] to the problem of distributing the buildsystem as the limiting factor on the usefulness of a distributed VCS. [9] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00454.ht… [10] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00475.ht… [11] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00495.ht… [12] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00543.ht… FlorianLaRoche answered[13] the original query with the information that the Git backend to Koji needed testing and that this was important for the SecondaryArchitecture plans (see FWN#90 "Fedora Secondary Architectures Proposal"[14] and FWN#92 "Secondary Arch Proposal Cont."[15]). [13] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00420.ht… [14] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue90#head-271f52b8e5603cd40d00d7c44ec8… [15] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue92#head-c3434293278dd5591422aebad936… Strong disagreement was expressed[16] by KarelZak with JoshBoyer's statements that CVS was fine because most work was on editing specfiles. Karel argued that specfiles were not central to his Fedora work and that the problem was that source code was not maintained in Fedora's CVS which meant that a ream of advantages were being lost. TomasMraz agreed[17] but noted that the packages CVS tree was fine for its purpose and that a set of scripts could provide a bridge between it and a DVCS with the features which Karel wanted. When MatejCepl provided a link to such a tool, Karel stated "We don't talk about a bridge between CVS and DVCS. We need a way how convert src.rpm to real source code tree that is managed by DVCS" which left Matej (and your author) confused[18]. [16] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00528.ht… [17] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00550.ht… [18] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00589.ht… The thread flared up again when JonathanShapiro (from the CoyotOS group) provided[19] evidence that a centralized workflow could benefit from using a DVCS. Jesse wondered how many of the advantages realized within the CoyotOS project would be procedures commonly used in Fedora, to which ToshioKuratomi replied affirmatively[20] using his experience with Python "eggs". NilsPhilippsen also provided a list of things which could be done more easily with DVCS to which Jesse again asked[21] how frequently these operations would be carried out. Jesse stated that it was necessary to balance the extra complexity of imposing a DVCS on each maintainer against the advantages gained by its use. [19] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00453.ht… [20] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00474.ht… === Smolt And Software Information === Recent IRC discussions (in #smolt) were reported[1] by YaakovNemoy to concern the collection of information about partitioning, drive sizes and filesystem types. Yaakov had two questions: first, was it useful to collect such information; second, were there privacy concerns? Yaakov was very open and encouraging of criticism during the thread. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00604.ht… An exchange with "nodata" concerning the lack of access controls on the UUID script resulted[2] in the filing of a bugzilla entry. "Nodata" made the point that although current voluntary participants might be happy to give their UUID to a developer for the current limited amount of information linked to it, they would be less willing to do so as more details were tied to the single UUID. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00613.ht… === Bogus Permissions === Some odd permissions (the Inventor* rpms had the execute bit set) in the "8/Everything/i386/os/Packages" directory were noticed[1] by RalfCorsepius. JesseKeating replied that the error was known and that it was being ignored until things calmed down as there was no obvious harm being done. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00670.ht… Ralf acknowledged[2] that there was no direct harm but that it wasn't pretty and also pointed[3] out that low-bandwidth users might be upset that they would need to download the packages again later. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00672.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00676.ht… === Rpmbuild: Unset CFLAGS? === DebarshiRay (rishi) posted[1] that he had found while building ''proxyknife'' that it was necessary to make some adjustments to the values of CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS in order to have ''rpmbuild'' complete building the package. Koji builds worked perfectly without any changes. Rishi wondered if it was a good idea to unset the two variables by default. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00610.ht… After some help from JoachimFrieben (who suggested using CPPFLAGS instead) Rishi suggested[2] that it should be possible for a specfile to set custom values for CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS and FFLAGS. LeszekMatok declared[3] himself a fan of environment variables in order to save hours of specfile editing and MikeHarris added[4] a helpful suggestion. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00615.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00624.ht… [4] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00631.ht… === Fedora 9 Brainstorming === JesseKeating announced[1] that Fedora 9 development was going to go ahead in the Rawhide repository on Friday 9th Nov and provided instructions for those who wanted to get off at the Fedora 8 stop. A useful link to the wiki describing the release engineering strategy was provided. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00487.ht… The instructions to ensure that the ''development'' yum repository should be disabled for anyone that does _not_ wish to experience the first attempted compose of Fedora 9 were reiterated by DaveJones who said "People get bitten by this every release. And no doubt, people will this release too, because not all useres will read your announcement." Dave suggested[2] that an update to fedora-release just before the compose might ease this problem. Jesse and Rahul both pointed out that this would still result in a problem for anyone that had edited their repository files by hand as these would be used in preference to any ''.rpmnew'' version supplied. [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00489.ht… === Services Should Not Start By Default === The sharp-eyed OrionPoplawski noticed[1] that the latest Moodle specfile seemed to set the CMS to start by default. JonCiesla explained[2] that he had thought that the ''chkconfig'' line would result in the service starting on boot and not on install and asked what the correct thing was to do. BillNottingham confirmed[3] that Jon's interpretation was correct, but clarified that the service should not start on boot either. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00608.ht… [2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00616.ht… [3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-November/msg00639.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 === Fedora Legal Updates === TomCallaway has written a message on the fedora-advisory-board list with updates on several legal matters[1]. Red Hat Legal has determined that libgpod/gtkpod support does not violate the DMCA thus Fedora can implement support for the newer generation iPods. It was also determining that linking to third-party Fedora RPM repositories is okay as long as there are no technology patents in question and no party has asserted their rights, which does include MP3 support. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-November/msg0005… === Improving The Fedora Development Process === For future Fedora releases, MaxSpevack has recommended three changes be made to improve the development process[1]. These three points are picking a release name sooner in the development cycle, complete the web content at a specific deadline in the schedule, and more detailed feature QA/smoke-testing. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2007-November/msg0007… [[Anchor(Documentation)]] == Documentation == In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject Contributing Writer: JohnBabich === Wiki Collaboration === KarstenWade explained to new contributors to Fedora docs on the wiki that they may have experienced him or other editors making corrections to their contributions. This is normal and should be viewed as a great way to learn while doing. No one should feel that he or she is being singled out. He concluded, "You all are doing great work; there is so much activity on some days the wiki edits just blur by. It makes my heart sing. :)"[1]. [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-November/msg00032.html === What Writing Tools Do You Use? === MurrayMcAllister asked "what tools everyone is using for writing, including editors, research tools, diagram tools, graphic tools, and so on." [1] he currently uses Kate, but is starting to use jEdit. MarcWiriadisastra is using OpenOffice.org for wiki docs, Dan Smith is also using Kedit and OpenOffice.org, along with Abi``Word. Dan also confesses to putting things down on paper. RuturajVartak wrote that he uses SCIM for Hindi translations, gedit and gtranslator. PaulFrields is a big Emacs fan, but pines for Open``Office.org with better XSLT/styling. He notes the potential of SVG. JohnBabich also wishes OpenOffice.org Writer supported Doc``Book XML better and is excited about the possibility of supporting text translations inside SVG diagrams. [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-November/msg00022.html === Fedora Documentation Steering Committee (FDSCo) Meeting === The log[1] of the FDSCo meeting held on 4 November was posted to the mailing list. There is also an html version[2] available on the Fedora Project wiki. [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-November/msg00014.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minute… The FDSCo meeting for 11 November 2007 was cancelled. === Administration Guide Work === There's been some excellent progress lately on the Admninistration Guide. VladimirKosovac wrote that he just started a Samba write-up for the Servers section in the Wiki. He understood that TOCs and multiple pages should be avoided to ease wiki--> Doc``Book conversion. Is that correct? [1] [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-November/msg00011.html === The KDE-SIG needs (your) help === JohnBabich seconded the call for help issued by the KDE-SIG, especially the part asking for documentation writers: "The documentation (esp. the Desktop``User``Guide) is GNOME-centered. Help us to provide an equivalent for KDE." [1] []1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-November/msg00013.html === POT/PO Update for Release Notes === PaulFrields did his usual excellent job in getting the Release Notes in shape for final publication in time for the release of Fedora 8. Ever the humble person, he acknowledged the hard work done by everyone: "Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on getting these ready -- it looks like we'll have at least 11 languages ready on release date! You guys never fail to astound me with how much work you can accomplish in such a relatively short time. Congratulations to all the teams for their efforts!" [1] [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-November/msg00015.html [[Anchor(Artwork)]] == Artwork == In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork Contributing Writer: TimothyRoberts === Nodoka Window Decorations for KDE === LaithJuwaidah has released a KDE version of the new Fedora theme Nodoka. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00014.html === Arts in Brazil === JaymeAyres has contributed artwork for Fedora Project in Brasil. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00033.html === CD Box Draft === GiacomoSucci has posted a first draft of of the CD Box. He is asking for the community's opinions and comments. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00056.html === Hardcoded Icons === JakubRusinek has requested that the community help fix gnome system-* packages, which currently hardcodes icon paths. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00018.html === Fedora 8 Features in PDF === MichaelBeckwith has requested assistance with compiling a PDF intended to display the new features of Fedora 8. He is in need of content, ideas, and graphics. [1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-November/msg00035.html [[Anchor(SecurityWeek)]] == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. Contributing Writer: JoshBressers === Fedora 8 released === Last week saw the release of Fedora 8. This is important for countless reasons, one of them being a new firewall configuration tool. This is important since it should hopefully keep more people using the firewall. In previous Fedora releases it was often easiest to just turn off the firewall when something didn't work. This is obviously an unwise move as it can leave your machine open to various other issues. One of the most difficult things for security to achieve is keeping users safe while staying out of the way. === pcre === Some rather foul pcre flaws were made public last week. In reality these flaws aren't a big deal for most users, but it was found that pcre is used by Konqueror. It seems that the Konqueror web browser uses the pcre library for its JavaScript regular expression support. Web browsers are easily one of the most dangerous applications on a computer, as they process an incredible amount of arbitrary third party content. [[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 8 Security Advisories === * seamonkey-1.1.5-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * tar-1.17-4.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * hugin-0.6.1-11.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * ruby-1.8.6.111-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cpio-2.9-5.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * liferea-1.2.23-5.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * nagios-plugins-1.4.8-9.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * xscreensaver-5.03-14.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * glib2-2.14.3-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * mono-1.2.5.1-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cups-1.3.4-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * kdegraphics-3.5.8-7.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * xpdf-3.02-4.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * openldap-2.3.39-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * koffice-1.6.3-13.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * Django-0.96.1-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… === Fedora 7 Security Advisories === * cpio-2.6-28.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * proftpd-1.3.1-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * hugin-0.6.1-11.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * tomboy-0.6.1-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * xpdf-3.02-4.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * koffice-1.6.3-13.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * inotify-tools-3.11-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cups-1.2.12-7.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * mono-1.2.3-5.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * Django-0.96.1-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… === Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories === * flac-1.1.2-28 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * firefox-1.5.0.12-5.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * thunderbird-1.5.0.12-3.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * libpng-1.2.10-10.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * tar-1.15.1-27.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * xen-3.0.3-13.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * ruby-1.8.5.114-1.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cups-1.2.12-5.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… * cpio-2.6-22.fc6 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-November/msg00… [[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 (Log) 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD === * No Report === Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Report Week 44 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/Reports/Week44 === Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-11-08 === * https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-November/ms… === 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 Quality Assurance Meeting 2007-11-07 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20071107 === Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-11-05 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/Meetings/2007-nov-05 === Fedora SIG KDE Meeting 2007-11-06 === * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE/Meetings/2007-11-06 -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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