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DistributionsNews and Editorials Debian Maintainers GR ProposalAnthony Town posted a proposed general resolution to the Debian-vote list, Debian Maintainers GR Proposal. It's about having a second keyring for Debian maintainers who don't want to be full fledged Debian Developers. This second keyring would provided limited upload ability to unstable or experimental.Anthony's proposal is in seven parts:
The proposal got a few seconds, but attracted quite a bit of debate. Bastian Venthur wondered why not just improve the new maintainer process: "So, why such a complicated GR introducing second class DDs? Just grant a few more rights to our NMs and try to improve the NM process in the long run and everybody will be happy." Raphël Hertzog pointed to previous discussions, "In short, this DM status is complementary to NM. It's not working around any deficiency in the NM process." Joey Schulze raised the concern, "I fear that the DM thingy is just invented to get more people [to] maintain packages in Debian without becoming properly involved, eventually not giving the same care a normal DDviaNM would give and thus Debian ending up with a universe of broken packages. That's most certainly not what I would like Debian to become in the future." Anthony pointed out:
The NM process is designed to create new Debian Developers -- particularly
with the ability to participate fully in the project, NMUing, hijacking
packages, voting, raising and seconding GRs, following -private, creating
new .debian.net services, accounts on dozens of machines, become a DPL
delegate, run for DPL, represent Debian, do transverse activities across
the distribution, etc....
People should be able to contribute at the level they feel comfortable with; if that increases over time, that's great; if it stays constant or decreases, we shouldn't try to force them to do more than they want, or refuse to accept what they're willing to do. That doesn't mean lowering our standards of what we distribute, just being willing to accept packages that are able to be maintained to our standards more efficiently than we currently do. In another post he added:
The NM process is about making new DDs -- who participate fully in
the project, and understand and agree with its goals. Not every useful
contributor to Debian actually wants that status -- Matthew Garrett's one
example of a former DD who'd like to contribute to Debian without being
a DD, and this is a way of making that more effective. Likewise there are
plenty of people who'd like to make a small contribution to Debian without
having to obtain the level of knowledge and experience we expect of
DDs.
The debate continues and so far little seems to be resolved. We can expect a somewhat re-worded proposal to go out though, which may well receive the required number of seconds to get it to a vote.
New Releases BLAG 70k alphaBLAG Linux and GNU has released an alpha test image of BLAG 70k. "This 70k series is updated to use Fedora 7 as a base and kernel 2.6.21. It's in pretty good shape already, but has a few things to smooth out."
Mandriva releases Corporate Desktop 4.0Mandriva has announced the release of Corporate Desktop 4.0. "Ergonomically designed, secure, comprehensive, easy to use and to administer: by consulting its corporate clients and building on its own expertise in the desktop area, Mandriva developed Corporate Desktop 4.0, a distribution that can be installed in less than 15 minutes and extensively customized thanks to a new post-installation tool."
Slackware 12.0 RC 2The June 26, 2007 Slackware current changelog entry proclaims the second release candidate for Slackware 12.0. "This might as well be called 12.0 RC2 so that we're not accused on skimping on release candidates. ;-) Still going through various reports, and (especially) looking into getting the php.ini defaults reasonable (as well as figuring out which features can be safely built as extensions). But, we're getting there."
WhiteBox Enterprise Linux 4 Respin2 now availableWhite Box Enterprise Linux 4 Respin 2 is available. "This covers Update5 from upstream plus a few errata released since. The recent OO.o and OO.o2 updates ARE included."
Distribution News Looking for new release assistantsThe Debian project is looking for new release assistants to help with Lenny. Interested Debian developers will need to be able to dedicate a chunk of time each week to this task, QA experience and an understanding of C, /bin/sh scripting, Perl, Python, Debian packaging, policy, the developers reference, and similar things.
Announcing Novell Hack WeekNovell is running a special internal event this week called Hack Week. "During Hack Week, our entire Linux engineering team -- hundreds of people -- will be working on whatever Linux or open source projects interest them. Everyone will work alone or in teams, on existing open source projects or new ideas of their own. No one will tell them what or what not to do -- it's a free week for free hacking, driven by individual passion." The Idea Pool web site is where hackers are publicizing their projects and it's open to the public.
IBM and atsec achieve independent certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 at Common Criteria EAL4+ under NIAP schemeatsec information security has announced that the U.S. National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS) has certified Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as conformant to EAL4+ and the following Protection Profiles: Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP), Role Based Access Control (RBAC) Protection Profile and Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP). The operating system is certified on several IBM server platforms. The evaluation work was performed by atsec information security corporation, and the effort was sponsored by IBM.
Main frozen for Tribe-2The Ubuntu Tribe 2 CD is expected on June 28, 2008.
Distribution Newsletters Fedora Weekly News Issue 93The Fedora Weekly News for June 23, 2007 covers FESCo elections, Fedora Remixed (a YouTube Video), Custom Kernels in Fedora, Fedora Board Elections, FUDCon F8 Update and much more.
Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #46The June 23rd issue of Ubuntu Weekly News is out. Topics covered include Dell's live thread about Ubuntu, Jordan Mantha joining the Ubuntu Core Team, planned features for Gutsy, the release of Launchpad 1.1.6 and much more.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 208The DistroWatch Weekly for June 26, 2007 is out. "A Linux distribution is not just a CD image we download from the Internet; for many of us the social part of a project, such as any interactive communication channels, are equally important. In this week's feature story, Mark South examines how one or two poisonous individuals can spoil the experience for many other users. In the news section, we take a look at the importance of the various language-specific distributions on the market, examine the new features in Ubuntu 7.10, introduce a new YaST module for creating custom live CDs, and link to a story featuring the PCLinuxOS Control Center. Finally, don't miss the excellent article written by Linux Weekly News on the subject of backporting newer software and patches into a stable distribution."
Newsletters and articles of interest Roll your own Linux distro (IT Wire)IT Wire looks at creating a customized distribution using ROCK Linux or Linux From Scratch. "The first thing to do is away from the keyboard. First you must consider what you wish to achieve. What will be the aim of your distro? Possible reasons are to optimise for, or to target, a particular CPU. Alternatively, you may wish to create a highly specialised system for specific purposes. You should also consider the default programs you would like to supply. For instance, is your preferred command-line interpreter the bash shell? Or do you prefer csh? Will you opt for sendmail for e-mail management, or do you prefer exim? Are you a vi or a pico person? One advantage of a customised Linux distribution is that it can work exactly how you want. If your aim is to provide a distro for many people to use then you will want to be flexible with your choices."
Two new alternatives for the enterprise desktop (Linux.com)Linux.com takes a look at Mandriva Corporate Desktop 4.0 and White Box Enterprise Linux 4 Respin 2. "Today enterprise users have two new choices in desktop distributions. Mandriva Corporate Desktop 4.0 is an all-new version of Mandriva's enterprise workstation, while White Box Enterprise Linux 4 Respin 2 incorporates the recent OpenOffice.org and OpenOffice.org 2 updates."
The Perfect Server - Fedora 7 (HowtoForge)HowtoForge sets up a server with Fedora 7. "This is a detailed description about how to set up a Fedora 7 server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of Fedora 7, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well."
Distribution reviews New AntiX distro makes older hardware usable (Linux.com)Susan Linton reviews AntiX. "I've been a fan of SimplyMEPIS for years. The distribution was one of the early pioneers in the field of user-friendly Linux development, and to this day offers a system that usually "just works." Earlier this month the MEPIS site announced a community variation for older computers based on SimplyMEPIS. AntiX is an installable live CD that features a modern kernel, recent X server, and lighter applications for use on computers with as little as 64MB RAM. I tried it, and liked what I found."
OpenSUSE 10.3 Alpha 5 report (TuxMachines)TuxMachines.org takes a look at OpenSUSE 10.3 Alpha 5. "Alpha 5 in the OpenSUSE 10.3 developmental cycle was released several days ago and with it came a few surprises. As opposed to big changes in the installed system itself, the big news this release was the 1 CD install offerings. In KDE and GNOME flavors, this release brought the single ~700MB install cdrom. I found them to be complete enough to get a stable desktop system. Not much development will be possible without further package installation, but downloading and installing the required and other desired packages through yast might be preferrable to downloading the usual 5 or 6 cds or the huge dvd."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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