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The openSUSE Project's first board elections

The openSUSE Project is about to hold it's first board election. The process is well underway, with the first phase nearly over. All members of the openSUSE project may vote and can run for the board positions, but there is a fast approaching deadline in which to register for this vote or to declare your intention to run for this election. In the last call for candidates, received a bit too late for last week's LWN issue, states that application deadline ends September 24th, 12:00 UTC.

An election committee has been formed to oversee the elections. Four people, two from Novell and two from the community, will organize and oversee the election. Committee members Claes Backstrom, Andrew Wafaa, Marko Jung, and Vincent Untz have agreed not to run for this election so that they might remain impartial.

The initial openSUSE board was appointed by Novell. Pascal Bleser, a member of that board, has written a blog post about the openSUSE Board and the elections giving his view of the what the board does and does not do. "One point that really must be clarified (again) is that the Board is not responsible for taking technical decisions. That's other people's job, e.g. AJ as the director of openSUSE and platform, Coolo as the openSUSE distribution project manager, or Michl as the openSUSE product manager." Pascal also has a followup post answering some additional questions about the time commitments and involvement expected of a board member.

Andreas Jaeger, also a member of the current board, has also written about the board, how it's organized and what upcoming board members might expect. "I'm part of the first openSUSE board and in my opinion we're still bootstrapping it and forming it. Federico mentioned that it took the GNOME board several years until they were really functional - so this shaping of the board is not only in the openSUSE project an evolutionary process that takes time and is influenced by e.g. (constructive) criticism, praise, communication in general, and decisions." New board members will be able to shape the board from the inside. With a new board, community members can also help shape the board with questions, comments and letting their expectations be known.

The board will consist of five members, a Novell appointed chairperson, two Novell employees and two community members (not employed by Novell). So far there are three Novell candidates and five non-Novell candidates. The list of candidates with pointers to their platforms can be found here.

We will soon be into the campaign period, which runs from September 25th to October 9th. During this time period will be blog entries from the candidates, interviews by the openSUSE news team, and a moderated Q&A session on IRC. There is also a feature in the openSUSE election in which each eligible voter may appoint a second openSUSE member to be eligible to vote. The option to appoint a second voter will be available during the campaign period and may allow a few people who missed the September 24th deadline to vote.

The actual election begins as the campaign period ends. Each eligible voter will be able to cast their votes once. No changes will be allowed. Votes will be stored anonymously in the electronic system. Ballots will be closed October 23rd, the winners announced once the election committee has had a chance to verify and count the votes.

If you care about the openSUSE project, this is a great time to get involved. Run for the board, vote in the election, and have a say in the shape of things to come.

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New Releases

I: ALT Linux 4.0 Terminal

ALT Linux 4.0 Terminal has been released. The release notes are available in English. The release itself is available in English and Russian versions.

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CentOS 4.7 is released for i386 and x86_64

The CentOS development team has announced the release of CentOS 4.7 for i386 and x86_64. This is the seventh update to the 4.0 release and includes updates through September 12, 2008. Other architectures are still in progress.

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Introducing the Foresight Mobile Edition

The Foresight Linux Project has announced the first release of the Foresight Mobile Edition. "The Foresight Mobile Edition is the first release of Foresight for netbooks and ultra mobile PCs, such as the ASUS Eee PC, Intel Classmate, and Dell E netbook, and features a customized GNOME desktop optimized for smaller screens."

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Lunar Linux 1.6.4-alpha3 released

Lunar Linux 1.6.4-alpha3 codename 'Lacus Autumni' is available for testing. "It has been a long wait, but finally a new release is in the works that will correct all the issues installing Lunar using the old ISO's. We have also decided to remove XOrg and XFCE that was available on the 1.6.2-beta2 release to shrink the ISO size a bit."

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Syllable Server 0.3 released

Syllable Server 0.3 has been released. This is a new distribution, and the first release that focused on making the system actually usable as a server. "A number of popular servers were added and configured, and also several innovative REBOL software stacks. Out of the imaginary box, Syllable Server is now ready for such things as accepting remote SSH log-ins over the network, running a web server on the Cheyenne REBOL server, running an FTP server and several more." Syllable Server has been added to the General Purpose section of the list.

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Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

Bits from the Debian GNU/Hurd porters

It has been three years since the last report, but the Debian GNU/Hurd project is moving along. Several releases have been made, the most recent was in December 2007. It would appear that many developers are using virtualization to the run the distribution: "Besides qemu, which can be very slow to run, a Xen DomU port for GNU Mach has been made available by Samuel Thibault. It requires a non-PAE hypervisor and some minor manual tweaking, but is otherwise quite functional and stable already, see its wiki page[4] for further information. This will make people running the Hurd less dependent on specific hardware, as a lot of newer computers do not work with the underlying GNU Mach kernel anymore." Click below for the full report.

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report from the Emdebian/FAI Work Session in Extremadura 2008

The Emdebian (Embedded Debian) team met in Extremadura, Spain for discussion and bug fixing. Click below for the report.

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Call for testing of next Debian Installer release

The first release candidate of the Debian 5.0 (Lenny) installer is available for testing. "The installer has a lot of new and impressive features against last Etch release and Lenny beta 2. For a better view of the changes made on the installer since last beta, take a look on our release announcement draft. We are sure you are going to have a nice feeling about it. We count on you to help us!"

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Distribution Newsletters

Misc Debian developer news (#10)

This issue of miscellaneous Debian developer news looks at PTS (Package Tracking System) news, a new machine for the MIPS porters, some personnel changes, people.debian.org moves to a new machine along with the delayed queue, and the Git user survey 2008.

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Fedora Weekly News, Issue 143

The Fedora Weekly News for September 7, 2008 is out. "This week Announcements trumpets the arrival of a new version of Bodhi, the freeze of Rawhide and some essential reading on the new package keys. In Developments we shock you with "Non-X System Consoles to be Removed". Virtualization alerts you to "Virt-manager 0.6.0 Released" and dives into how developers are "Laying the Groundwork for Xen Domain 0 Support". The ever entertaining Artwork beat examines "How to Select a Winning Theme" and SecurityAdvisories provides a handy list for your perusal."

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OpenSUSE Weekly News/38

This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers the Last Call for openSUSE Board Candidates, openSUSE KDE Bug Squashing Days (20-21 September), Board election, openSUSE 11.0 survey, KDE in openSUSE 11.1 and beyond, and more.

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Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #108

This week the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter covers: Introducing Jaunty Jackalope, UI Freeze in place-Alpha 6 freeze ahead, Last push for Intrepid documentation, Ubuntu 9.04 Developer Summit Sponsorship, Status of Ubuntu Romanian Localization Team, Ubuntu Developer Week, MOTU, New Ubuntu Members, Intrepid Spanish Translation, New Ubuntu Cyclists Team, Atlanta Linux Fest 2008, Arizona LoCo participating in ABLEconf, Ohio Linuxfest, Berlin LoCo Bug Jams, Ubuntu-NI SFD 2008, Technical Board Meeting Summary, Server Team Meeting, and much more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 270

The DistroWatch Weekly for September 15, 2008 is out. "An issue largely dedicated to Ubuntu, our editorial looks at the increasingly assertive way Canonical handles its trademarks with relations to other Ubuntu-based distributions. In related news, Ubuntu debates ways to bypass a controversial Mozilla licensing requirement, Shuttleworth announces Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" with interesting innovations, and the Ubuntu Eee project launches a new product for the popular netbook from ASUS, incorporating a brand new desktop interface. Also in the news, openSUSE goes for a complete switch to KDE 4.x starting with version 11.2, Fedora announces the availability of package updates after a recent server crack, and Red Hat receives criticism from the Linux community over the lack of security information following the Fedora server compromise. Finally, if you are a translator or if you work in localising software applications, don't miss Linguas OS, a PCLinuxOS-based live CD that could greatly speed up your work."

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Distribution reviews

OpenSolaris 2008.05 is robust and ready

Gary Sims reviews OpenSolaris 2008.05 on Linux.com. "OpenSolaris comes with some unique technologies, such as ZFS and DTrace, which can make it an attractive option for business. The Zetabyte File System (ZFS) is a powerful file system designed for high storage capacities. It goes beyond filesystems like ext3 and NTFS by combining a filesystem, volume management, and RAID into one package. DTrace is a system tracing tool that enables you to explore your system to understand how it works, track down performance problems across many layers of software, or locate the cause of aberrant behavior. You can learn more about it in the Solaris Dynamic Tracing Guide."

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