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The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/
Debian Project News [email protected]
July 29th, 2016 https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2016/03/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to this year's third issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:

* Welcome to the Debian Project News!
* Internal News/Happenings
* Events: Upcoming and Reports
* Help needed
* More than just code
* Reports
* Quick Links from Debian Social Media
* Want to continue reading DPN?


Welcome to the Debian Project News!
-----------------------------------

We hope that you are enjoying the new format of the DPN.

For other news, please read the official Debian Blog Bits from
Debian [1], and follow our Pump.io network feed:
https://identi.ca/debian.

1: https://bits.debian.org

Debian's Security Team releases current advisories on a daily basis
(Security Advisories 2016 [2]). Please read them carefully and subscribe
to the security mailing list [3].

2: https://www.debian.org/security/2016/
3: https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/

At the end of this project news we've added a Quick Links section which
links to many of the posts made through our other media streams.


Internal News/Happenings
------------------------

Mate 1.14 in Unstable

Mike Gabriel announced [4] MATE 1.14 was landing in unstable, with
builds for the 23 architectures supported by Debian. Mike notes that the greatest change is the switch from GTK2 to GTK3 and that there are some
known issues such as when running in an NXv3-based remote desktop
session. The team thanks all those who helped getting MATE into Debian.

4: https://sunweavers.net/blog/node/42

Misc Developer News

Julien Cristau posted Misc Developer News #41 [5]. Highlights include
the new debhelper compat 10 being ready for testing, source packages now
being able to include upstream signatures, a change to Apt allowing the
use of "by-hash" to avoid hashsum mismatches, minor mirror changes to
help the Debian Mirrors network, the "stretch-debug" suite now being
populated, and the package init losing its status as Essential and
required, so that it can be left out of minimal chroots.

5: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/06/msg00002.html

Point releases

Debian "wheezy" 7.11 [6]: the eleventh and final update of oldstable
Debian 7 (codename "wheezy") was released on 4 June 2016.

6: https://www.debian.org/News/2016/2016060402

Debian "jessie" 8.5 [7]: the fifth update of stable Debian 8 (codename "jessie") was also released on 4 June 2016.

7: https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160604

Changes in the New Member process

Enrico Zini highlights [8] some changes to the New Member process along
with a guide to the application process. The nm.debian.org [9] site now
offers managed self-service for most of the steps, which should aid
applicants and advocates to provide input and information and make it
easier for Account Managers and Debian Developers to provide input.

8: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/06/msg00003.html
9: https://nm.debian.org

These changes help move the NM process forward in several areas,
especially helping Debian Account Managers and Front Desk members to concentrate on reviewing and deciding on applications.

Wheezy LTS and the switch to OpenJDK 7

Markus Koschany followed up on the earlier announcement of support [10]
and changes for Wheezy LTS. He gave more background information to the
decision to switch from OpenJDK 6 to OpenJDK 7 in Wheezy LTS [11], a
move prompted by the end of life of Ubuntu 12.04 which uses OpenJDK 6.
The switch took into consideration choosing a default for a stable
release cycle, the impact that it would have on users, and questioning
the need of supporting JDK6 for a short 12 month period of time in
contrast to the length of the LTS timeline.

10: https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160425
11: http://java.debian.net/blog/2016/06/wheezy-lts-and-the-switch-to-openjdk-7.html

Bits from the DPL

Debian Project Leader Mehdi Dogguy shared news [12] of his activities
and happenings inside of the project. He announced changes made to the
Newmaint delegation, notes on attending DebConf16 and Sun Camp,
appointments to the Anti-Harassment team, a review of reimbursement
procedures, and asset purchases.

12: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/06/msg00008.html

GCC 6 and binutils for the Debian stretch release

Matthias Klose announced GCC 6 will be the default [13] GNU Compiler
Collection for stretch. GCC 6 is available in testing and can be
currently made the default on systems by installing the gcc/g++ packages
from experimental. Matthias highlighted known build failures, and plans
for release. Packages using previous GCC versions will become release
critical for the next release.

13: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/06/msg00007.html

binutils will be moving from a 12 month release cycle to a 6 month
release cycle; expect binutils 2.27 or later for stretch.

New pkg-security team

Gianfranco Costamagna announced a new pkg-security team [14] which will
focus on providing a list of security tools maintained by downstream distributions, and merging them back into Debian. The pkg-security team
wiki [15] has more information on the team, task, and infrastructure.

14: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2016/06/msg00259.html
15: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/pkg-security

General Resolutions

Replace "Chairman" with "Chair" throughout the Debian Constitution [16]
- Proposed by Margarita Menterola, with link to discussion [17].

16: https://www.debian.org/vote/2016/vote_003
17: https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2016/07/msg00028.html

Declassifying debian-private [18] - Proposed by Nicolas Dandrimont, with
link to discussion [19].

18: https://www.debian.org/vote/2016/vote_002
19: https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2016/07/msg00089.html


Events: Upcoming and Reports
----------------------------

* DebConf16 - The annual Debian Developers Conference

Each year the Debian community of Contributors, Developers, and software enthusiasts meets for an annual Conference known as DebConf [20]. This
year was the 16th conference, along with its precursor hacking session
DebCamp which was held 23 June through 1 July 2016.

The conference location for this year was Cape Town, South Africa, the
venue was the University of Cape Town (UCT), and the event was hosted by
the Engineering Faculty and the Department of Computer Sciences.

DebConf16 [21] officially started 2 July and ended 9 July 2016 with over
280 people attending from all over the world. As Debian is a worldwide community, for those unable to attend, 113 hours of talks in 114 events,
BOFs ("Birds of a Feather" discussions), and sessions were recorded and
live streamed. A special nod of appreciation to the Video team who
reviewed sessions as soon as they were recorded and set up a system to
publish the videos automatically; videos may be seen at the
Debian meetings archive website [22].

We hope to provide a fuller report of the DebConf16 experience, but as
of now most of the attendees are still recovering and blogging about
their times and experiences, so please stay tuned.


* Debian activities in FISL17

During the 17th edition of the International Free Software Forum
(FISL17) held from 13 July through 16 July at PUCRS in Porto Alegre,
Brazil, the Debian project's late founder, Ian Murdock, received a great
tribute, in which one of the stages of the event received his name. At
the official opening this announcement was greeted with a warm round of applause. More details are available in the news published on the event
website (in Portuguese) [23].

The Brazilian Debian community held various activities during
FISL17: 6 Lightning Talks on various topics such as Forensics, BTS,
Debian Policy, and GSoC. There were also workshops on packaging, the Web
of Trust, and a community meeting. The main theme of this meeting was to present the various work fronts and ways of contribution to the
community and to attract new contributors. All activities of the Debian community in Brazil can be seen here [24].

As has happened in previous years, the event had exhibition stands for
the communities; this space was very important and served as a meeting
between members of the Debian community. During the four-day event
promotional materials were distributed, and many people sought out the exhibition stand to learn more about the Debian community. Others
participated in the Install Fest.

Some photos [25] of the event. Debian Brazil community continues its
focus to have a continuous presence in one of the greatest Free Software
events in the world, showing the work done and inviting more people to collaborate with the "Universal Operating System".

20: https://debconf.org/
21: http://debconf16.debconf.org/
22:
http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2016/debconf16/
23: http://softwarelivre.org/fisl17/noticias/comunidade-debian-brasil-fala-sobre-o-legado-de-ian-murdock
24: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/br/2016/EncontroComunitarioFISL
25: http://softwarelivre.org/debianbrasil/debian-no-fisl17

Upcoming events

* A small reminder that Debian has a Code of Conduct [26] that is to
be honoured at all Debian Events and by Developers representing Debian
at events and functions. We take pride in our diversity [27] and
welcoming environment.

* Reminder: 5 November 2016, transitions freeze for stretch.

26: https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct
27: https://www.debian.org/intro/diversity

Once upon a time in Debian:

* 2005-07-05 GCC 4.0 as the default GCC [28]
* 2008-06-09 lenny beta 2 Debian Installer [29]
* 2010-06-29 Derivatives Front Desk introduced [30]
* 2012-07-02 Bug #680000 reported by Jan Dejemyr [31]

28: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00001.html
29: https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2008/20080609
30: https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2010/msg00007.html
31: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=680000


Help needed
-----------

Teams needing help

Call for Stretch artwork proposals

Niels Thykier made the official call for proposals for stretch
artwork [32]. If you would like, or know of someone who would like, to
create a desktop look and feel, be sure to send in your artwork.
Submission deadline is 5 September 2016.

32: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/06/msg00001.html

Packages needing help:

Currently [33] 800 packages are orphaned [34] and 171 packages are up
for adoption [35]: please visit the complete list of packages which need
your help [36].

33: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2016/05/msg00281.html
34: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/orphaned
35: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/rfa
36: https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested

Newcomer bugs
Debian has a newcomer bug tag used to indicate bugs which are suitable
for new contributors to use as an entry point to working on specific
packages.

There are 182 [37] newcomer bugs available.

37: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=newcomer


More than just code
-------------------

Contributors

1,657 people and 19 teams are listed on the Debian Contributors [38]
page for 2016.

38: https://contributors.debian.org/

Discussions

Debian user Gene Heskett asked how to fix his Iceweasel/Firefox icon and
binary mixup [39]... and started one of the largest threads in -user.
The discussion covered firefox binaries, what synaptic actually installs
and where it installs it to, email etiquette and code of conduct, and
the resurfacing of bug #815006 [40] and great news.

39: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/06/msg00462.html
40: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=815006

Debian user Lisi Reisz posted "Catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes
mad" [41], when a simple aptitude install instead uninstalled
everything. The thread gives the recovery, solution and some history on
GREP, as well as notes on when to use and when to never use aptitude vs. apt-get.

41: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/06/msg01153.html

On the Debian Developers list Steve McIntyre pondered the usefulness of
a "Jessie and a half" release [42]. Although the name is not set, the discussion on what to include in this release starts off with a backports-kernel, a rebuilt Debian Installer, X drivers, xserver, and
other packages. Thoughts are many arm64, recent amd64, and ppc64el ports
would benefit from this release and its net install image.

42: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2016/07/msg00054.html

Tips and Tricks

Keerthana Krishnan shared 10 Git commands every developer should
know [43] and A beginner’s guide to Debian Source Packages [44].

43: http://thewaterbabe.in/2016/06/20/10-git-commands-every-developer-should-know/
44: http://thewaterbabe.in/2016/06/13/a-beginners-guide-to-debian-source-packages/

Francois Marier shared information on Replacing a failed RAID drive [45]
and Cleaning up obsolete config files on Debian and Ubuntu. [46]
45: http://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/replacing-a-failed-raid-drive/
46: http://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/cleaning-up-obsolete-config-files-debian-ubuntu/

Tips and Tricks: Capetown/South Africa Edition

Michael Prokop shared lessons learnt in Capetown [47] at DebConf16.

47: http://michael-prokop.at/blog/2016/07/19/debconf16-in-capetownsouth-africa-lessons-learnt/


Reports
-------

Outreachy Weekly Reports

Valerie Young starts off Outreachy - Summer of Reproducible Builds [48]
with a self introduction and details of what Reproducible Builds are all
about.

48: http://www.spectranaut.cc/?p=1

Week 1 [49], Reproduced the reproducible builds tests website locally,
added additional information to INSTALL files, and fixed broken links
due to an additional directory.

49: http://www.spectranaut.cc/?p=17

Week 2 [50], introduction of a templates system using mustache [51],
navigation improvements to package pages, started bash to python script conversions.

50: http://www.spectranaut.cc/?p=31
51: https://mustache.github.io/

Week 3 [52], at DebCamp Valerie continued work on python script
conversion and added more templates. Objectives presented for creating
more mustache templates and continuing work on navigation.

52: http://www.spectranaut.cc/?p=35

Week 5 [53], distracted by the amazing people of Debian at DebCamp.
Plans to finish package set page script, highlight issue with
navigation.

53: http://www.spectranaut.cc/?p=42

Week After DebConf [54], finished the conversion of the package set
pages [55] script, replaced the bash code navigation with a mustache
template that the python scripts use for the home page [56], redesigned
the website by way of rearranging, enabled cross suite and architecture navigation on most pages.

54: http://www.spectranaut.cc/?p=45
55: https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/unstable/amd64/index_pkg_sets.html
56: https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/reproducible.html

Scarlett Clark - reports on Week 1 [57] of Outreachy, Reproducible
Builds. Work started on kapptemplate [58], choqok [59] and plans to fix
the source of problem issues by looking into the kconfig_compiler.

57: http://scarlettgatelyclark.com/2016/debian-outreachy-debian-reproducible-builds-week-1-progress-report/
58: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=363448
59: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=825322

Week 2 [60] saw kapptemplate pushed to upstream and a submitted patch
for choqok with a review request, work in progress on kxmlgui which was
causing unreproducible symbol/debug files.

60:
http://scarlettgatelyclark.com/2016/debian-reproducible-builds-week-2/

Week 3 [61] choqok patch approved! Further work with kxmlgui and the
start of work in KDE Randa.

61: http://scarlettgatelyclark.com/2016/debian-kde-reproducible-builds-week-3-randa-platforms-equals-busy-times/

Week 5 [62]: kde4libs and kf5 kconfig were pushed upstream, testing a
patch to fix umask issues in kapptemplate, the KDE Randa docker image is
up and running.

62: http://scarlettgatelyclark.com/2016/kde-debian-ubuntu-snappy-reproducible-builds-randa-and-much-more/

GSOC - WebRTC (Real-Time Communications) and Communications projects

Daniel Pocock introduces us to this year's Debian Summer of Code
Students [63] working on WebRTC (Real-Time Communications) and
Communications projects.

63: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/RTCProjects

Mesut Can Gurle [64] is making plugins for genuinely free WebRTC with
open standards like SIP, recently creating the WPCall [65] plugin for WordPress.

64: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/MesutCanGurle
65: https://github.com/mesutcang/wpcall

Keerthana Krishnan [66] has started work on creating a similar plugin
for MediaWiki.

66: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/KeerthanaKrishnan

Jaminy Prabaharan [67] is working on a tool to help users to find all
the phone numbers and ham radio callsigns in old emails.

67: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/Jaminy


Simon Désaulniers [68], Olivier Gregoire [69], Nicolas Reynaud [70], and
Alok Anand [71] are working on a peer-to-peer alternative to SIP, XMPP
and WebRTC, along with Savoir Faire Linux [72] in work on the Ring [73] softphone.

68: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/SimonD%C3%A9saulniers


69:https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/OlivierGr%C3%A9goire

70: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/NicolasReynaud

71:
https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/AlokAnand

72: https://www.savoirfairelinux.com/
73: https://ring.cx/

Pranav Jain [74] has been working on streamlining the provisioning of
SIP accounts, hoping as well to provide mechanisms for privately
operated SIP PBXes such as Asterisk.


74:https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/PranavJain

Nik Vaes [75] has been working on issues that users of the JAIN SIP
library used for Java in Apache Camel and the Jitsi softphone have been
facing.

75: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2016/StudentApplications/NikVaes

There is also a large Mentoring Team around the Summer of Code Projects
for the students.

GSoC - Reproducible Builds in Debian

Satyam Zode started Week 1 [76] with work on the addition of the - hide=profiles flag to diffoscope to provide alternatives for tools and
to increase the userbase of diffoscope and contributors. He task-listed: Working towards reading argparse python documentation, debugging code
towards solutions, and discussing the problems with the community.

76: http://satyamz.github.io/blog/2016/06/02/gsoc-2016-week-1-reproducible-builds-in-debian/

Week 2 and 3 [77] focused on using a prebuilder to duplicate
reproducibility issues, the use of which helped find more use cases for -hide=profiles. He also researched the differences between different unreproducible packages, added detailed use cases to Reproducible Builds
Hide Profiles Specifications [78], and apprised apkdiff, pkg-diff, and
tar to see how they were reading and ignoring input.

77: http://satyamz.github.io/blog/2016/06/13/gsoc-2016-week-2-and-3-reproducible-builds-in-debian/
78: https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/HideProfilesSpecification

Week 4 and 5 [79] Satyam worked on interface design, argument
completion, and hiding.buildinfo from.changes files.

79: http://satyamz.github.io/blog/2016/06/22/gsoc-2016-week-4-reproducible-builds-in-debian/

GSoC - Improving distributed and secure communication using free
software

Simon Désaulnier started his introduction [80] to GSoC by sharing his
focus of work on improving distributed and secure communication using
free software. Simon will be working on OpenDHT, a component of
Ring [81], a secure and distributed voice, video and chat communication platform. OpenDHT is the distributed hash table which allows Ring to
keep communications and the platform decentralised.

80: http://sim590.github.io/post/gsoc/intro/
81: https://ring.cx/

Simon's roadmap for the project starts with new OpenDHT functionality, maintenance, and data optimisation.

Week 1 [82] started with serialisable structure for remote filtering
which allows for expanded sql like queries.

82: http://sim590.github.io/post/gsoc/week1/

Week 2 [83] Simon fixed a bug issues with a Packaging issue for Python
bindings [84] and for dht: consider IPv4 or IPv6 disconnected on
operation done [85].

83: http://sim590.github.io/post/gsoc/week2/
84: https://github.com/savoirfairelinux/opendht/issues/72
85: https://github.com/savoirfairelinux/opendht/pull/73

Week 3 and 4 [86] Simon worked on the final version of the queries code library, work now focuses on Value pagination including a redesign of
some of the operation callbacks, and optimising announce operations.

86: http://sim590.github.io/post/gsoc/week34/

Week 5 and 6 [87] at DebConf16 [88] Simon attended a keysigning party
and speaks on the web of trust and mentions that Ring is now part of
Debian. Simon worked with Debian Developer Alexandre Viau and together
they Presented Ring at DebConf 2016 [89].

87: http://sim590.github.io/post/gsoc/week56/
88: http://debconf16.debconf.org/
89: http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2016/debconf16/Decentralized_communications_with_Ring.webm

LTS Freexian Monthly Reports

Debian Long Term Support, June 2016 [90]

90: https://raphaelhertzog.com/2016/07/16/freexians-report-about-debian-long-term-support-june-2016/

Debian Long Term Support, May 2016 [91]

91: https://raphaelhertzog.com/2016/06/13/freexians-report-about-debian-long-term-support-may-2016/

Reproducible Build status/update

Reproducible builds: week 57 in "stretch" cycle [92]

92: https://reproducible.alioth.debian.org/blog/posts/57/

Reproducible builds: week 58 in "stretch" cycle [93]

93: https://reproducible.alioth.debian.org/blog/posts/58/

Reproducible builds: week 59 in "stretch" cycle [94]

94: https://reproducible.alioth.debian.org/blog/posts/59/

Reproducible builds: week 60 in "stretch" cycle [95]

95: https://reproducible.alioth.debian.org/blog/posts/60/

Reproducible builds: week 61 in "stretch" cycle [96]

96: https://reproducible.alioth.debian.org/blog/posts/61/

Reproducible builds: week 62 in "stretch" cycle [97]

97: https://reproducible.alioth.debian.org/blog/posts/62/


Quick Links from Debian Social Media
------------------------------------

New Developers and Maintainers - May and June 2016 [98]

98: https://bits.debian.org/2016/07/new-developers-2016-06.html

Debian Perl Sprint 2016 [99]

99: https://bits.debian.org/2016/07/debian-perl-sprint-2016.html

Debian 7 Wheezy LTS now supporting armel and armhf [100]

100: https://bits.debian.org/2016/06/wheezy-now-supporting-armel-and-armhf.html


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This issue of Debian Project News was edited by The Publicity Team with contributions from Giovani Augusto Ferreira, Justin Rye, Holger Wansing.


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