gmane.linux.debian.devel.announce

General Resolution: Diversity statement, first call for votes

Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx — 2012-05-19T23:51:03

Hi,

This is the first call for votes for the General Resolution about
a diversity statement.

     Voting period starts      00:00:00 UTC on Sunday,   May  20th, 2012
     Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, June  2nd, 2012

The following ballot is for voting on a diversity statement.
This vote is being conducted as required by the Debian Constitution.
You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution.
For voting questions or problems contact secretary< at >debian.org.

The details of the general resolution can be found at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/vote_002

Also, note that you can get a fresh ballot any time before the end of
the vote by sending a signed mail to
   ballot< at >vote.debian.org
with the subject "diversity".

HOW TO VOTE

First, read the full text of the platform.

To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot filled out to a
dedicated e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below.
The dedicated email address this ballot should be sent to is:

  diversity< at >vote.debian.org

The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this
message, marked with two lines containing the characters
'-=-=-=-=-=-'. Do not erase anything between those lines, and do not
change the choice names.

There are 2 choices in the form, which you may rank with numbers between
1 and 2. In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1.
Place a 2 in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue until you
reach your last choice.  Do not enter a number smaller than 1 or larger
than 2.

You may skip numbers, leave some choices unranked, and rank options
equally.  Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired
choices, and ranked below all ranked choices.

To vote "no, no matter what", rank "Further Discussion" as more desirable
than the unacceptable choices, or you may rank the "Further Discussion"
choice and leave choices you consider unacceptable blank.  (Note: if the
"Further Discussion" choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other
unranked choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the
"Further Discussion" choice by the voting software).

Finally, mail the filled out ballot to: diversity< at >vote.debian.org.

Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that
your reply inserts.

NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) with your key that is
in the Debian keyring.  You may, if you wish, choose to send a signed,
encrypted ballot: use the vote key appended below for encryption.

The voting software (Devotee) accepts mail that either contains only an
unmangled OpenPGP message (RFC 2440 compliant), or a PGP/MIME mail
(RFC 3156 compliant).  To avoid problems I suggest you use PGP/MIME.

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
91ec7d6e-0296-4199-ad9e-3ed34ecd080a
[   ] Choice 1: Ratify diversity statement
[   ] Choice 2: Further Discussion
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The responses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created
for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project
secretary, is appended below.

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Bits from the Release Team: Freeze approaching!

Cyril Brulebois — 2012-05-13T20:45:36

Freeze planning
===============

As you might remember, we are aiming at a freeze in June.  The exact
date has not been determined yet. However, given the large amount of
work remaining, we are now targeting a freeze in the *second half of
June*.

If there is something you really believe should be in Wheezy and you
expect that it will not be ready before we freeze, please contact us
*now*.


RC Bugs
=======

There are now over 1000 release-critical bugs and we really need your
help to fix them. The RC bug list is at [RCBUGS]. Note that in previous
releases the RC bug count has been below 500 before a freeze occurs, so
freezing with a higher number will simply make the release process
longer.


Transitions
===========

We have many planned transitions already.  However, in case you would
like to do a transition in Wheezy please file a bug against
release.debian.org now (i.e. not tomorrow)[TRANS]. Please note that this
does *not* guarantee they will be processed in time for the freeze.

After Sunday the 20th of May, any new transitions are likely not to be
processed until after the release.


[TRANS]  When filing a transition bug, please follow the guidelines in
         https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ReleaseTeam/Transitions
[RCBUGS] http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/other/testing.html


Thanks for your attention,

Debian Installer 7.0 Alpha1 release

Cyril Brulebois — 2012-05-13T13:55:43

The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the first alpha
release of the installer for Debian Wheezy.


Improvements in this release of the installer
=============================================

Network configuration
---------------------
 * Add WPA support to installer (#327309).
 * Improvements in link detection and DHCP configuration, which
   should improve reliability for systems with flaky network
   cards (#496647, #414117, #606515).
 * Release DHCP lease at the end of the install, to work around
   problems with non-RFC compliant DHCP servers (#610553).
 * The requirements for hostnames have been clarified, and the
   parser tightened up to avoid letting through some really
   dodgy names (#399071).
 * Added Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) support.

Linux Specific
--------------
 * Kernel version has been updated to 3.2.16.
 * Default filesystem changed to ext4.
 * Allow Btrfs /boot partition (GRUB 2 and LILO).
 * Add support for Network Block Devices (NBD).

kFreeBSD Specific
-----------------
 * Kernel updated to version 8.3.
 * Option to use new 9.0 kernel during install.
 * Detect LVM devices.

Operating system probing
------------------------
 * Add detection for Windows 8, support for BSD systems, MeeGo,
   Linux From Scratch and Haiku on BeFS partitions.
 * Improve Windows and MS-DOS detection.
 * Fix Gentoo detection on OS probing.

Win32-loader
------------
 * Add PXE functionality (#607417).

USB stick installs
------------------
 * Add choice of ISO image to use when multiple images are found
   on the installation medium (#564441). This includes a full
   rewrite of the state machine in the iso-scan component. This
   work was contributed by Frans Pop and Frédéric Boiteux.

Translations
------------
 * New language supported: Uyghur.


Behavioral changes in this release
==================================

 * Make sure to put "hda" into the CoLo config file instead
   of "sda" since CoLo only knows about the former (#614839).
 * Remove 5 second sleeps when debootstrap finds additional
   required dependencies. d-i just got that much faster.
 * Use SHA checksums.
 * Re-enable ZFS on kfreebsd-i386.
 * Allow stripped ZFS for root filesystem.
 * Mirror and RAID-Z support on ZFS filesystems.
 * Redesign ZFS pool management, new features include:
    - Support for pools with multiple physical devices.
    - Support for multiple filesystems within a ZFS pool.
    - Support for legacy filesystems using ZFS volumes (ZVOL).
    - Arbitrary names for ZFS pools, filesystems and ZVOLs.
 * Switch espeakup language around language selection (#630477).


Hardware support changes
========================

 * Support AMD CPU family 20 (LP: #676838).
 * Add support for:
    - Buffalo Linkstation LiveV3 (LS-CHL) (#612167).
    - Buffalo Linkstation Mini (LS-WSGL).
    - Toshiba AC100.
    - MX53 LOCO board.
    - OMAP4 Pandora.
    - armhf architecture.
    - Genesi Efika MX nettops and smarttops (#612376).
 * Blacklist snd-aoa to allow snd-powermac to work.
 * Install mmc-modules if no disk is found, since some devices
   may not have hard drives, but SD slots instead (#593108).
 * Increase the number of attempts to detect new disk devices on
   some SCSI subsystems with long driver/disk initialization
   time (#611314).
 * Include ahci module for the QNAP TS-419P+ (#613497).
 * Add niu network driver for sparc, needed by T2+ Sparc
   systems (#608516).
 * Recognize /dev/duart* as a serial console.


Known issues in this release
============================

 * The prompt when installing GRUB mentions other operating systems
   (like Windows), but only Debian is actually offered after install
   (#666750).
 * GRUB installation fails with RAID+LVM (#662086).
 * Linux kernel installation fails on some x86 processors (686 without
   PAE) (#672611).
 * Mirror list might be slightly outdated; choose-mirror will be
   updated in a later release.
 * Missing fonts for Burmese, Tibetan, Dzongkha and Sinhala
   languages (#672635).

See the errata[2] for details and a full list of known issues.


Not yet known issues in this release
====================================

We do need your help to find bugs and further improve the installer,
so please try it. Installer CDs, other media and everything else you
will need are available at our web site[3].


Thanks
======

The Debian Installer team thanks everybody who has contributed to this
release.


 1. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Team
 2. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata
 3. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer

General Resolution: Diversity statement

Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx — 2012-05-08T21:28:31

Hi,

A new General Resolution has been started about a diversity
statement.

More details are at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/vote_002



Kurt

(overlapping) bits from the DPL: April 2012

Stefano Zacchiroli — 2012-05-06T16:54:41

Dear project members,
  last bits of the past DPL term and first bits of the current term, all
in one. Here is a report of what has happened in DPL land last April.


Highlight: call for DPL helpers
===============================

Before the report, though, let me point out that your friendly
neighborhood DPL could use some help. As discussed during campaign,
there are some intrinsic transparency and scalability limits in the DPL
institution, when run by a single person. Before trying something new to
fix that, I'd like to give a last try to an old "tactic": calling for
help.  If you're considering running for DPL or if you're simply
interested in the job the DPL does and willing to help with that, please
let me know.  Ideally, if I find a group of people I'm happy to work
with, I'd like to set up periodic IRC meetings with all "DPL helpers" to
publicly discuss items in the DPL agenda and share the work-load.


Ongoing discussions
===================

A big topic of last month has been the proposal [1] by Francesca Ciceri
to publish a diversity statement for the Debian Project. After a lively
discussion on -project, we reached consensus on a text [2], and I've
been happy to help with that. To finalize statement publication we now
need to vote on it with a GR [3]. I've helped drafting a corresponding
GR proposal that has already been posted to -vote by Francesca. A final
one, looking for seconds, will be posted there soon.

[1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00048.html
[2]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/04/msg00053.html
[3]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/04/msg00088.html

Wrapping up March discussions on a revenue sharing agreement with
DuckDuckGo, I've announced my intention [6] to finalize the agreement
and have done so shortly thereafter. The Iceweasel maintainer has
deployed the corresponding search engine query string and other web
browser maintainers could do the same, if they want to.

[6]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/04/msg00101.html

In April I've also spent some time to move forward the long running
conflict on Python maintenance [4], reported to the tech-ctte more than
2 years ago. With the help of people on the -python mailing list, I've
now submitted to the tech-ctte an up to date list of potential
maintenance teams. I hope the tech-ctte now have all the information
needed to come to a decision.  Speaking of which, I'm also discussing
with tech-ctte members [15] the possibility of having periodic ctte
meetings; the idea is to ensure that outstanding issues are periodically
reassessed, improving the reliability of tech-ctte decision times.

[4]: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=573745
[15]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2012/04/msg00029.html

I've also discussed [5] at length with members of the
pkg-multimedia-maintainers team the relationships with the unofficial
debian-multimedia.org (d-m.o) repository, that have been a cause of
tension for Debian multimedia users and maintainers for quite some time.
On behalf of the team and of the Project I've now reached out to the
d-m.o maintainer, hoping to come to some sort of amicable agreement on
which packages belong where.

[5]: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-April/026063.html


Hardware replacement
====================

As anticipated in last report, I've started approving hardware purchases
to implement the yearly hardware replacement plan prepared by DSA.
During April I've approved requests to buy servers to replace the
machines running the bugs-master, bugs-mirror, and UDD services. The
total expected expenditure is about 15'000 USD.


Communication
=============

I've delivered my classic Debian "18^W 19 years" talk at UNIVPM [16], a
polytechnic university in center Italy; slides are available [10].

[16]: http://www.univpm.it/
[10]: http://upsilon.cc/~zack/talks/2012/20120416-univpm.pdf

I've then been contacted by people from the European Synchrotoron [17]
in Grenoble who, beside having recently migrated their infrastructure to
Debian [18], are looking into organizing a workshop on Debian usage for
large science facilities [9]. I've been happy to help out providing a
list of potential topics and speakers for the event.

[17]: http://www.esrf.eu/
[18]: http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2012/09/
[9]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2012/04/msg00044.html

Also as anticipated last month, the Debian Project has been present at
the OpenStack summit. Loic Dachary has represented Debian at the event
and provided a nice report [11] about his experience there.  Speaking of
which, I've also coordinated a news release [7] about the availability
of cloud technologies in Wheezy, taking the chance to point out the
relationships between what Debian stands for and the ability to deploy
your own private cloud.

[11]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/04/msg00096.html
[7]: http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120425


Sprints
=======

April has been a rather calm month on the sprint front, with the notable
exception of the I18n team who is organizing a sprint for June in Paris
[13,14].

[13]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n/2012/04/msg00101.html
[14]: http://wiki.debian.org/I18n/Sprint2012


Miscellanea
===========

- Google Summer of Code (GSoC) has now started and for Debian is already
  quite a success. Wrt last year we doubled the number of student
  applications and we jumped from 9 to 15 approved projects. More
  details about Debian in GSoC have been posted by Ana [8]. I encourage
  all of you to take the chance of GSoC to bond with students and show
  them how nice is the Debian community to work with: that's the prime
  trait we need to exhibit to make sure we'll always have enough
  volunteers to run the Debian Project.

  [8]: http://ekaia.org/blog/2012/04/27/debian-in-the-google-summer-of-code-2012/

- The one month notice before opening up LDAP dnsZoneEntry [12] has
  expired and the field has now been opened by DSA. Practically, this
  means that the full listing of *.debian.net entries can now be queried
  publicly via LDAP. If anyone would be so kind to provide a script that
  does so and produce a nice looking HTML index, we can now publish it
  somewhere and replace the perennially out of date page
  http://wiki.debian.org/DebianNetDomains

  [12]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/03/msg00008.html


Thanks for reading thus far,
HDH! (Happy Debian Hacking)


PS the boring day-to-day activity log for April is available at
   <master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.201204>

New archive key for wheezy generated

Joerg Jaspert — 2012-05-01T20:59:28

Hi,

I just had the pleasure of generating a new key for the archive.

This key will *NOT* be put into use immediately, it has been generated
now so that it can already be included in Wheezy and in a future point
release of Squeeze. We will start using this key with one of:

 - the release of Wheezy
 - the expiry of the old key, 0x473041FA (2018-03-05)

whichever comes first.

The key data:
pub   4096R/46925553 2012-04-27 [expires: 2020-04-25]
uid                  Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (7.0/wheezy) <ftpmaster< at >debian.org>
sig!3        46925553 2012-04-27  Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (7.0/wheezy) <ftpmaster< at >debian.org>
sig!3        7E7B8AC9 2012-04-27  Joerg Jaspert <joerg< at >debian.org>
sig!3   P    B12525C4 2012-04-27  Joerg Jaspert <joerg< at >debian.org>
   Signature policy: string
   Signature policy: http://gpg.ganneff.de/policy.txt
sig!         A3AE44A4 2012-04-27  Michael O'Connor (stew) <stew< at >vireo.org>
sig!         CA1CF964 2012-04-27  Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar< at >debian.org>
sig!         15B0FD82 2012-04-27  Mark Hymers <mhy< at >debian.org>
sig!         672C8B12 2012-04-28  Alexander Reichle-Schmehl <tolimar< at >debian.org>

The key is available via http://ftp-master.debian.org/archive-key-7.0.asc and
should also be on all keyservers by now.

(deferred) bits from the DPL: March 2012

Stefano Zacchiroli — 2012-04-15T18:19:09

Dear project members,
  here is my monthly DPL activity report, this time for last March. It
is delayed by a couple of weeks because, myself being both incumbent and
candidate DPL, I preferred not to use d-d-a during the voting period
unless really needed. Apologies for the delay (or the unneeded paranoia,
you name it).

As a side effect of the delay, the results of the DPL election are now
known. I'd like to thank all the people who took part in the elections:
voters, people who asked questions on -vote, the secretary, and
obviously Gergely and Wouter, without whom the campaign wouldn't have
allowed to discuss relevant aspects of Debian "politics".

Thanks for your trust. I'll do my best to match your expectations.

... and just to remind you what you've just asked for, here goes the
BigMonthlyBlurb!


Highlight: long-term hardware replacement planning
==================================================

The highlight for this month is long term planning of hardware
replacement. It's something I've been discussing with DSA for quite a
while and on which DSA has worked hard during the recent sprint [1]. As
a result, we now have a quite ambitious 5-year hardware replacement plan
that will guarantee that all machines in production are under warranty
at any given time (with the nice side effect of generally better
performances, as they go hand in hand with newer hardware).

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00032.html

The current estimated cost per year is 29'000 USD. That does not yet
include buildds and porter-boxes, so it is expected to increase a bit to
cover all our hardware needs. But we expect it not increase too much, as
we tend to get explicit hardware donations to cover arch-specific needs.

Given the current state of Debian finances and donation trends, the plan
*looks* sustainable for at least 2-3 years. But this assessment still
needs to be refined as soon as, together with the auditors, we'll manage
to obtain the history of past Debian transactions, in particular from
SPI. We've been waiting for this for about 5 months now, but I'm
positive it could become a reality in the next weeks. In the meantime,
it is surely safe to start with the plan for the next 1-1.5 years, so
I'll give green light to DSA for the first acquisitions as soon as
they're ready for it.

When implemented, this plan will increase our ability to rely on
hardware. But it also means we will need to become a bit more organized
about fund-raising. The discussion started with [1] has some insights
about how to do that. As part of this, we'll also need to share
resources (e.g. contact databases, people, etc.) among the yearly
DebConf fund-raising initiatives and the initiatives mentioned in the
aforementioned discussion.


Ongoing discussions
===================

- A couple of important clarifications on how to deal with
  trademark-encumbered software in the Debian archive have been posted
  to -project starting at [2]. It seems to me there might be consensus
  on the overall topic, but we need to write down guidelines for
  maintainers (and possibly a project position statement?). I could use
  some help on that front, so if you've followed the discussion and/or
  have an interest in trademark and free software, please get in touch.

  [2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00000.html

- To put an end to the long and glorious life of DEP-5 [3], I've marked
  it as ACCEPTED given that it has been "implemented" in February via
  inclusion in the debian-policy package. You still have some time to
  port your debian/copyright-s to it before the Wheezy freeze.

  [3] http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/

- I've been contacted by the DuckDuckGo about a revenue sharing
  agreement for the inbound traffic they already get from Debian
  browsers. I've informed -project proposing to accept it [4] and that
  has spawned a discussion that has won us an LWN article [5]. I haven't
  yet summarized the thread proposing a way forward; I'll do so shortly.

  [4] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00092.html
  [5] https://lwn.net/Articles/490517/

- as part of a discussion on unofficial "debian" repositories [9], I've
  proposed to open up the list of *.debian.net domains. As nobody
  disagreed, consensus has been quickly reached and the announced [10]
  change is now imminent. Thanks to Carsten Hey and Gerfried Fuchs for
  their help in figuring out the details of the last discussion on the
  matter and DSA for their feedback.

  [10] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/03/msg00008.html


Summer of Code
==============

Debian has been accepted as an organization for the Google Summer of
Code [11]. At the time these bits go out, the student application
deadline has also elapsed. In March I've contributed a few project ideas
and chased potential mentors for them, when I thought the project could
be important for Debian and the prospective student. I'm happy that one
[12] (a dak building block needed for the implementation of PPAs and
more) has found both mentors and students. We'll see if any of the
corresponding student proposal is retained and how it goes.

[11] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00031.html
[12] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/soc-coordination/2012-March/001184.html


Communication
=============

I've given an interview, about Debian and Free Software in general, to
La Repubblica [6], one of the major newspapers in Italy. The interview
is available online [7,8], but only in Italian. If some kind (and
Italian-speaking) soul would like to translate it into English, I'll be
happy to publish the translation as well.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Repubblica
[7] http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2012/03/26/news/intervista_debian-30986031/
[8] http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2012/03/intervista_per_la_Repubblica/


Legal stuff
===========

In order to transfer ownership of the Debian trademark in Japan to SPI,
I've contacted the current owners (all Japanese Debian Developers or
contributors) to do the needed paperwork. I've been blessed by the help
of Kenshi Muto that has taken the matter in his hands. He is now
navigating through Japanese trademark procedures, a subject neither
myself nor SPI lawyers were familiar with. Thanks also to Jonathan
McDowell who has done the needed paperwork, SPI-side.


Sprints
=======

Plenty of sprints and sprint reports in March!: Debian Med [13], DSA
[14], DAM/FrontDesk [15]. Everything should also be available from
http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints where you can find info to organize your
team sprint.

[13] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/03/msg00009.html
[14] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/03/msg00032.html
[15] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/03/msg00014.html


Assets miscellanea
==================

- I've signed the annual memorandum of understanding with the financial
  entity that will help us with local expenditures for DebConf12 in
  Nicaragua. This year is ISIC, with whom we have an important trust
  path via Norman Garcia Aguilar, member of the DebConf orga team.

- After discussion with auditors, we've resolved to set a 1 year
  deadline for reimbursement requests [16]. The reason is that it's a
  PITA to keep track of longer-running requests (yes, they do happen!)
  and they add uncertainty to our available finances. There can be
  exceptions, but please help on this front by timely requesting
  reimbursements after travels or other expenses.

  [16] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sprints/2012/03/msg00001.html


Cheers.

PS the boring day-to-day activity log for March is available at
   <master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.201203>

Debian Project Leader Election 2012 Results

Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx — 2012-04-15T12:16:00

Hi,

The winner of the election is Stefano Zacchiroli.

His new term will start on April 17th, 2012.

The details of the results shall soon be available at:
http://vote.debian.org/2012/vote_001

In the mean time the results are also available at:
http://master.debian.org/~secretary/leader2012/results.txt
http://master.debian.org/~secretary/leader2012/results.png

The tally sheet is at:
http://master.debian.org/~secretary/leader2012/tally.txt

The list of people voting is at:
http://master.debian.org/~secretary/leader2012/voters.txt


Stats for the DPL votes:
|------+------+--------+-------+--------+---------+--------+-----------|
|      |  Num |        | Valid | Unique | Rejects |      % |  Multiple |
| Year |  DDs | Quorum | Votes | Voters |         | Voting | of Quorum |
|------+------+--------+-------+--------+---------+--------+-----------|
| 1999 |  347 | 27.942 |       |    208 |         | 59.942 |   7.44399 |
| 2000 |  347 | 27.942 |       |    216 |         | 62.248 |   7.73030 |
| 2001 |   ?? |     ?? |       |    311 |         |        |           |
| 2002 |  939 | 45.965 |   509 |    475 |     122 | 50.586 |  10.33395 |
| 2003 |  831 | 43.241 |   510 |    488 |     200 | 58.724 |  11.28559 |
| 2004 |  908 | 45.200 |   506 |    482 |      52 | 53.084 |  10.66372 |
| 2005 |  965 | 46.597 |   531 |    504 |      69 | 52.228 |  10.81615 |
| 2006 |  972 | 46.765 |   436 |    421 |      41 | 43.313 |   9.00246 |
| 2007 | 1036 | 48.280 |   521 |    482 |     267 | 46.525 |   9.98343 |
| 2008 | 1075 | 49.181 |   425 |    401 |      35 | 37.302 |   8.15356 |
| 2009 | 1013 | 47.741 |   366 |    361 |      43 | 35.636 |   7.56155 |
| 2010 |  886 | 44.648 |   459 |    436 |      88 | 49.210 |   9.76513 |
| 2011 |  911 | 45.274 |   402 |    392 |      93 | 43.030 |   8.65836 |
| 2012 |  948 | 46.184 |   436 |    403 |      72 | 42.511 |   8.72589 |
|------+------+--------+-------+--------+---------+--------+-----------|


Kurt Roeckx
Debian Project Secretary

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012: Last call for votes

Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx — 2012-04-13T18:58:14

Hi,

The voting period for the Debian Project Leader election 2012 is
almost over.  You still have about 29 hours from the time of this
writing.

The timeline is:

     Voting period starts      00:00:00 UTC on Sunday,   April  1st, 2012
     Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, April 14th, 2012

This vote is being conducted as required by the Debian Constitution.
You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution.
For voting questions or problems contact secretary< at >debian.org.

The details of the candidate platform can be found at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/platforms/

Also, note that you can get a fresh ballot any time before the end of
the vote by sending a mail to
   ballot< at >vote.debian.org
with the subject "leader2012".


HOW TO VOTE

First, read the full text of the platform.

To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot filled out to a
dedicated e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below.
The dedicated email address this ballot should be sent to is:

  leader2012< at >vote.debian.org

The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this
message, marked with two lines containing the characters
'-=-=-=-=-=-'. Do not erase anything between those lines, and do not
change the choice names.

There are 4 choices in the form, which you may rank with numbers between
1 and 4. In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1.
Place a 2 in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue until you
reach your last choice.  Do not enter a number smaller than 1 or larger
than 4.

You may skip numbers, leave some choices unranked, and rank options
equally.  Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired
choices, and ranked below all ranked choices.

To vote "no, no matter what", rank "None Of The Above" as more desirable
than the unacceptable choices, or you may rank the "None Of The Above"
choice and leave choices you consider unacceptable blank.  (Note: if the
"None Of The Above" choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other
unranked choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the
"None Of The Above" choice by the voting software).

Finally, mail the filled out ballot to: leader2012< at >vote.debian.org.

Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that
your reply inserts.

NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) with your key that is
in the Debian keyring.  You may, if you wish, choose to send a signed,
encrypted ballot: use the vote key appended below for encryption.

The voting software (Devotee) accepts mail that either contains only an
unmangled OpenPGP message (RFC 2440 compliant), or a PGP/MIME mail
(RFC 3156 compliant).  To avoid problems I suggest you use PGP/MIME.

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
da569edd-e41f-4ecd-b0d5-ce2848a777f9
[   ] Choice 1: Wouter Verhelst
[   ] Choice 2: Gergely Nagy
[   ] Choice 3: Stefano Zacchiroli
[   ] Choice 4: None Of The Above
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The responses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created
for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project
secretary, is appended below.

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Call for Papers DebConf12 in Managua, Nicaragua

Gunnar Wolf — 2012-04-11T22:04:56

Debian invites submissions of proposals for papers, presentations,
discussion sessions and tutorials for its DebConf12 conference which
will take place in Managua, Nicaragua, in July.

Submissions are not limited to traditional talks: you could propose a
performance, art installation, debate, or anything else. Official
submissions will be accepted until 1 June 2012, 23:59 UTC.

This year submission of a formal written paper for the conference
proceedings is again optional, though encouraged. Providing a written
paper in advance means that interested people can attend your session
ready with ideas for discussion, and especially helps those who find
it hard to follow rapid English speech.

DebConf talks will be broadcast live on the internet when possible,
and videos of the talks will be published on the web along with the
presentation slides and papers. Regular sessions will be 45 minutes
long, including time for questions, with a 15 minute break between
events.

This year, we will continue to organize some talks into thematic
tracks. If you have a proposal for a DebConf track, please contact
debconf-team< at >lists.debconf.org.  Previous examples included "Debian
Science", "Debian Infrastructure", and "Community Outreach" tracks.
If you would like to be a track coordinator, please volunteer on that
list.

To submit an event, first register as an attendee for DebConf12 in the
Pentabarf conference management system [1], then go to the submission
page [2] and use the "New event/paper" button on the left. Fill in
information about your submission on the various tabs. The most common
event types are "Lecture" or "Open Discussion (BoF)". Please include a
public "Abstract", and a "Description" listing any notes for the
DebConf talks team, such as special requirements for your event.

While we ask speakers to submit their events before the deadline of 1
June 2012, late submissions will continue to be accepted until the end
of DebConf. All attendees will have an opportunities to schedule
ad-hoc events during DebConf itself, and very promising late
submissions may be considered for inclusion in the main
conference. Note that ad-hoc events have a much lower chance of video
archiving, streaming, and inclusion in the proceedings, so it's better
to get your submissions in early.

For private communication regarding your talk, please mail
talks< at >debconf.org. For more general ideas or questions about talks or
events, please mail debconf-team< at >lists.debconf.org.

Looking forward to welcoming you to Managua in July,

- the DebConf team

[1] https://penta.debconf.org/penta/user

[2] https://penta.debconf.org/penta/submission/dc12/person


About DebConf
-------------

DebConf is the Debian Project's developer conference. In addition to a
full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides
an opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested
people to meet in person and work together more closely.  It has taken
place annually since 2000 in various locations over the world.

DebConf will be preceded by DebCamp, from Sunday 1 to Saturday 7 July.
DebCamp is a smaller, less formal event giving an opportunity for
group work on Debian projects.

If you are interested in helping by working as a volunteer during
DebConf, please contact debconf-team< at >lists.debconf.org

If you or your company are interested in sponsoring DebConf by
donating money or lending equipment, please contact the sponsorship
team at sponsors< at >debconf.org

More information about DebConf12 can be found on the conference
website: 

  http://debconf12.debconf.org/


About Debian
------------

The Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who
volunteer their time and effort in order to produce the free operating
system Debian GNU/Linux.

Registration is open for DebConf12

Gunnar Wolf — 2012-04-11T22:02:09

Registration is now open for DebConf12, which will take place in
Managua, Nicaragua, from Sunday 8 July to Saturday 14 July 2012,
preceded as usual by one week of DebCamp, from Sunday 1 July to
Saturday 7 July.

To register, follow one of the processes outlined below:

- If you registered for a previous DebConf via Pentabarf, go to
  https://penta.debconf.org/penta/submission/dc12/person to login.
  DebConf has used Pentabarf since DebConf7 in 2007.

- If you have not registered for DebConf before, you will first need
  to create an account in the conference management system.  Use
  https://penta.debconf.org/penta/user to create your account. After
  visiting the activation URL sent to you by email, go to
  https://penta.debconf.org/penta/submission/dc12/person and log in.


After you have logged in
------------------------

After you have successfully logged in, please fill in at least the
'General', 'Contact' and 'Travel' tabs reachable through the
'Registration details' button on the bar on the left of the
page. Please pay special attention to the 'DebConf' and 'DebCamp'
boxes on the 'General' tab. You need to select at least the "I want to
attend this conference" checkbox or your registration won't be valid.

Note to users who have a pre-existing account: we did our best to make
sure you do not have to enter all your personal data again, only the
conference-specific changes. However, please check carefully for
missing or outdated information.

We suggest that attendees begin making travel arrangements as soon as
possible.

See below for notes on applying for sponsored accommodation and food,
and for travel grants.  If you want to make it more likely that we
have enough sponsorship to pay for these this year, please consider
joining the DebConf fundraising team.


Airline discount
----------------

We have arranged an airfare discount for attendees with SkyTeam
through their Global Meetings program. Although you should not assume
that the best fare for you will be through SkyTeam Global Meetings, it
will be attractive for some attendees and is worth considering as part
of your booking efforts.

SkyTeam comprises 15 leading international airlines: Aeroflot,
Aeromexico, Air Europa, Air France, Alitalia, China Airlines, China
Eastern, China Southern, CSA Czech Airlines, Delta, Kenya Airways,
KLM, Korean Air, Tarom and Vietnam Airlines serving more than 900
destinations in 173 countries with more than 14,500 flights daily.

The discount is available on most SkyTeam airlines for travel from 26
June until 20 July to and from the Managua, Nicaragua, airport (MGA)
for the purpose of attending DebConf12.

To see what SkyTeam Global Meetings can offer for your DebConf12
travel needs, go to http://www.skyteam.com/GlobalMeetings and enter
Event ID 2254S.


Travel grants
-------------

We hope to obtain enough sponsorship to help some people attend who
would not be able to pay for their own travel to DebConf.  We intend
to allocate travel grants by the end of May. If you would like to
apply for travel sponsorship, please fill in as much information as
you can on the registration pages. Even if you have not arranged your
travel when you apply for sponsorship, we need to know which days you
intend to spend at the conference.

So that we may use scarce sponsorship funds where they are most
needed, please pay as much of your own travel costs as you can afford,
and consider any savings available through SkyTeam Global Meetings
when pricing your flights for grant application purposes.

The deadline for sponsorship applications is 15 May.


DebCamp Attendance
------------------

DebCamp is a smaller, less formal event than the main conference,
giving an opportunity for group work on Debian projects. It will again
be held in the week before DebConf, from Sunday 1 till Saturday 7
July. In an effort to make DebCamp a little more organised we ask
everyone who wants to attend DebCamp to fill in an additional text
field describing their work plans for the DebCamp days.


Cost of attendance
------------------

As in previous years, we are providing a free registration option for
DebConf.  We will also do our best to offer sponsored accommodation
and food during the conference to those who apply for this before 15
May.

There are two other registration options, "Professional" and
"Corporate".  The "Corporate" category, with a USD 1300 (EUR 1000)
registration fee is intended for those attending DebConf as
representatives of companies.  The "Professional" category, with a 650
USD registration fee, is intended for any individual or company who
wants to help the conference by paying the direct costs of their
attendance.

We encourage all attendees to help making DebConf a success by
selecting the "Professional" or "Corporate" category.

It will only be possible to apply for food and accommodation grants
until 15 May.  Those registering after that date will need to pay the
"Professional" fee (USD 650 / EUR 500) if they wish to have their
accommodation arranged for them.

In the next few days, you will be able to find detailed information
regarding the venue where DebConf will be held, the hotels we will be
using, and other general practical information for entering and moving
inside Nicaragua as tourists in DebConf12's webpage:

  http://debconf12.debconf.org


Looking forward to welcoming you to Managua in July,

- the DebConf team

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012: Second call for votes

Kurt Roeckx — 2012-04-07T13:39:09

Hi,

This is the second call for votes for the Debian Project Leader
Elections 2012.

     Voting period starts      00:00:00 UTC on Sunday,   April  1st, 2012
     Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, April 14th, 2012

This vote is being conducted as required by the Debian Constitution.
You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution.
For voting questions or problems contact secretary< at >debian.org.

The details of the candidate platform can be found at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/platforms/

Also, note that you can get a fresh ballot any time before the end of
the vote by sending a signed mail to
   ballot< at >vote.debian.org
with the subject "leader2012".


HOW TO VOTE

First, read the full text of the platform.

To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot filled out to a
dedicated e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below.
The dedicated email address this ballot should be sent to is:

  leader2012< at >vote.debian.org

The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this
message, marked with two lines containing the characters
'-=-=-=-=-=-'. Do not erase anything between those lines, and do not
change the choice names.

There are 4 choices in the form, which you may rank with numbers between
1 and 4. In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1.
Place a 2 in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue until you
reach your last choice.  Do not enter a number smaller than 1 or larger
than 4.

You may skip numbers, leave some choices unranked, and rank options
equally.  Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired
choices, and ranked below all ranked choices.

To vote "no, no matter what", rank "None Of The Above" as more desirable
than the unacceptable choices, or you may rank the "None Of The Above"
choice and leave choices you consider unacceptable blank.  (Note: if the
"None Of The Above" choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other
unranked choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the
"None Of The Above" choice by the voting software).

Finally, mail the filled out ballot to: leader2012< at >vote.debian.org.

Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that
your reply inserts.

NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) with your key that is
in the Debian keyring.  You may, if you wish, choose to send a signed,
encrypted ballot: use the vote key appended below for encryption.

The voting software (Devotee) accepts mail that either contains only an
unmangled OpenPGP message (RFC 2440 compliant), or a PGP/MIME mail
(RFC 3156 compliant).  To avoid problems I suggest you use PGP/MIME.

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
da569edd-e41f-4ecd-b0d5-ce2848a777f9
[   ] Choice 1: Wouter Verhelst
[   ] Choice 2: Gergely Nagy
[   ] Choice 3: Stefano Zacchiroli
[   ] Choice 4: None Of The Above
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

----------------------------------------------------------------------
ponses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created
for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project
secretary, is appended below.

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
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Bits from the 5th Debian Groupware Meeting

Guido Günther — 2012-04-03T18:34:44

The fifth Debian Groupware Meeting[1] was held in the LinuxHotel, Essen,
Germany[2]. Eight persons attended which is an all time high! This is a
short summary of what happened during the weekend:

* We pushed a ESR version of icedove including l10n and the calendaring
  extension to unstable. By cherry-picking lots of build-fixes from
  iceweasel we'll hopefully make the testing transition soon.

* Since iceowl (the standalone calendar) is not maintained upstream
  anymore we're keeping it in experimental only for now. A new version
  got uploaded including updated l10n.

* A new upstream version of evolution-mapi was upload to sid fixing
  an FTBFS.

* d-push 1.5.8 (the rebranded version of z-push) got uploaded to
  unstable including translation updates and adaption to php 5.4.0.

* Lots of progress was made on packaging SOGo and related components and
  it's now quiet close to an upload to sid.

* Work on OpenChange included looking into using the version in Debian 
  for SOGo packaging as well as fixing Samba4 issues that broke (among
  other things) the OpenChange build.

* Progress was made on packaging Zarafa ZCP for Debian (rebranded as
  giraffe)[3]. The packages are working but rebranding is not yet
  complete.

* About 60 evolution bugs where either closed or commented on.

* As usual the Groupware page[4] got updated.

* The meetings 5th anniversary was celebrated with a barbecue.

Cheers,
 -- Guido (on behalf of the Debian Groupware Meeting attendees)

[1]: http://wiki.debian.org/GroupwareMeeting2012-03-23to25
[2]: http://www.linuxhotel.de/community.html
[3]: http://wiki.debian.org/Giraffe
[4]: http://wiki.debian.org/Groupware

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012: Call for votes

Kurt Roeckx — 2012-03-31T23:36:39

Hi,

This is the first call for votes for the Debian Project Leader
Elections 2012.

     Voting period starts      00:00:00 UTC on Sunday,   April  1st, 2012
     Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, April 14th, 2012

This vote is being conducted as required by the Debian Constitution.
You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution.
For voting questions or problems contact secretary< at >debian.org.

The details of the candidate platform can be found at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/platforms/

Also, note that you can get a fresh ballot any time before the end of
the vote by sending a signed mail to
   ballot< at >vote.debian.org
with the subject "leader2012".


HOW TO VOTE

First, read the full text of the platform.

To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot filled out to a
dedicated e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below.
The dedicated email address this ballot should be sent to is:

  leader2012< at >vote.debian.org

The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this
message, marked with two lines containing the characters
'-=-=-=-=-=-'. Do not erase anything between those lines, and do not
change the choice names.

There are 4 choices in the form, which you may rank with numbers between
1 and 4. In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1.
Place a 2 in the brackets next to your next choice. Continue until you
reach your last choice.  Do not enter a number smaller than 1 or larger
than 4.

You may skip numbers, leave some choices unranked, and rank options
equally.  Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired
choices, and ranked below all ranked choices.

To vote "no, no matter what", rank "None Of The Above" as more desirable
than the unacceptable choices, or you may rank the "None Of The Above"
choice and leave choices you consider unacceptable blank.  (Note: if the
"None Of The Above" choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other
unranked choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the
"None Of The Above" choice by the voting software).

Finally, mail the filled out ballot to: leader2012< at >vote.debian.org.

Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that
your reply inserts.

NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) with your key that is
in the Debian keyring.  You may, if you wish, choose to send a signed,
encrypted ballot: use the vote key appended below for encryption.

The voting software (Devotee) accepts mail that either contains only an
unmangled OpenPGP message (RFC 2440 compliant), or a PGP/MIME mail
(RFC 3156 compliant).  To avoid problems I suggest you use PGP/MIME.

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
da569edd-e41f-4ecd-b0d5-ce2848a777f9
[   ] Choice 1: Wouter Verhelst
[   ] Choice 2: Gergely Nagy
[   ] Choice 3: Stefano Zacchiroli
[   ] Choice 4: None Of The Above
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

----------------------------------------------------------------------
ponses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created
for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project
secretary, is appended below.

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Report from the Front desk and DAM sprint

Jan Hauke Rahm — 2012-03-26T06:00:48

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to tell you that we not only survived a front desk and DAM
meeting a little while ago but also continued on the course we set
there. [1] Thanks to the generous hosting of Credativ in
Mönchengladbach, Germany, we were able to meet and finally start out on
the last bits of work needed to get our new web interface production
ready. [2] Let us give you some insight in what we did there and since
then.


The new new New Members web interface
=====================================

If you've followed what the team, Enrico in particular, has been doing
in the last months, you'll know that there was some intention to replace
the current NM web interface. [3] Due to security concerns that were
brought to public attention just recently [4], we decided that it's time
to actually replace the code.

During the meeting we re-discussed the database layout improving it in
several ways. Using Django, Enrico implemented the models, data
migration and maintenance scripts -- basically the complete backend.
Also a few of the frontend pages had been written during the meeting
already in order to ensure basic stuff works. Together we started a few
test imports from the old database, ldap, and keyrings and were able to
clean up a few inconsistencies. In the meantime the website got a lot of
the functions back that were still missing after the meeting.

There are a few changes that are worth mentioning:

1) The new database holds information not only about DDs (and those who
   want to become one) but also about DMs and guest accounts. The idea
   is to provide a generic interface for guest account requests, DM
   applications, as well as uploading and non-uploading DD applications.

2) While the old database was pretty much living in itself, we're now
   going to start running maintenance scripts on a daily basis that sync
   up with ldap and the keyrings. Since DAM is the actual authority
   about membership, we are exploring the possiblity of using the new
   database as the master membership database, with routine consistency
   cross-checks of LDAP and Keyring contents.

3) Up until now an AM was part of the NM comittee if he/she approved an
   applicant within the last 6 months. Now an AM is part of the comittee
   if DAM approved an applicant processed by that AM within the last 6
   months. The effect is probably marginal but we thought it should be
   publicly known.

4) The new website is using single-sign-on technology provided by the
   Debian SysAdmins, so there is one less password to remember.


Pending and long-outstanding cases
==================================

The front desk and DAM todo queues showed a few applicants for a long
time now. Those applications are in one way or the other difficult to
handle, need way more work than the rest, or a decision simple was
always postponed. We used the opportunity of discussing those cases,
updating everyone on the current status, and in a few cases even made
decisions. Others were properly delegated to be dealt with soon™.


Backlog
=======

Boring but all the more necessary. We worked on the backlog in our
Inboxes and hope to have worked on all pending requests. That means, if
you sent a question to front desk or DAM and didn't get any response by
now, please resend it. It probably got lost then. Sorry.


So, that's what we spent the weekend and the time since then with.
Thanks again to the organizers of the BSP and to Credativ for hosting
our meeting. Thanks for DSA support we got via IRC during the meeting.
Thank you for caring about Debian membership to read all this. And last
but not least, thank you to Enrico, Myon, and Ganneff for a pleasent and
productive meeting!

On behalf of Front Desk and in this case even DAM,
Hauke

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints/2012/FDDAMSprint
[2] http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2012/03/de/Moenchengladbach
[3] http://lists.debian.org/20111031144518.GA23426< at >enricozini.org
[4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2012/02/msg00130.html

Bits from the Apache Maintainers / Upcoming apache2 2.4 transition

Stefan Fritsch — 2012-03-22T00:05:16

This is the first "Bits from the Apache Maintainers" announcement 
ever. There are lots of changes coming up and following a well-
established practice we are going to announce some of them here.

In this update:
-  New Apache HTTPD 2.4 available in experimental <HTTPD24>
-  Package Transition <TRANSITION>
-  Packaging Guidelines <GUIDELINES>
-  Call For Help <HELP>


New HTTPD 2.4 available in experimental <HTTPD24>
=================================================

A major Apache HTTPD upgrade has been released in February. A brief 
overview of new features is available at [1]. Some of the changes have 
major impacts of the Debian packaging. Notably, all Multi Processing 
Modules (MPM), which were compiled as separate apache2 executables 
previously, can now be loaded as simple modules. This implies that the 
conflicting MPM packages like apache2-mpm-prefork are gone. Instead, 
users can pick the MPM they wish at runtime in future. Moreover, there 
some incompatible changes in the configuration which makes it likely 
that local configuration files have to be adjusted. Please see our 
changelog, the NEWS, and the README.Debian [2] files for more detailed 
instructions. More upgrade hints can be obtained upstream at [3]. 

Thanks to a lot of work by Arno Toell, an experimental apache2 2.4 
package is available in Debian's Experimental branch for most 
architectures (and the rest will be built soon). We invite everyone to 
test our package, but it is of course not ready for use in a 
production environment. We advise you to test upgrades and report any 
problems you faced. That said, please keep in mind that this upgrade 
will break any installed third party modules (mod_php, ...) unless the 
respective maintainers do provide an experimental package linked 
against Apache 2.4, as well. Some changes such as the default out-of-
box configuration we intend to ship with Wheezy's 2.4 package are not 
finalized yet and will be addressed in another follow-up upload to 
experimental and/or unstable in the near future.

Beware: The ITK MPM is not included for the time being. This may or 
may not change until the freeze. 

[1] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/new_features_2_4.html
[2] </usr/share/doc/apache2/README.Debian>
[3] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html


Package Transition <TRANSITION>
===============================

The new upstream release breaks the Application Binary Interface (ABI) 
for the first time since Debian featured the 2.2.3 package in Debian 
Etch. Thus, all reverse depending packages need a sourceful upload. To 
track the progress, we filed a transition bug in #661958. Refer there 
for a verbose description what we plan to do. In short, there are 
several things packages need to be aware:

* The apache2 2.4 source package features an incompatible ABI ("module 
magic number") to all existing Apache 2 module packages. We've made a 
list of affected packages in the the denoted transition bug. All 
module packages need a source(!) transition. This is mostly because we 
expect module packagers to depend on our virtual API package in 
future, instead of declaring unversioned dependencies against our 
meta-package. There is a new dh_apache2 helper to help creating this 
dependency. Moreover, we have dropped the apache2-threaded-dev and 
apache2-prefork-dev development packages. Instead all packagers should 
build depend on apache2-dev only. Please refer to the <GUIDELINES> 
section for detailed packaging guidelines
* Please review whether your module packages are still needed, or if a 
similar or roughly identical functionality is provided by a new core 
module. 
* If a module package does not build with 2.4 and there is no new 
upstream version that does, it may be time to ping the upstream 
developers. If upstream is inactive and/or you have difficulties 
getting the module adapted to 2.4, feel free to contact us. Some hints 
can be found at [4].
* The handling of modules that only work with a particular MPM is not 
yet finalized. At the very least, such modules should refuse to load 
with an incompatible MPM and print a meaningful error message.
* We want to consolidate reverse dependencies of web applications. See 
<GUIDELINES> as well.
* We plan to do a mass-bug-filing by the time we consider the package 
ready for unstable. Following our time line we hope to upload to 
unstable early in April.

[4] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/developer/new_api_2_4.html


Packaging Guidelines <GUIDELINES>
=================================

We've written packaging guidelines how we would like reverse 
dependencies to declare their package relations to our binary 
packages. These guidelines are not yet set in stone. Especially for 
the parts concerning webapps we encourage discussion. Refer to [5,6] 
for the details. In a nutshell:

Module packagers need to change build-dependencies and test their 
modules against Apache 2.4. Build-depend on "apache2-dev" 
unconditionally (apache2-threaded-dev and apache2-prefork-dev are 
gone). Binary module packages must not depend on apache2 or apache2-
bin. Instead modules must depend on our virtual API package (apache2-
api-20120211) only. This should make things easier for the next major 
upgrade.

Packagers of web applications with configuration files (e.g. files 
installed to /etc/apache2/conf.d/) should note that the right 
directory for these kind of configuration files is now 
/etc/apache2/conf-available. Moreover, web applications should not 
declare dependencies against the apache2 HTTP server only. Many web 
applications may work with other web servers, too. Therefore they 
should recommend(!) supported alternatives by declaring packaging 
relationships like this:

  Recommends: apache2 | other_web_servers_you_support | httpd

Note, we do not have a strong opinion whether to put web server 
dependencies of web applications to a hard dependency or a 
recommendation. We would  like to hear your feedback on that - 
especially if you are maintaining another web server or a web 
application in Debian. Generally, we are keen to consolidate a uniform 
and predictable behavior for all web applications but we do not want 
to push any decision in one or another direction. For more context on 
this discussion please see [7].

Please do not call our configuration wrapper scripts (a2enmod/...) 
directly. Instead use our maintscript-helper which is designed to do 
things in a way we would like reverse dependencies to interface with 
us. It is planned to allow the administrator to configure what should 
or should not be done. Again, see [5,6] for detailed instructions. 
Also, read our hints carefully, as some web applications should not 
have a hard depdendency against our web server. This case must be 
covered in your maintainer scripts. 


[5] http://wiki.debian.org/Apache/PackagingFor24
[6] </usr/share/doc/apache2/PACKAGING>
[7] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/01/msg00148.html


Call For Help <HELP>
====================

You would like to help us? We can still use help, especially for the 
2.4 transition. There is our RFH bug #646208 still left open and there 
is a wiki page [8] with our ongoing and upcoming changes we plan to 
work on.

[8] http://wiki.debian.org/Apache2Transition

First Debian Bug Squashing Party in Salzburg (Austria) - 15-17 June 2012

Bernd Zeimetz — 2012-03-21T19:04:45

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Hi,

we are happy to invite you to the first Debian Bug Squashing Party in
Salzburg, Austria, on the weekend of 15-17 June, 2012 [BSPSBG].
As Wheezy will be frozen in June there will be a lot to work on for sure!

The BSP will be held in the office of conova communications GmbH [CONOVA],
located close to Salzburg Airport W.A. Mozart. A short registration on the
wiki page [BSPSBG] is required to ease the organization of the event. On
the same page you will find information regarding transport, accommodation
and other useful things.

[BSPSBG] http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2012/06/at/Salzburg
[CONOVA] http://www.conova.com/de/kontakt/anfahrtsplan-salzburg/


Thanks to Debian funds we have sponsored accommodation for those who
are not able to pay for it on their own. Please contact me by mail
if you would like to use that offer!

Even if you are not a Debian Developer or Contributor yet, but interested
in fixing bugs and helping Debian, don't hesitate to come! There will be
enough people around to sponsor your uploads. More information about BSPs
and RC-Bugsquashing can be found at [WIKBSP], [PRIMER] and [BDOR-C].

[WIKBSP] http://wiki.debian.org/BSP
[PRIMER] http://people.debian.org/~vorlon/rc-bugsquashing.html
[BDOR-C] http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/


Special targets for the BSP will be announced on our wiki page, depending
on the freeze of Wheezy and the status of our release goals.


Hope to see you there!

Bernd


- -- 
 Bernd Zeimetz                            Debian GNU/Linux Developer
 http://bzed.de                                http://www.debian.org
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delegation for the Press Team

Stefano Zacchiroli — 2012-03-21T15:32:54

Dear Developers,
  the Press Team is changing! Francesca Ciceri and Neil McGovern have
accepted the promotion from assistants to press officers. At the same
time, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl and Meike Reichle have decided to step
down from the team, after many years of tireless contributions.

Please join me in welcoming our new press overl{adies,ords}, as well as
in thanking Alexander and Meike for their numerous past contributions.

We have also took this chance to clarify the role and responsibilities
of the press team. The "job description" is reported below, as part of
the formal delegation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Press Team delegation
=====================

I hereby appoint the following developers as members of the Debian Press
Team:

- Francesca Ciceri <madamezou>
- Martin Schulze <joey>
- Neil McGovern <neilm>

Any previous delegation to the same team, not explicitly listed above,
is revoked.

The delegation is not time-limited. It will be effective until further
changes by present or future DPLs.


Job Description
---------------

- The Press Team is the official Debian contact point for press
  inquiries and media people outside Debian. When acting in such
  capacity, members of the Press Team act as spokespersons of the Debian
  Project.

- In addition, members of the team moderate news and announcement
  mailing lists of general interest, such as debian-announce and
  debian-news (but not the the localized -news-$lang mailing lists).

- The Press team is also responsible for the maintenance of the News
  part of the English version of the Debian website (i.e. the content
  currently located under webwml/english/News/).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

All the above information, with a reference to the present delegation,
will shortly be available at <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Press>.

I remind you that the Press Team is helped by Paul Wise, Moray Allan,
and Kai Wasserbäch, as assistants.


Thanks again to the press team and their assistants for their past,
present ... and future contributions!

Cheers.

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012: Rebuttals

Kurt Roeckx - Debian Project Secretary — 2012-03-20T23:22:26

Hi,

The candidates made rebuttals and they are now available as part
of their platform at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2012/vote_001


Kurt Roeckx
Debian Project Secretary

Bits from Debian Med team

Andreas Tille — 2012-03-17T10:22:55

Hi,

in this bits:
  1. Debian Med Bug Squashing Advent Calendar 2011
  2. Anniversary of Debian Med
  3. Second Debian Med sprint (Southport, 27th-29th January 2012)
  4. Mentoring of Month (MoM)
  5. DDs who came to Debian because of Debian Med
  6. Future plans
  7. General lessons learned

1. Debian Med Bug Squashing Advent Calendar 2011
------------------------------------------------

In December last year Thorsten Alteholz has started a nice QA
initiative[1a] which might be interesting for other teams next Advent.
The Debian Med team was able to fix about 70 bugs in this time.  Thanks
to Thorsten for this nice piece of motivation and thanks to everybody
who took part in the bug squashing.

 [1a] http://debian-med.alteholz.de/advent/

2. Anniversary of Debian Med
----------------------------

On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 the Debian Med project was first officially
announced.  I submitted a short blog posting[2b] about this and
perhaps you might like to see a long sequence of talks[2c] about
this topic.

 [2a] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/01/msg00454.html
 [2b] http://debianmed.blogspot.com/2012/01/10-anniversary-of-debian-med-posted-by.html
 [2c] http://people.debian.org/~tille/talks/

3. Second Debian Med sprint (Southport, 27th-29th January 2012)
---------------------------------------------------------------

In end of January 2012 the Debian Med team has met to the second
sprint[3a].  As last year I would call this a very successfull event and
I would recommend other teams to instanciate such meetings as well.
Feel free to read my more verbose report[3b].

 [3a] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/Meeting/Southport2012
 [3b] http://debianmed.blogspot.com/2012/02/report-from-debian-med-sprint-posted-by.html


4. Mentoring of Month (MoM)
---------------------------

I have started this project[4a] for the following reasons:
  * gather more manpower to the team
  * strengthen connections to upstream (which might become MoM students)
  * help shy people to become more verbose
  * to learn myself about potential problems of people who do not feel fit for
    packaging tasks
I made a short summary how the first MoM project worked (bottom of [3a]).

 [4a] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/MoM


5. DDs who came to Debian because of Debian Med
-----------------------------------------------

After realising that several members of the Debian Med team finally
became DDs I made a little survey[5a] to find out about their reasons to
become DD / DM.  I came to the conclusion that a Blend could be a nice
entry point for people to join Debian because newcomers can identify
themselves with a known topic (the scope of the Blend - in this case
medicine and bioinformatics) first and learn Debian rules in a team with
common interest.  This perfectly fits my expectation which I had from
the beginning 10 years ago and I would be very happy if other Blends
would follow this example to be nice, inviting and try to *actively*
ask people for cooperation (see some simple rules which I learned in
this process below).  In the teammetrics GSOC project[5b] some graphs
were created[5c] where you can see the level of contribution of these
people (and other team members).

 [5a] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/Developers
 [5b] http://teammetrics.alioth.debian.org
 [5c] http://debian-med.debian.net/


6. Future plans
---------------

Currently some heavy work regarding bringing bibliographic references
about packages straight into package information is going on.  This
topic is specifically interesting in Biology because programs are
frequently connected to some publication about the methods used inside
the code.  This topic is as well relevant to Debian Science and
DebiChem.  Thanks to the patient work done by Charles Plessy we now have
about 70 packages featuring debian/upstream files [6a] featuring
bibliographic references and there is ongoing work to move these data to
UDD[6b] to enable further usage.  We are in the process of final
polishing the format and finishing scripts for the import.  If people
are interested to join this effort this would be the right moment to
raise their hand.

 [6a] http://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata
 [6b] http://wiki.debian.org/UltimateDebianDatabase

7. General lessons learned
--------------------------

   I. Do not let wait anybody who wants to do work.
  II. Newcomers are frequently shy - try to invite them kindly and
      patiently. [4a]
 III. Tell people verbosely about your project - it is astonishing
      how less people know and what wrong assumptions they make
      about your project.

Kind regards

      Andreas.

debian.net domains: opening up the LDAP dnsZoneEntry attribute

Stefano Zacchiroli — 2012-03-17T10:23:47

Dear all,
  the *.debian.net domains [1] are a useful resource that allow Debian
Developers to set up services under a debian-ish namespace. We routinely
use it to experiment with services before transferring them to the
official Debian infrastructure (debian.org) managed by DSA.  I remind
you that documentation on how to register debian.net entries is
available at [2].

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianDotNet
[2] https://db.debian.org/doc-mail.html

Up to now, the information about registered debian.net entries has been
easily accessible via LDAP only to Debian Developers. The wiki index [1]
attempts to mitigate that, but it is doomed to be incomplete and out of
date. That is unfortunate. Also, there seems to be no useful reason to
keep that list non-public.

After discussion on -devel [3,4] we --- as in: DSA and myself --- have
decided to open up the list of debian.net entries. The dnsZoneEntry LDAP
attribute, currently only queryable from debian.org machines, will be
made publicly accessible.

[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/03/msg00123.html
[4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/03/msg00167.html

It will then become easy (and legitimate) for everyone to query those
data and, for instance, publish a complete index of debian.net entries
together with entry <-> registrant associations.

As the attribute used to be private, the change will happen *1 month
from now*. In case you who were relying on that information to remain
private, that should give you enough time to clean it up. (Note also
that the data stored in the dnsZoneEntry attribute already generates
public information in the form of DNS RRs; the forthcoming change will
simply make it easier to access for legitimate use.)

Cheers.