Re: backports.org updates

[Sven Mueller]

Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> this night I updated bpo to use the latest dak version, which means it
> now has the ~ support.

Great, thanks.

> Another little difference that should help users is that backports
> Release file now features a "NotAutomatic: yes", making it behave
> similar to experimental. Which means you shouldn't get updates to bpo
> versions automagically anymore *unless* you selected them manually.

Hmm, Is there a way to do that automatically? Personally, I prefer to
get bpo updates automatically if they are available.

Regards,
Sven


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Re: NMUs and (auto-)subscription to the PTS

[Sven Mueller]

Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 31, 2006 at 06:35:57AM +0200, Adeodato Simó wrote:
>> ISTR a discussion about automatically subscribing NMUers to the PTS for
>> the package, and dropping the subscription with the next upload of the
>> package (be it a maintainer upload or not).
> 
> I think it would be "fair" only if the NMUers will get unsubscribed as
> soon as the real maintainer acknowledge the NMU, closing the
> fixed-in-NMU bugs.
> 
> I also like Sven's proposal of automatically subscribing people listed
> in the "Uploaders:" field, with the same policy though: they should be
> subscribed as long as they are listed in that field.

Please don't do that. For many group maintained packages, a mailinglist
of that group is in the maintainer field, while the DDs from the group
are listed as Uploaders. So the implementation of that proposal would
result in duplicate mails for the maintainers.

> More generally, my principle would be that all people playing the
> maintainer role should have the same communication capability of the
> real maintainer. That capabilities should remain as long as they play
> the maintainer role.

That makes sense, but as far as I remember, NMU uploaders (and in many
cases: sponsors) don't add themselves as Uploaders. So for all the
packages I handled so far, it would make sense to subscribe the real
uploader of the package (the person signing the upload) to the package
until the next version is uploaded if (and only if) they are _not_
listed as either maintainer or uploader.

regards,
Sven


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Re: RE : Re: RE : Re: Linux Magazin Germany, affecting Debian's image?!

[Sven Mueller]

Wouter Verhelst wrote on 18/07/2006 11:37:
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 05:04:18PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> 
>>On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 11:48:05PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote:
>>
>>>If there WERE anything that said that modified versions of Debian must
>>>be "avavilable for free download", it would mean that something is
>>>seriously, horribly, wrong. It would be a non-free requirement.
>>
>>You mean like the terms of the GPL?
> 
> The GPL does not require you to make anything, at all, available for
> free download. Not the binaries, not even the source.

While this is true, I would have really liked to be able to download an
image of that specific DVD we are/were talking about here. Not
necessarily by http or ftp, a torrent download would be perfectly fine
for me.

Regards,
Sven


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Re: Call for a new DPL mediation ... This will be the only thread i will reply to in the next time about this issue.

[Sven Mueller]

MJ Ray wrote on 07/07/2006 13:38:
> Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
>>Have you seen the Geek Social Fallacies?
>>
>>I think Fallacy #1 sheds quite a bit of light on this particular situation
>>and the reactions to it.
> 
> I think the inclusion of *humor* in the URL sheds quite a bit of
> light on how seriously it should be taken.  I am amazed that it
> is again cited to justify debian social malfunction, apparently
> seriously.

Note that the "humor" in the URL above was introduced by someone who
mirrored the original page
http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html, which is -
unfortunately - not online anymore. But it can still be accessed from
www.archive.org at
http://web.archive.org/web/20050308043359/http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

However, I don't see how Russ used it to _justify_ what happens in
Debian more or less regularly. He just said that the above text put some
light on these things. And he is right there.

cu,
sven


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Re: Donations

[Sven Mueller]

Wouter Verhelst wrote on 11/06/2006 09:54:
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 02:39:45PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> 
>>This should refer to another text listing the vetted organizations.
>>One outside the constitution so it can be changed as needed.
> 
> 
> That's usually bad practice in a constitution. You want to change the
> constitution if the Debian website wants to reorganize the website?
> There is a reason why most countries' constitutions never make things
> too explicit, and I think we should do the same.
> 
> Perhaps something like 'The DPL must maintain a list on a
> publically-announced web page' could work, but I don't see much benefit
> in that.

Well the benefit is that the DPL is forced to keep such a list, so that
later DPLs can easily track which organizations might keep money for
Debian. That means it is harder for money to get lost (I don't think
that would happen intentionally, but I know it can easily happen
unintentionally).

Regards,
Sven


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Re: network configuring in debian question

[Sven Mueller]

Jila Zakizadeh wrote on 16/05/2006 16:14:
> We have two routers in different places that have own LANs. We are
> connected to the machines through the gateways of these routers. Now, I
> want to move one of these gateway to another place with different
> provider. I would like to know what are the requirements and How would I
> reconfigure network setting in order to have connection between machines
> as before. Actually I went through Debian reference, and I am in doubt to
> be able to configure properly and if I wont mix up whole system.
> Your timely response is highly appreciated.

You are actually asking on the wrong mailinglist. Please direct your
questions at debian-user@lists.debian.org, debian-project is about the
further development of the Debian project itself rather than technical
issues with the use of Debian on your machines.

However, to address your problem, I don't really understand your
problem. Are you using Debian on the routers you talked about or on the
machines connected to the given LAN? If the later is the case, you only
have to check which providers are supported by the router you intend to
move.  If your question is about routers running Debian, there would be
some details needed to actually answer your question:
How do the two routers involved connect to each other?
Do they have a common network on the "outside" of their respective LANs?
If not:
Do they connect using some VPN technique like OpenVPN or IPSec?
Do they have a static IP each, or does at least one have a dynamic IP?

Regards,
Sven


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Re: [SUMMARY] About terminology for stable/testing/unstable and related issues

[Sven Mueller]

Tapio Lehtonen wrote on 16/05/2006 08:14:
> On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 06:29:52PM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
>
> If stable/testing/unstable are branches (or suites), what are Ubuntu,
> DeMuDi, SkoleLinux et al Debian based distributions? I would have
> called them branches, from a version control point of view.

>From a VCS point of view, they are more like (other/remote) repositories
(to avoid the use of the word 'fork'), even though they integrate
updates from Debian (and/or update Debian itself, like at least
SkoleLinux tries to).

Regards,
Sven


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Re: debian and UDEV

[Sven Mueller]

Marco d'Itri wrote on 15/05/2006 14:03:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
>>You can't wait for an hotplug/udev event to be done processing. That
>>is always done asynchron without any feedback of completion.
> 
> This is not correct. Look at the while loop in the init script and and
> the udevsettle source.

Which init script? And udevsettle? I don't see any such tool, manpage or
package in Debian, let alone some source for it that I could find.

>>will randomly fail or succeed depending on current scheduling. Any
>>sequence of loading a module and using the expected device node has to
>>utilize a sleep statement and prey udev runs fast enough to complete
>>in the given time.
> 
> Wrong.

While your comments might be right [1], udev is pretty difficult for
admins to complete grasp and configure in the way they want it, let
alone "simple users".
With static device nodes (or devfs for that matter), "insmod ;
mount  " always works. With udev, I had
that fail a number of times, unreproducible, since to reproduce it, I
tried to do it manually. Of course udev is faster than I am, so doing
those commands in sequence manually always worked.

Also, when doing "insmod ; insmod " (where
usb-storage-[12] are two drivers for different usb storage devices), you
are not guaranteed that the first one actually get's the lower device
numbers. Of course, numbered devices (/dev/sda, '/dev/sdb etc.) are not
really what was in udev's initiators' minds, but it is still usefull to
always find the first SCSI/USB/SATA disc in a system at /dev/sda.

Regards,
Sven


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Re: [SUMMARY] About terminology for stable/testing/unstable and related issues

[Sven Mueller]

Christian Perrier wrote on 12/05/2006 18:29:
>>Though AJ is correct in saying that "suite" is by several tools in
>>Debian (apt-utils and dak he mentioned - I don't know about their use of
>>suite - as well as reprepro), I think that from a non-native-english
>>user perspective, "branch" is easier to grasp.
> 
> And, indeed, as already mentioned, easier to translate..:-)

Indeed. This is also true for German I think. Suite is also known in
German, but only for a number of rooms combined (hotel suites and
similar things).

> I take the argument of "suite" being used in several tools as an
> argument to increase the weight of "suite" but not a decisive
> argument.
> 
> After all, tools can be changed...:-)

Exactly.

> The terminology definition could also mention, in the case, we decide
> for using "branch" that the term "suite" is also in useuntil it is
> removed from the tools and documentations using it.

If we ultimately choose to use branch, I would prefer if the terminology
docs said "previously, 'suite' was also used.". If someone runs across
some not-yet-changed tool, he will now it is old terminology.

cu,
sven


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Re: [SUMMARY] About terminology for stable/testing/unstable and related issues

[Sven Mueller]

Christian Perrier wrote on 10/05/2006 07:00:
>>If there are no strong objections in -project, I'm opened to suggestions
>>about the Right Way to handle the further life of this proposal, to
>>make it alittle bit more "official":
>>
>>-conclude it and post in -devel-announce...:-)
>>
>>-make the discussion wider in -devel and continue it there
> 
> Well, I think we should come up with this now.
> 
> The discussion core is clearly "suite vs branch".
> 
> I have to confess that I'm hardly balancing between both. Filipus
> developed an interesting and well argumented explanation to push
> "branch" and I find it convincing...at least as convincing as
> "pro-suite" arguments.
> 
> So, unless someone else brings more arguments here, I'll summarize
> again, crosspost to -devel and try to have the discussion there focus
> on "suite vs branch"

Though AJ is correct in saying that "suite" is by several tools in
Debian (apt-utils and dak he mentioned - I don't know about their use of
suite - as well as reprepro), I think that from a non-native-english
user perspective, "branch" is easier to grasp.

regards,
Sven


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Re: The powerpc port should be removed from etch release candidates ...

[Sven Mueller]

Sven Luther wrote on 01/05/2006 08:21:
> On Mon, May 01, 2006 at 02:20:09AM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
> 
>>The reason that I did not inform you was because things were already very 
>>heated at the moment and because you were at that time still very 
>>concerned about the welfare of your mother. I thought it was better not 
>>to add to that.
> 
> And what have you gained ? What did you expect would happen once i noticed ?

He thought he would gain not adding more pressure to you. He was wrong
and he apologized for that. Stop picking on him, please.

> Apologizes accepted, but this is not enough.

Either you accept the apology or you don't. There is no "but".

> So, this is a first step, but i need more. I need :
> 
>   - the commit access being restored.

I would second that request, if it was more humble. You don't "need"
commit access restored, you just want it. So please be so kind to
actually state the true thing.

>   - an apology for the lack of decency this action shows.

You already got that. The apology might have been weaker than you hoped,
but nevertheless, you accepted it (you said: "Apologizes accepted").

>   - apologies for continual bashing would be nice, but more important you
> refraining from doing so in the future. When i post, avoid saying things
> like 'its the kernels fault' or otherwise indirectly pointing the finger
> back to me. 

Stop being too sensitive. If someone says "its the kernels fault", why
do you think they are pointing at you? Did you write the whole kernel?
And it would also be nice if _you_ stopped pointing at various people
(and Frans in particular).

> On my side, i will follow my one-post-per-thread policy, which i have mostly
> been doing since the last two month, with only two backslides, and those two
> backslides where always triggered by you being bashful, so i have good faith
> that if you change a bit your behaviour, and my personal distress situation
> calmiong down, that this will no more be a problem in the future.

If you actually both stop letting of your frustration/anger on one
another, but instead talked to each other like most educated people
would do, there soon wouldn't be much anger left between the two of you.

@d-i people: When Sven annoys you, try ignoring whatever he does at that
moment (i.e. that mail, that IRC message, that commit-log). Calm down
and come back later if there is a technical issue involved that needs
solving. Sven is over-sensitive and attacks when he deems he is being
attacked himself. Nevertheless, he did a lot of valuable work on the
powerpc port and is willing to continue doing so. While making Colin the
 lead powerpc porter (at least regarding the d-i team) does make sense,
but that doesn't necessarily mean that Sven's contributions aren't
needed anymore.

@Sven: As a result of this thread, I read a lot of mails in various
threads you were involved in. While I somewhat agree that people where
picking on you, it has never been as bad as you try to make it look
like. You are _way_ over-sensitive and see every hint at a technical
problem as a personal attack (see the "it's the kernel's fault" comment
above). People are pointing out that some particular program (or other
part of the system) is accountable for a particular problem is _not_ a
personal attack on you.

> But you have to live by the fact that i also have an opinion, and that i will
> post things in the future which may annoy you, and it is not correct to expect
> me not to do such posts.

If you knowingly post things in a way that annoys others, you pretty
much make sure to gather opponents rather than friends. Your posts
mostly sound far more aggressive than they would need to. Try to focus
on technical things, try to avoid personal issues.

> So, the ball is in your camp, can you now stop this childish rejection of me,
> come to your sense,

As much as one _might_ see the removal of commit rights as a childish
action, your reaction to it isn't any less childish.

> and that we continue working again ? I may have hit your
> feelings, and said things that you took badly, and for this i apologize, but
> you (and others) have done no less. 

Wise words. If both of you (i.e. primarily Frans and Sven, but also the
other people involved, such as the rest of the d-i team) calm down and
try to focus on fixing technical things while avoiding personal stuff,
you might be able to work together again in the near future. I sure hope
so, since that would mean that d-i and especially the PowerPC port would
improve more than it would without you cooperating.

regards,
sven

PS: Sven: Frans was right in one aspect: You should have _tried_ to
contact Colin before fixing whatever breakage you wanted to fix with
your commit, since now Colin is the lead PowerPC porter (for d-i). At
least you should have send a mail along the lines of: "I noticed this
issue, I'm working on a fix."
PPS: I intentionally CCed this mail to Sven in the hopes of making sure
he is aware of this m

Re: Reforming the NM process

[Sven Mueller]

Panu Kalliokoski wrote on 25/04/2006 13:29:
> I hoped the proposal I was making would allow us to eat the cake and
> keep it too: offer an open upload area but keep the main archive under
> strict quality criteria.  I expect it to be easier to check package
> quality, too, if they're being autobuilt and available for BTS reports
> _before_ having been uploaded to the main archive.

Now this sounds more interesting than anything I read from you in this
thread so far. It would indeed be interesting to see something similar
to this. Something like a "open-uploads" alongside with main, contrib
and non-free (and with auto-builders configured similarly to
experimental: best efford but no warranties). I would, however see some
policy going with it: First upload of a package needs to get an approval
by a DD, uploaders needs to be identified (his PGP/GPG key signed by at
least one DD) and he needs to agree with Debian's Policy documents
(which would apply to open-uploads).

>>Besides, there is no value in a wide-open voting system.  This is
>>called an "Internet poll" and the results generally reflect whatever
>>websites or blogs happen to publicise it.
> 
> Not if those people have to be properly identified via their PGP keys.
> Such a simple requirement will already cut off the "casual Joes" that
> only vote once because they saw the announcement somewhere.  It also
> prevents most ways of abuse.

Well, the one-time-voter could easily be avoided by a requirement that X
can only vote on votes announced (or even: process started - call for
seconds, request for comments) after he was accepted as a person with
voting rights. Or simply a required waiting period after application of
three months or something.
Anyway: I don't want to give voting rights to anyone unless he/she at
least went through the P&P part of the NM process. But actually, I'm
quite happy with the current way of only giving voting rights to full
DDs (and I felt that way before even starting the NM process).

cu,
sven

PS: Sorry to Panu: I initially only replied to him directly (by
accident), while the reply was always intended to go to the list.


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Re: Private copies of list replies

[Sven Mueller]

Michelle Konzack wrote on 18/03/2006 22:28:
> Am 2006-03-13 16:02:18, schrieb Margarita Manterola:
> 
>>Thunderbird is a very respected MUA.  There's a big group of people
>>who don't feel comfortable writing mails from mutt (or the like), and
>>I don't think it's such a good idea to take into account only people
>>who can use a console-client to be able to receive a reply on a
>>mailing-list.
> 
> I have troied to use Mozilla-Mail as well as Thunderbird, but those
> are crap, specialy if I try to read Mails offline and get HTML-Mails
> which try to download tonns of pics...

Huh? I do just that on a regular basis. And Thunderbird doesn't load
external pics from mails in either online or offline mode unless you
specifically ask it to do so. You probably didn't try TB for a long time.

>>We are not talking about developers, we are talking about anyone who
>>needs to send a mail to a mailing-list and get a reply.
> 
> I am developper and normal-user.  Encourage developers of MUA's to
> code List-Reply stuff...

If you are a developer, you can't also be a "normal user". You have
higher skills than the normal user.
I second urging devs to implement List-Reply stuff though. But I don't
recommend implementing M-F-T (though I don't advise against it either).

>>Also, it's not like we are discussing about mailers for a propietary
>>OS, but it's a free mailer that works inside Debian.
> 
> ...where some Developpers of MUA's thinking, they must make the
> Linuxpedants compatibel with BS ware from a proprietary OS.

?? I don't get what you mean here. Do you mean that Thunderbird devs try
to make TB compatible with Outlook? They certainly don't. Do you mean
that TB is BS? It certainly isn't. I don't have any idea what else you
could mean.

cu,
sven


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Re: Private copies of list replies

[Sven Mueller]

David Weinehall wrote on 17/03/2006 08:53:
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 09:33:18PM +0100, Sven Mueller wrote:
> 
>>David Weinehall wrote on 13/03/2006 18:32:
>>
>>>you can also do a little prefs hackery:
>>>
>>>http://www.semergence.com/archives/2004/12/09/09/07/
>>
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Custom_headers
> 
> Rather indicates that you can add headers to the list of *available*
> headers using that hack, and then change the settings / mail.

Indeed. Weird, I know I had checked it before I wrote my mail and it
didn't seem to work as you proposed at that time. However, checking
again now shows it does work (this is true for both the prefs hack and
the mnenhy approach).

Sorry to have created confusion and thanks for rectifying my mistakes.

>>I'm still waiting for anyone to recommend a MUA which works on at least
>>Linux and Windows (yes, that evil OS), preferably also on MacOSX and
>>supports MFT.
> 
> Do you have any particular need to use the same MUA for all platforms?

Yes, due to several reasons, both in private and professional
environments, I frequently have to change platforms. It makes life a lot
easier to use the same mail client on all of them (especially together
with IMAP).

>>Apart from the fact that MFT still isn't a standard and might just as
>>well never be, for several reason already quoted/referenced by others in
>>this thread.
> 
> I still haven't seen any quoted/referenced reason that makes sense.

MFT doesn't really solve the problems it tries to solve.
1) It tries to allow automatic follow-ups to go to the right choice
   of addresses, but it doesn't add anything the List-Post didn't
   already add.
2) It only works for the first level of replies, since no MUA I know of
   preserves its contents across replies.
MFT's name implies some similarity with the Followup-To header in
newsgroups. If it would work like that one, it might get better support
IMHO.

> Then again, it might not ever become a standard, but it's the best
> solution for the problem existing.  Until someone comes up with
> something better, I'll go with M-F-T (not that I use it myself, since
> I'm subscribed to the lists already, and I get too much email anyway
> to want any copies - the all too common crossposting is bad enough
> as it is...)

I agree wholeheartedly. And actually, I receive that many CCs from
long-time-DDs for posts on Debian lists that I really wonder how many
DDs don't even know the policies in place for Debian lists. Thanks to
your hints regarding thunderbird, I might be able to avoid some of them
by setting MFT to the right mailinglist now.

regards,
Sven


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Re: Private copies of list replies

[Sven Mueller]

David Weinehall wrote on 13/03/2006 18:32:
>>Thunderbird, as well as many other MUAs doesn't allow you to set 
>>arbitrary headers, including M-F-T.
> 
> There are plugins for Thunderbird that solves that (mnehy, for
> instance);

Would like to _any_ extension/plugin which really solves that (or, btw
would implement list-reply). mnehy doesn't.

> you can also do a little prefs hackery:
> 
> http://www.semergence.com/archives/2004/12/09/09/07/

Just checked.
Nice hack. (Not)
You realize that the hack you referenced doesn't work for the target
given? It adds a custom header to _every_ post made from an
account/identity. In other words, it would require to set up a new
account/identity for every different setting of M-F-T one wants to use.
Unless you wanted to do the hack over and over again (find the post to
reply to, stop thunderbird, edit the prefs, start thunderbird, reply,
stop thunderbird, remove prefs-hack, start thunderbird, continue reading
-- great).

I'm still waiting for anyone to recommend a MUA which works on at least
Linux and Windows (yes, that evil OS), preferably also on MacOSX and
supports MFT.
Apart from the fact that MFT still isn't a standard and might just as
well never be, for several reason already quoted/referenced by others in
this thread.

cu,
sven

PS: Sorry for the seperate emails / initial private reply, didn't know
earlier that I would have the time to check the reference in more detail.


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Re: For those who care about stable updates

[Sven Mueller]

Wouter Verhelst wrote on 09/03/2006 19:28:
> [...] saying
> that James is The Problem(TM) here sounds like overreaction to me.

It might be.

> Though I'll acknowledge that there is a problem if James is slow in
> response on one of the many hats he's wearing, I urge you to respect him
> for the huge and huge amounts of work he gets done for the Project.

Well, if James himself isn't the problem, then the problem lies in the
many "hats he's wearing" (to use your words). If he is overloaded, he
should step back from one or more of those posts and let others fill in.

Honestly: I _do_ value the work James does (though I don't see much of
it, I still assume he does a lot in the background to keep the Debian
infrastructure working). But the problem is the work only he can do
currently, but which sits waiting in a long (and even getting longer) queue.

cu,
sven


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Re: Private copies of list replies (Was: Re: buildd and experimental)

[Sven Mueller]

Bernhard R. Link wrote on 07/03/2006 18:39:
> * Sven Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [060307 14:46]:
> 
>>I don't say that the idea behind MFT is a bad idea (actually, many
>>aspects of it _do_ make sense), but until it is accepted as a standard,
>>it is (IMHO) stupid to ask people to tweak their MUAs to set and handle it.
> 
> It does not matter if it is a accepted official standard. It is a
> accepted standard for many mailing lists.

Name some, if you please. Refer to where it is documented to be an
accepted standard for the list(s) you name.

> If you want special behaviour
> of people it is only polite and beneficial for yourself if you set
> something making it a lot easier for them to respond in a way you want
> them.

Well, in general, I agree. However, I only ever see users of Mutt
request usage of MFT. And that is just one single mail client. And I
don't know of any other mail client which directly supports that header.

> Intentionally refusing to CC people not setting that header but
> requesting it manually it also impolite. But it easily happens
> unintentionally, so better set that little header.

Set it how? As noted before, most mail clients (including kmail and the
highly popular Thunderbird, which I also happen to use on all my
computers) don't support it. You are effectively asking people to patch
their mail client and/or switch to mutt (which is the only mail client I
know which supports MFT).

cu,
sven


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Re: Private copies of list replies (Was: Re: buildd and experimental)

[Sven Mueller]

Glenn Maynard wrote on 07/03/2006 01:05:
> It is your job to set MFT if you want my mailer to treat you differently
> than everyone else, such as if you want to receive CCs on list posts.

Why? MFT isn't an accepted standard. It also isn't implemented in too
many MUAs (mozilla/thunderbird just being one example) because it wasn't
accepted as a standard. So why on earth should I manually set that
header (and in the thunderbird case, I can't even do so without major
patching and tweaking)?

I don't say that the idea behind MFT is a bad idea (actually, many
aspects of it _do_ make sense), but until it is accepted as a standard,
it is (IMHO) stupid to ask people to tweak their MUAs to set and handle it.

> If you don't, and instead just say "CC me on replies" in the message,
> you're pushing the work to handle your exceptional case onto everyone else
> on the list, which is unacceptable.  That's why, as I said, I only comply
> with such requests once, to point people to MFT (at least, unless I really
> want to talk to that person).

Why do you expect people to support a non-standard header? Actually you
are even trying to force them so use it (even if you possibly don't do
so intentionally). That's - again - stupid IMHO.

> (Of course, I have no problem with doing both--setting the header and
> asking for it in English for those whose mailers don't support it.)

So you expect people to set it, even if their mailers don't support it,
but you accept that you might need to ask for your prefered handling of
replies explicitly because their mailers don't support it? Talk about
inconsistencies ;-)

cu,
sven


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Re: 1 question

[Sven Mueller]

Tomasz Kaźmierczak wrote on 04/03/2006 12:12:
> Hi. Is the software (kernel, packets, etc.) in testing distribution of Debian 
> compiled in debug mode or in release mode?

Though this question hit the wrong mailinglist (-user or even -devel
would have been more appropriate), the answer is simple: All software in
testing (currently etch), unstable (sid) (and usually also stuff in
experimental) is compiled in exactly the same way as software in stable
(sarge). This is simply because any software in unstable will eventually
end up in testing and finally in stable. And it doesn't get recompiled
while propagating.

cu,
sven



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Re: Intel notebooks for needy developers in developing countries

[Sven Mueller]

Andreas Schuldei wrote on 27/02/2006 23:06:
> * Martin Michlmayr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-02-27 14:52:16]:
> 
>>* Andreas Schuldei <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2005-12-08 21:08]:
>>
>>>Intel is so generous to provide Debian with ten notebooks (besides
>>>some server hardware), which we would like to give to developers in
>>>developing countries who
>>
>>It would be nice to see a list of people who received those laptops
>>and what they intend to do with them with regards to Debian.
> 
[...]
> currently i honestly dont know who ended up with the notebooks
> and one candiate was not fond of the idea of his name being made
> public.

I would expect that if someone received such a benefit from Debian (even
if indirectly), his/her name and approximate whereabouts should be made
public (or at least published to debian-private). If he/she doesn't want
his/her name to show up, he/she needn't apply (or accept the offer if
nominated by someone else).

After all, when they do receive that benefi, it is only fair for them to
 give something back to the Debian community. And it would be hard to
check wether they do give anything back to Debian if they were kept
anonymous.

regards,
Sven


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Re: Debian derivatives and the Maintainer: field (again)

[Sven Mueller]

(dropping debian-devel, this is really not a technical issue)

Matt Zimmerman wrote on 17/01/2006 20:44:
> I would very much appreciate if folks would review
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/05/msg00260.html and consider the
> points that I raise there.  I put some effort into collating the issues
> which came up the last time and presenting them.

Fine, quoting from there:

> Ubuntu is a distribution based on Debian.

Exactly.

> 1. Most of the source packages in Ubuntu are inherited from Debian
>unchanged (example: tetex-base).

False. They are changed through recompilation. So let's assume you are
talking about the source part only. Then the problem is that they aren't
automatically updated as soon as their Debian counterpart is updated. So
a Debian maintainer has no way to fix the package in Ubuntu.

In my opinion, the maintainer field should be set to some Ubuntu
individual or team even in these cases. But I would be fine with the
maintainer field unchanged if the majority of Debian Devs would agree to
taht.

> 2. Some source packages in Ubuntu are modified relative to Debian.  These
>are assigned a version number of the form
>"ubuntu".  Of those which
>are modified, in most cases the modifications are trivial, such as a
>library transition, Python transition or other dependency change
>(example: python-adns,
>
> http://people.ubuntu.com/~scott/patches/python-adns/python-adns_1.0.0-6ubuntu3.patch).
>In some cases, the packages are modified more extensively (example:
>several d-i components, such as partman
>
> http://people.ubuntu.com/~scott/patches/partman-auto/partman-auto_41ubuntu1.patch).

At the very least, for more extensively modified packages, you should
definitely set the maintainer field to some ubuntu entity. But since you
did modifications after the Debian maintainer did his, he had no way of
approving your changes, so you should _really_ set the maintainer field
to something inside ubuntu for all these packages you changed. Don't
forget to suggest your changes to the Debian maintainer for future
inclusion. Unless they are completely Ubuntu specific. But even then,
suggesting them might help the Debian maintainer in the future.

> 3. A small number of packages are created specifically for Ubuntu.  These
>are assigned standard version numbers.  Of those, some have already been
>adopted by Debian (example: pmount), some are expected to be adopted by
>Debian at some point in the future (example: xorg), and some are not
>expected to be used in a Debian context (example: ubuntu-artwork).

Well, I don't see how these fit into the discussion. As they are created
by Ubuntu and already carry an ubuntu specific entity in their
Maintainer field, these aren't effected by this discussion, I think.

> It is important, in particular, to account for the fact that Ubuntu is not
> the only Debian derivative, and that proposals like yours would amount to
> Debian derivatives being obliged to fork *every source package in Debian*
> for the sake of changing a few lines of text.

That's why I would be OK with the maintainer field kept as is if you
really are merely recompiling the package. However: In that case you
should have some mechanism in place to monitor updates to those packages
in Debian and to merge those updates into Ubuntu if needed.

Now, finally to answer your questions directly:

> Given the above, the relevant questions would seem to be:
> 
>   If a binary package is built by a third party from unmodified Debian
>   sources, should its Maintainer field be kept the same as the source
>   package, or set to the name and address of the third party?

I would prefer to see it set to the name and address of the third party,
but I would accept it if a majority says this is not needed.

>   Should Debian-derived distributions change the Maintainer field in source
>   packages which are modified relative to Debian?  If so, should this be
>   done in all cases, or only if the modifications are non-trivial?

Definitely: Yes, they should, in either case. Simply for the reason that
even seemingly trivial changes can introduce new bugs. Apart from the
fact that a change which seems trivial to one person doesn't need to
seem trivial to another.

> I am interested in responses to these two questions from the Debian
> community.

cu,
sven


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Re: Delegation for trademark negotiatons with the DCCA

[Sven Mueller]

Don Armstrong wrote on 19/09/2005 23:04:
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, Anthony Towns wrote:
> 
>>On Mon, Sep 12, 2005 at 04:27:59PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
>>
>>>So, it's been three weeks, without any word that I've seen.
>>
>>Now it's been four weeks since the delegation, a month since I
>>suggested Branden delegate this, and just under two months since
>>Florian Weimer brought the subject to this list's attention, and
>>there's _still_ been no response to the developers.
> 
> This is primarily because there still is nothing concrete to
> report.[1] I will be preparing a summary of what has happened and is
> happening shortly; until that time, please bear with me as I attempt
> to resolve this issue without enflaming the situtation[2] further.

While I understand that you are busy (as well as the others who are
involved in this matter) and that you need to also talk to the lawyers
which help SPI, the members of the DCC Alliance themselves enflame the
situation further.
They announced that the DCC Alliance will support LSB 3.0. However,
every press item I saw on this matter reported that _Debian_ supports
LSB 3.0 (which isn't officially announced yet, as far as I know).

The DCC naming, especially their combined use of "Debian" and "core" is
causing a lot of confusion in press and userbase (quite some of my
customers asked me how this announced move to LSB 3.0 will effect their
servers - running pure Debian Sarge).

This matter needs to be resolved _quickly_ and in a way which eliminates
future confusion.

A naming like "common core for Debian based Distributions" would have
been a lot less confucing, and the resulting CCDD or CCDBD abbreviation
is still relatively easy to remember.

Regards,
Sven


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Testmail

[Sven Mueller]

Test


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Re: Bad press related to (missing) Debian security

[Sven Mueller]

martin f krafft wrote on 27/06/2005 20:02:
> [cc'ing -project]

I currently see two problems which require different levels of
confidence in the people involved:
1) People monitoring security lists (including non-public ones),
   fixing security bugs and uploading the fixed packages, handing
   them over to the second group
2) People monitoring security related uploads by normal maintainers,
   checking wether the fix is actually in there (and nothing unrelated)
   and finally moving the package into security.debian.org and
   announcing them.

The most recent security problems, namely in sudo and spamassassin, have
both been fixed by the normal maintainer who also uploaded the fixed
packages AFAICT. However, those fixed packages never made it to
security.debian.org for one reason or another.

I think that there should be a core security team, which handles the
actual addition of packages to security.debian.org after some
verification (this core team basically just gets a reference to or copy
of a vulnerability announcement and a package which fixes it).

There should be a larger team which monitors security lists, fixes bugs,
helps maintainers to fix bugs etc.

This way it is hopefully possible to avoid the current situation where
fixed packages exist for several weeks but nobody actually moves them to
security.debian.org.

We should make sure that the core team has as few additional jobs in
Debian as possible, trying to avoid them being over-worked. Obviously,
it could make sense though to have some or all core team members in the
broader team as well.

cu,
sven

PS: I would help the security team if I could, but currently this
doesn't seem possible for two reasons: I don't have enough time to even
read the most important security lists and I am no DD yet.


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Re: Branden's mail policies

[Sven Mueller]

Manoj Srivastava wrote on 22/06/2005 07:07:
> On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:35:31 +0200, Michael Banck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 
> 
> 
>>On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 10:35:50PM +1000, Sam Couter wrote:
>>
>>>1) The Internet is peer-to-peer. You want to break that?
>>>
>>>2) Some of the ISPs I've used refuse to relay my messages when they
>>>claim to be from my dropbear address instead of the ISPs domain.
>>>
>>>3) If I can't afford DSL or cable, or it's not available in my
>>>   area, I'm
>>>stuck on dial-up. What difference does that make to a mail spool?
> 
>>Your points are all valid, yet they are unrelated to the Subject of
>>your mail.
> 
>>The question is: Should the DPL jump through hoops to make sure his
>>mails are recieved by people, even if they have other opinions on
>>email transports than he has?
> 
> No. The DPL, hopefully, jas better ways to spend his time, and
>  more critical tasks to perform, than to jump through hoops to please
>  people who just drop mail without paying any attention to content.

In may ways, I agree with you. If people contact the DPL, they should
make sure they are able to get replies from him.
However, that argument doesn't account for all the mails listed on the
original post opening this threat. At least for this mail, I would
expect Branden to do as much as he can to get his mail through (which
really shouldn't be all that difficult - if all else fails, I could
create a sending only account fro him to use as a relay on my
mailserver). It is this mail I'm talking about:

>* Switzerland: Marc Schaefer periodically collects donations and sends
>   them along to another organization, which I think is `ffis e.V.`_.
>   Unfortunately, I have not been able to reach Marc to clarify this
>   because he has been (probably inadvertently) `blocking my mail`_.

As I understand it, Marc Schaefer is collection donations in the name of
Debian (or for Debian) but passes that money along (probably) to "ffis
e.V.". In that case (even though I highly respect ffis), I think it
should be made sure that money collected for Debian actually reaches
Debian, not some other organization.

cu,
sven (no DD yet)


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