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Fedora Weekly News Issue 95

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 95[1] for the week of July 1st through July 7th 2007. The latest issue can always be found here[2] and RSS Feed can be found here[3] .

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue95

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue

[3] http://fedoranews.org/cms/FWN/feed


Announcements

In this section, we cover announcements from various projects.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

New Infrastructure Ticketing System

MikeMcGrath announces in fedora-devel-announce[1] ,

"The Infrastructure Team has decided to change ticketing systems. The new system is available at [2] . We'll be continuing to set that site up but tickets can now be filed there. The previous ticketing system at [3] turned out to be a bit to heavy for our teams needs. Using a Trac system feels more natural to us and we suspect it will feel more natural to the community as well."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2007-July/msg00003.html

[2] https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/fedora-infrastructure/report

[3] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/tickets/

Reminder -- Vote in the Fedora Board election

MaxSpevack announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"I would like to remind everyone to vote in the Fedora Board elections[2] , which are currently ongoing..."

"The Fedora Board's membership changes on a rotating basis. This election is for 3 of the 9 Fedora Board seats. The Fedora Board is the Fedora Project's "executive committee" and is ultimately accountable for everything that happens within Fedora, and delegates responsibillity to various sub-projects accordingly"

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-July/msg00002.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Elections

Fedora Core 5 Retirement (EOL)

WarrenTogami announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"As of Monday, July 2nd 2007, Fedora Core 5 has gone into retirement. No further updates will be issued for FC5 or FE5 as we refocus our developer attention to development of F8 and maintenance of our most recent stable Fedora 7."

"By the current Fedora 8 development schedule[2] , the supported lifetime of FC6 is to continue to a minimum of early December 2007."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-July/msg00001.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/Schedule

Planet Fedora

In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet

Contributing Writers: ThomasChung, KarstenWade

Red Hat High

MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1]

"Red Hat High[2] is a week-long summer camp for rising 8th and 9th graders. This is the second year that Red Hat has done the program. Last year my contribution was giving a talk about the collaborative power of wikis to the campers. This year, GregDeKoenigsberg is the primary organizer of Red Hat High, and I'm spending most of my day today reverting to my QA roots and helping out by testing the Red Hat High LiveCD (based on Fedora 7 with some software from the Planet CCRMA repos) in the various computer labs on NCSU's campus that will be home to the different tracks."

[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/22916.html

[2] http://www.redhat.com/redhathigh/

Fedora Free Media Program

MaxSpevack points out in his blog[1]

"Some of you, I'm sure, are quite familiar with the Fedora Free Media Program[2] . For those of you who aren't, it's our community-run distribution engine. Fedora only produces enough DVDs and CDs to ship mass quantities out to various events or groups that need them in quantities of several hundred each. We simply don't have the people power to ship out media on a one-off basis. That's where the Free Media program comes in -- they harness volunteers who are willing to burn any number of Fedora discs and mail them out all over the world. Each month, they do about 100. We'd love to increase the capacity, but that requires more volunteers."

[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/22319.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution/FreeMedia

The Tone of Fedora

On a somber note, ThorstenLeemhuis had some thoughts[1] on the evolution of the Fedora community:

"I started to contribute to Fedora(.us) years ago; Fedora has grown a lot since then -- especially now with the merge we are lot more people that have to interact with each other.

What really disappoints me about that: the tone on the mailing lists afaics got and constantly gets worse and unfriendlier. Sure, there were flamewars in the past (and I were part of them as well), but people showed more respect to each other.

I'm not sure if I would start contributing to Fedora today if I would be searching for a project to contribute to."

[1] http://thorstenl.blogspot.com/2007/07/evolution-or-growth-of-fedora.html

Marketing

In this section, we cover Fedora Marketing Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

Fedora 7 Review - Technetra

ThomasChung reports in in fedora-marketing-list[1] ,

"As their "Flying High" theme promises, Fedora 7 is indeed a great plane to fly. It is a first class distro that demonstrates solid progress in improving the user experience, easing the move to virtualization and enabling the user to create their own flying machine through custom build tools. So grab your flight gear and take Fedora 7 for a spin. See you onboard![2] "

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-July/msg00010.html

[2] http://www.technetra.com/writings/archive/2007/07/01/review-fedora-7

Fedora 7 Review - Shift Backspace

RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1] ,

"After writing this entire review while using Fedora 7, I feel much better about it. I am thoroughly impressed by the offering supported in part by Red Hat and the community involved. Unfortunately, the choice to use only non-proprietary software makes this distribution more difficult to use "out-of-the-box". However, I whole-heartedly commend the Fedora team on ensuring that every aspect involved is within the free and open-source boundaries and any user who wants additional functions can easily get them using the yum installer.[2] "

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-July/msg00007.html

[2] http://shiftbackspace.com/2007/06/10/fedora-7-a-review/

Fedora 7 Review - PC Advisor

RahulSundaram reports in fedora-marketing-list[1] ,

"Like everything else, this arrangement is a result of Fedora's focus: Fedora is very Free Software-centric - far more so than Ubuntu, which ships with some proprietary components (including 3D graphics drivers) that Fedora steadfastly eschews on principle.[2] "

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-July/msg00003.html

[2] http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=1003&pn=1

Developments

In this section, we cover the problems/solutions, people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on Fedora Developments.

http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

Like This Content?

FWN is sorry we are falling short on coverage for this important area of the Fedora Project. Unfortunately, the regular writer is on vacation, and we do not have enough resources to cover.

In the future, watch this area for more information on how you can help cover the happenings with Fedora development. If you are interested in contributing regularly, visit this page to learn how:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join

Documentation

In this section, we cover the Fedora Documentation Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject

Contributing Writer: JonathanRoberts

Fedora Documentation Project Steering Committee Elections

Planning has begun for the next FDSCo election, specifically which date to hold the election on[1] . The plan is for nominations to take place between 20th July to 2nd August, and voting to take place between 3rd August and 13th August, including two weekends.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00004.html

Mailing List Owners

KarstenWade informs the list that he has made all FDSCo members admins for the fedora-docs-list and fedora-docs-commits mailing lists[1] . Hopefully this will reduce the work load on individuals, by spreading spam management between a number of people.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00006.html

Translation Quickstart Guide

The translation quickstart guide is set to be updated, in line with the ongoing efforts of the L10N team to make contribution easier for new and existing translators[1] . If you have any thoughts on how this guide can be improved, add your thoughts to the appropriate wiki page[2] .

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00007.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks/TQSG

Samba Plus LDAP Tutorial

Deependra Singh Shekhawat wrote to the docs-list to inform readers that he has begun work on updating a tutorial on the use of Samba plus LDAP on Fedora 7[1] . While the guide is still a work in progress, it has a lot of useful information and is set to be ported to DocBook XML in the DocsProject's CVS repository. This will help to make the information accessible to a lot more people, allowing easier translation.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-July/msg00012.html

Translation

This section, we cover the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

(The regular contributor JasonMatthewTaylor is not available for this week. ThomasChung is covering for him.)

Translations, Damned Lies and Transifex

DimitrisGlezos reports in gnome-i18n[1] ,

"For a while now, along with contributing to the Greek GNOME team, I've been working on Fedora's L10n infrastructure. We're moving it from RH to Fedora systems, so some work was needed to be done."

"Firstly, we needed a new web frontend for statistics. Damned Lies (DL), and the whole GNOME i18n infrastructure[2] rocks, so it was a no-brainer to base off these approaches. We quickly got a system up and running using DL[3] ."

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2007-July/msg00003.html

[2] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/

[3] http://translate.fedoraproject.org/

Fedora Translation Project Mailing List

DimitrisGlezos reports in fedora-trans-list[1] ,

"So for 1. there's an idea to create a fedora-trans-announce list, which will be moderated and kept only for interesting announcements. *Every* translator will be requested to be subscribed to this list."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2007-July/msg00019.html

Infrastructure

In this section, we cover the Fedora Infrastructure Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure

Contributing Writer: KarstenWade

(The regular contributor JasonMatthewTaylor is not available for this week. KarstenWade is covering for him.)

fedorapeople.org

SethVidal reports[1] that the new Fedora community lightweight web hosting is nearing completion. A discussion ensued about what not to have on the server, to keep it secure and focused on a simple job -- receiving files via rsync, scp, and sftp, and delivering those files via HTTP. JesseKeating provided[2] a different viewpoint, that providing too limited of a solution is no fun for anyone; at the minimum, he suggests support for git:// access. SethVidal replied with some clarification, pointing out his understanding that http:// provided all the access git and hg need.

[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-July/msg00063.html

[2] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-July/msg00075.html

[3] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-July/msg00078.html

Using Trac for Task Requests and Management

After continued evaluation, MikeMcGrath announced[1] that the Infrastructure team had switched to using an instance of Trac for systems administration task requests and tracking. This function is also commonly called a ticket system, a role previously filled by OTRS.

[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-July/msg00035.html

Infra Chooses Git for Self

After several rounds of deliberations and an eventual vote[1] , MikeMcGrath mentioned[2] that the Infrastructure team had chosen to use git as the SCM for their own source control needs. As was repeated throughout the thread, this discussion has nothing to do with project-wide SCM changes, and pertains only to code maintained by the Infrastructure team for it's own missions.

[1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-July/msg00005.html

[2] http://mmcgrath.livejournal.com/6018.html

Artwork

In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork

Contributing Writer: JonathanRoberts

Sound Theme?

DanielGeiger sent a message to the art-list proposing a number of ideas for Fedora 8 and 9 themes, including better integration between Firefox and OpenOffice with GTK+, and also a sound theme for Fedora[1] . The discussion reached agreement that it would not be necessary for a sound theme to have a lot of electronic effects, but could be purely instrumental, potentially lowering the barrier for entry to anyone considering helping with the project[2] . It was, however, eventually decided that the best place for this discussion is on the fedora-music-list[3] .

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00010.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00022.html

[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00025.html

Round 1 Deadline Approaching

MairinDuffy contacted the list to remind everyone that the deadline for submitting theme ideas for consideration in the first round of competition is quickly approaching[1] . The deadline is Wednesday 11th July. If you have any proposals for Fedora 8 artwork, contacted the art-list and create a wiki page[2] .

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00042.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F8Themes

Theme Proposals

JohnBaer contacted the list[1] with his idea for a theme based around the idea of Feng Shui[2] .

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00030.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F8Themes/FengShui

MartinSourada informed the list[1] of his proposal for a GTK+ and Metacity theme, Nodoka[2] . An RPM is available to install and try this theme[3] .

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00038.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DanielGeiger/F8ThemeNodoka

[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00049.html

Stickers

GeroldKassube contacted the list, inquiring about official Fedora Project stickers[1] , after discovering one for sale on a website. It was concluded that this is likely a breach of the Fedora trademark guidelines, and the website was contacted about this[2] . The post did, however, raise the interesting question of whether there should be an official Fedora Project sticker[3] .

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00058.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00059.html

[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-July/msg00060.html

Security Week

In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.

Contributing Writer: JoshBressers

Why an ATM PIN Has Four Digits

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/why_an_atm_pin.html

Bruce Schneier has an interesting blog entry that explains why our ATM PIN is four digits. A four digit password is laughable, but in the same respect, so is writing your password down and sticking it to your monitor. A big reason a four digit PIN works for an ATM is that you also need the ATM card in order to use the PIN. That's known as two factor authentication, what you know (PIN) and what you have (card). Any group that wishes to keep their users secure will rely on a multi-factor authentication system. It's a lot harder to steal my ATM card and my PIN than it is to find just one of them. From a user perspective it makes more sense to let them choose a crappy password they can remember, then secure their crappy password with something like a smart card or token.

Vulnerability for sale

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=128411&WT.svl=news1_1

Another vulnerability auction site has arisen. This isn't the first site to attempt this and surely won't be the last. Most of these sites are really just marketing scams that attract a great deal of attention to the group conducting the auction. It's very possible that these flaws are real, but it's far more likely they are extremely lame flaws, or are just plain fakes. Even if these flaws prove to be real, one of the significant advantages to open source software is the speed that flaws can be fixed. There are few companies that can claim to have a large group of well qualified people able to help develop a fix for a flaw. Rather than fret over a site such as this, it makes far more sense to just keep doing the things that make open source great, and deal with bumps as they appear.

Daily Package

In this section, we recap the packages that have been highlighted as a Fedora Daily Package.

http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com

Contributing Writer: ChrisTyler

Nedit - Programmer's notepad editor

Productive Mondays highlight a timesaving tool. This Monday[1] we covered Nedit[2] :

"Nedit is a venerable programmer's editor. It uses the older Motif/Lesstif toolkit, so it doesn't offer antialiased text, and the Motif widgets (user interface controls) seem clunky at times. But it offers a streamlined user interface with almost all of the window dedicated to editing text, and it has a lot of features useful to programmers..."

[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/83-Productive-Monday-Nedit-Programmers-notepad-editor.html

[2] http://nedit.org/

Optipng - PNG Optimizer

Artsy Tuesdays highlight a graphics, video, or sound application. This Tuesday[1] Optipng[2] was featured:

"Optipng is a command-line tool for optimizing PNG file sizes. The screenshot shows a sample run which produced a 13% reduction in file size, which is typical and can represent a significant savings in disk (and backup) space as well as transfer requirements for online work if repeated across a library of images. Considering how easy it is to run the optipng, that's a pretty good return on your investment of time."

[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/84-Artsy-Tuesday-Optipng-PNG-Optimizer.html

[2] http://optipng.sourceforge.net/

The login prompt

The Wednesday Why article[1] was on the Fedora character-mode login prompt:

"Most Fedora users realize that there are two ways to locally log in to a Fedora system: using a character-mode display, or through the graphical user interface. ... The login prompt presented on the character-mode screens is taken from the file /etc/issue. In some old versions of Fedora the /etc/issue file was overwritten at each boot by the startup scripts, but this is no longer the case."

[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/88-Wednesday-Why-The-login-prompt.html

gTweakUI - Tweak the GNOME User Interface

GUI Thursdays highlight a software that provides, enhances, or effectively uses a GUI interface. This Thursday[1] , gTweakUI[2] was discussed:

"The gTweakUI package provides four tiny tools that enable additional customization of the GNOME2 desktop. Once the package is installed, your System > Preferences menu will have options to adjust the behaviour of the GNOME menus, session manager, file manager (Nautilus), and web browser (Galeon -- though most Fedora GNOME users use Firefox)."

[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/87-GUI-Thursday-gTweakUI-Tweak-the-GNOME-User-Interface.html

[2] http://gtweakui.sourceforge.net/

Friday Fun: Ball: Buster - Breakthrough game

Friday Fun highlights fun, interesting, and amusing programs. This Friday[1] , our young reviewer r.k.ryale took a look at the game Ball:Buster[2] :

"Ball: Buster is a game where the goal is to keep a ball bouncing off a paddle while trying to hit coloured blocks of varying strength. By varying strength, it means some blocks require numerous hits to make them fall."

[1] http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/index.php?/archives/89-Friday-Fun-Ball-Buster-Breakthrough-game.html

[2] http://www.patrickavella.com/ballbuster.shtml

Advisories and Updates

In this section, we cover Secuirity Advisories and Package Updates from fedora-package-announce.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

Fedora 7 Security Advisories

Fedora Core 6 Security Advisories

Events and Meetings

In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various projects.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2007-MM-DD

  • No report in this week

Fedora Documentation Steering Committee 2007-MM-DD

  • No report in this week

Fedora Engineering Steering Committee Meeting 2007-MM-DD

  • No report in this week

Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Meeting 2007-07-05

Fedora Infrastructure Meeting (Log) 2007-07-05

Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2007-07-03

Fedora Release Engineering Meeting 2007-07-02

Fedora Translation Project Meeting 2007-07-03

Extras Extras

A face-to-face conversation with Max Spevack of Fedora

Technetra interviews[1] MaxSpevack,

"We had the opportunity to sit down face-to-face with Max Spevack, chairman of the Fedora project, at the Red Hat Summit in San Diego to talk about all things Fedora -- the merger of Fedora Core and Extras, Fedora 7, and the road ahead. Here are Max's responses to our questions."

[1] http://www.technetra.com/writings/archive/2007/07/01/face-to-face-with-max-spevack

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Fedora News Team[1] . Please feel free to contact us to give your feedback. If you'd like to contribute to a future issue of the Fedora Weekly News, please see the Join[2] page to find out how to help.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join

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